Well it has been about 3 weeks since I last blogged.  So much for my resolution to blog daily.  I am not even getting it done weekly lately.

Brinlie

After much prayer and fasting and talking about it with Larry I decided to ask to be released from my Family Search Support Mission.  I loved it but I need to get a job so we will have some money to pay for the house and other debts that we cannot afford.  I have been trying to spend most of the day looking for a job each day but there are always things that interfere.  I have 3 jobs that I have applied for so far and I have tried to spend some time networking also trying to find out who are the hiring managers on these jobs.

Ellie with Gauge in the background

I also need to make a portfolio of my work so I am going to have to make we a website with my stuff on it.  That is a little daunting to say the least but I am learning that I have to bite the bullet and get working on these things if I want the job.

We had fun with Maren and Landon for the last week of January that they were here. All of the family here got together for January Birthday's on the 28th of January.  We had hamburgers and Hot Dogs with all the trimmings and of course cake and ice cream.  Maren's kids all got colds so the next weekend Larry and I had colds.  We stayed home from church for the weekend of the 2nd and 3rd of February but that worked out good and we ended up not having it for more than a week.

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  Max and Gauge

Brinlie's art work

On the 28th and 29th we worked on Brinlie's 7 year old quilt that I make with the kids.  She chose a Rapunzel fabric that was pink, green, purple and gold.  She chose a pink back and we tied it with yellow.  For once I was able to match the pattern on the top so it looked better.  Brinlie seemed to like it despite the fact she was not feeling super.

Maren, Gauge and Max

Taylor went in for a Heart Cath on the 5th of February and ended up having her surgery two days later when her oxygen would not go up and her blood was anemic.  She was originally scheduled for 5th of March so it was a surprise to all of us.  She did pretty good on her recovery until she was diagnosed with RSV on the 11th.  They thought she had probably had it for 2-3 days before they finally did some tests to see why she was throwing up and congested.  They put her in quarantine for two days and then they let her come home on Wednesday the 13th. She looked really good that day but she has had up and down days since then, but that is to be expected with major surgery.          

• • 

    Isaac at Golden Corral with the staff singing to him for
    his birthday

  

  Nathan with Maggie

 Nathan and Sara are having challenges right now with their marriage.  He has moved to St. Louis, Missouri looking for work and has Maggie with him.  Sara is still working in San Antonio area and has the boys with her and they are still in school.  If Nathan can get a job there then Sara said that they would move there to Missouri close to her dad.

Taylor on Friday after Surgery

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Jeff and Michelle's great Aunt Betty had a stroke and a heart attack Saturday morning.  She was still alive the last I heard but she is not doing well at all.  Michelle and Daniel were thinking of flying down but were not able to get a flight.

Taylor on Friday

Larry is still working on cleaning up the house.  He has now gone to the bookshelf downstairs looking for things he can get rid of.  I thought it was funny because he took one of the fire extinguisher lamps downstairs when we first got married and brought one of his upstairs.  And it has been that way for several year.  This week he decided that it looked funny so he brought the fire extinguisher upstairs again because it matched better and took the other one downstairs with the lamp he had that matched it. It does look very nice and he has worked very hard to get things working well.  He has also hung up plaques and vinyl signs that I have put off hanging for years.  He is very motivated lately.  I should have had him retire sooner.

We are still doing weight watcher's.  Larry has lost 36 lbs and I have lost 21lbs.  We do great when we are home because we just don't keep desserts in the house.  But we had two chances to eat out this week and I did not do very well at planning ahead.  We took Kyle out to dinner this week for his birthday and we used the gift card Maren and Landon gave us for Christmas to Buffalo Wild Wings for an early Valentines dinner last Saturday.      

Taylor the day she came home from the hospital

We also went to the movie, "Les Miserables" on Saturday with some tickets that someone gave us that got lost and Larry found them in cleaning.  It was a wonderful movie.  I have seen several stage plays of the musical but the story did not come through as clearly as in the movie.  I came home feeling like I had had a spiritual experience.  It is such a good story.  It is hard to see movies anymore that have an uplifting feeling.

I am still teaching Family Tree classes at the Family Search Center here in Kaysville.  I teach them on Saturday morning at 9:00 a.m. and then Larry and I work at the Center until 12:00 p.m.  Then we go down to help Mom with whatever she wants help with.  It is hard to get her to let us do somethings because she doesn't feel like doing it so she doesn't want us to do it.

Isaac had his birthday this week on Saturday.  It looks like he went to Golden Corral for his birthday.

Maren and her family were pleasantly surprised with snow this weekend.  A rare occurance in North Carolina.  From the pictures it looks like they had fun.

• • Well, we have read scriptures and said prayers and I am about finished with this so I suppose it is time to close and go to bed.  Have to get up early to take the truck to Kirsen's so John can work on it and I am going to help her with patterns for a dress for Taylor.  Larry has a job interview for tomorrow so wish him luck!

    
    

    

    Snow in North Carolina this week!!
    Gauge, Brinlie, and Ellie with Mr. Snowman

    

    Ellie in her layers!

  

  Ellie, Brinlie and Guage playing with their friends in first snow
  in North Carolina since they moved there.
  

  • Maren said, "The kids got themselves ready to play in it I was absolutely dying when I was pulling off clothes when they were done. Gauge simply threw on a hoodie hat and gloves while the girls each had at least 5 pairs of pants 5 or more shirts ellie even had on a nightgown...lol it was priceless and they were soaked to the bone! Good memories happening."

• 
  

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Well this week has gone fast because it has been very busy.  It was good to have the holiday for Martin Luther King Jr. on Monday.  We celebrated by sleeping in and resting some that day but we had lots of things to do.  Larry is working hard on keeping things up at the house and it has been so cold lately that he has had to get out and start his truck each morning so the battery doesn't die.  I am trying to keep up with the Family Search mission and find a job.

This is a picture of my kids when Maren was a baby.  Her
Baby, Max looks a lot like her

Tuesday we were busy with missions.  I worked in the morning on Family Search and we had to teach the final career workshop for this month on Tuesday evening.  During the day we went to the networking group at LDS Employment.  I got some good leads there for employment that I am trying to follow up on.

Wednesday I worked some on the mission but I spent the afternoon trying to find some sources to attach to Larry's family in the Sources class that I taught that evening at the Family Search Center.  My last sources class I could not get the internet to work so I was pleased to have this class go well.  The Family Search mission had  Sister Susan Anderson present on Sources at our Tuesday meeting and she had a great PowerPoint that she let me use and it really helped to make the class more organized and have a backup in case the internet did not work.  When I came home that night it was 9 degrees out.

Last Wednesday when we came home from the Career Workshop we were teaching in the evening I had some things drop out of the book we use to keep things in and one of them was the DVD that we use for examples.  I looked everywhere to find it because they are not producing them anymore and they are rare to find.  I took everything off my desk and could not find it.  I searched the desk three or four times but it was not there.  Today when I finished my mission meetings I looked down and there was the DVD right on the top of the desk upside down.  Some people might call it a coincidence but I believe it was a miracle sent from God, it was not there before.

Nathan's Son Isaac won first in den and First overall in the
Pinewood Derby this week

Thursday they had predicted snow but we woke up to what looked like dry streets.  However it was freezing rain!  We don't get freezing rain often, in fact this is the only time I remember being exposed to it.  We were able to get ready and leave for LDS Employment by 7:25 am with no incident except to listen to the traffic reports of all the accidents in Salt Lake City.  Later we learned that there was a 7 car pile up on the main street just below our house that blocked the entrance to DATC so they had to cancel some classes.   We went to lunch and everything was cleaned up and we expected to eat at home but the road that is a slight hill to our home was so icy that we had to turn around and go eat at Wendy's in town.  The road looked like an ice sheet.  We stopped at Kaysville City and mentioned that it needed some kind of salt or sand.  When we finished our mission we went home and put on warm clothes and did not plan to leave for the night.  The roads were better and starting to melt because it finally warmed up to 32 degrees.

David, Maggie, Sam, and Isaac at the Pinewood Derby

We always weigh in at Weight Watcher's on Thursday when we go to lunch.  I was thrilled because I lost 3.2 lbs and so I am below 200 lbs at 199.6.  I just have a lb. to go and I will have lost 10% of my weight.  Larry was also pleased because he lost 1.8 lbs.  He has lost 32 lbs now and it looking great and wearing smaller clothes.  The thing that is good though is he had been able to cut his insulin in half with the WW program.

We had planned to go to the Bountiful Temple with the ward and some of our children that live close on Thursday night but they decided to cancel the trip because of the ice. We had called the kids and said that we were canceling right after lunch.  Our boss at LDS Employment said they even closed Temple Square for the evening because it was so icy during the day.

It was lucky that we could stay home though.  Maren and Landon finally made it to Salt Lake City about 4:30 p.m. after their flight in California was canceled because of the Salt Lake City airport being closed for ice.  They were able to find another flight.  They came to our house about 7:00 p.m. It was fun to see them and play with the kids.  Unfortunately I forgot to take pictures so I will have to get some when they get back from Roosevelt.

Nathan talking to Maggie

Friday, Maren and Landon went to his cousin Lee's wedding in Sandy and we tended the kids.  We had a good time.  We watched Disney Jr. and read books and played hide-n-seek and Barbies and legos.  Max is a really good baby.  He played on the floor most of the time with the other kids and then he took about a three hour nap.  I was amazed because Larry and I had energy the whole time to work with them and I even fix homemade mac and cheese for dinner.  I forgot to take my 2:00 pm medicine and still felt good until just after they left then I started feeling it.  They went to Kirsten's to see the new puppies and we were going to go but then I needed to find some sources for another class on Saturday morning and I was hurting so we called and excused ourselves.  I was shocked that I had been able to go for 12 hours without needing my pills.

Maggie is the Cheerleader

Yesterday we went to the Family Search Center and I gave my class.  Again things went well and the internet worked well until the class was over.  Larry and I stayed there for our shift and went home and had lunch.  I decided to work on my mission from 2-5 because I had not been able to work Friday.  Larry started working on some plugs that needed replacing or updating.  When I went to my computer I could not get any of the programs to come up that I use for my mission.  On Monday or Wednesday I had run some scans for my computer so I assumed that it had deleted those mission programs.  I asked how I was to deal with this on the Computer Tips and Tricks site on Skype and they told me to uninstall and then reinstall the programs.  I spent about 3 hours doing that and then went to do something else on the computer and realized that nothing was opening on my desktop.  So I decided to shut it down and restart.  When it restarted it was doing all these things probably related to the scans that needed to be updated.  When it finished everything was working on my computer so I think I wasted 3 hours doing all the uninstalling and reinstalling if I had just thought to restart my computer earlier.  Larry also felt like he had wasted the afternoon because it took him about 3 hours and a trip to the store to fix one plug.  So we complained to each other.

Last night and today were Stake Conference in our Stake.  We had a visiting General Authority Warren Tait and his wife here.  Last night we had the temple president for the Bountiful Temple there also.  They had lots of good talks.  We were challenged to find one name on our own to take to the temple from our family this year.  We were also challenged to read the Book of Mormon three times and underline everything in the Book of Mormon that tells the purpose of the Book of Mormon the first time.  Then we were challenged to underline the 2nd time with red everything that has to do with the atonement of Christ.  And the third time we were challenged to underline everything that seemed like it was talking to us in Blue.  He challenged us to do this in 30 day increments for each time but he said that we could take longer if we needed to.  We are contemplating how to do this as we have already mapped out how to read the Doctrine and Covenants and Church History materials for Sunday School.

This morning he challenged all of us to follow the Prophet and find a way to serve a mission.  I think we have that one covered.  He also challenged us to read the Book of Mormon again but not so specifically.  He promised us that we would grow spiritually if we would do that.  The challenge of the entire meeting was to lift ourselves a little higher.

Gauge, Brinlie, Jada, Ellie, Daxton, Mckinley  Maren's children
with their cousins

I am so grateful for the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the things I learn being a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  I know that it is true.  I see miracle everyday that help me to know that Heavenly Father loves me and is there for me.  I hope that I can be a good example to all of the truths that I believe so they might have the desire to know more and be a member of the Church at this time on earth.  I hope that you will all take the challenge to read the Book of Mormon and pray about it as you read.  He will reveal the truth of it to you if you do.  I know because he has done that for me.

Well it started snowing as soon as we left the Regional Center where we have Stake Conference.  It is beginning to be a winter wonderland and it shows no sign or stopping soon.  Guess I will curl up and make some phone calls.

Thought I would show you the results of all of Larry's hard work this week.  He took three carloads of materials to Deseret Industries and filled up both of our garbage cans twice and moved several boxes into the house but we now have a two car garage again.  We have not had a left bay since Larry and I got married and he brought several things there to add to what I already had.  The results are in the picture.

Our "new " two car garage.!!!

This all started when I asked Larry if he would clean out the bottom of our closet in our bedroom for my Christmas present this year.  He is feeling better and he doesn't seem to stop.  And of course I am not complaining and he is getting his activity for Weight Watcher's  The picture below is a creation that I had in my closet all this time that Maren made for me in 4th grade.  I called her and asked her what she thought I should do with it and she suggested that I take a picture of it for posterity and throw it away so I did.

Speaking of Weight Watcher's we were really bummed this week to have both of us gain weight.  I gained 2.4 and Larry gained 0.4 so we are wondering what we have to do this week because we thought we were pretty good last week.  Hopefully it will be just a fluke.

A beautiful creation that Maren made for me about 4th Grade

We were thrilled to get our bank account back to normal this week.  Larry was able to get a haircut and get his suits cleaned and get the cars oil changed and the cars washed.  It was a huge relief.  I spent a lot of time doing mission while he was doing his errands.

Tuesday and Wednesday evening we had to teach the career workshop for LDS Employment mission.  We had a good group this week.  They were fun to teach.  We have decided that we have to practice what we preach so we are going to start networking on Monday to find us jobs.  The statistics say that if you network by calling 10 people a day and getting 2 contacts per person and have 2 face to face interviews a day that you will get a job within 30 days so we shall see.

Nathan called on Tuesday or Wednesday during the day.  It was good to talk to him.  He is getting more patient with me.

Taylor had to have an echo treatment on Thursday at Primary Children's Hospital.  From that they have determined that she has to have a heart cath on February 5th.  After that is done then they will decide when she needs to have surgery.  We hope that you will join us in Prayers and Fasting for her. She is really getting a lot of personality despite her problems.

Friday our missions collided and Larry went to staff training for the LDS Employment mission and I did my familysearch support mission.  There is a real need for more missionaries in FamilySearch Support they had several missionaries on that afternoon but there was a wait and few missionaries ready to take a call.  I took several right together because calls had waited 5 or more minutes .  Then it took me until 6:30 p.m. to finish writing up the cases.

Maren called and told me she was trying to pack and have a birthday party for Brinlie before they left Saturday morning.  She is brave.  She said that they were going to take a picture of the group of friends that came to the party and she was going to let them decorate their frames and then they would all have a picture because most of the neighbors are getting transferred soon.  Then they bought Brinlie a karaoke machine and they were going to let the kids play with that.  Sounded fun.  Grandpa was especially excited about the karaoke machine.  They were packing to meet the in-laws in California at Disneyland. Then they will be here this next weekend for a week.

Saturday I got to teach a class on "Adding and Correcting relationships in Family Tree" at our local Family Search Center at 9:00 a.m. And then Larry and I worked again with others from 10:00-12:00.  The class went well but there was a patron who could not grasp what a gedcom was at the end so I ended up talking to her for about an hour.

We went down to Mom's Saturday afternoon.  She wanted us to help her watch some DVD's so we did.  One was about their former mission president's charity foundation to help Doctor's in third world countries learn how to deal with problems of the eye.  Then we went to get gas in her car and ate at Culver's.  It was good to talk with her but we are supposed to be working for her.  I was pleased though that she had got an alarm system that she can use to call someone if she falls or needs something during the night.  It is called Lifeline.  She has been kind of uneasy being by herself at night so I think that will help.

Well in Sunday School today the teacher said that Joseph Smith did not tell his parents about the First Vision until after Moroni came three years later, so Larry is trying to find something that says that is not true.  So far everything we thought would cover it is inconclusive so I guess we will be doing some more studying. It doesn't really matter though.  The church is still true!

Remember Temple night the 24th and Family Birthday's the 28th for Brinlie and Nathan and Maren's family will be there.

I don't know how this will post but I wrote this on January 13, 2013 but I was not able to post the pictures at that time so I saved it as a draft.

Today has been a pretty peaceful day so far.  We have early church and so we get up and get going earlier than we did for Sunday last year.  We had a great Sacrament Meeting on the daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly goals the Bishopric has set for our ward:
Daily:
Personal and Family Prayer
Personal and Family Scripture Study
Family Dinnertime
Daily Acts of Service
Personal Journal/History
The Bishop stressed that the Three Sunday School answers are Prayer, Scripture Study and Service.  In other words it is important that we are doing those each day if we want the blessings and help that our Heavenly Father wants to give us.

This was the picnic table after the first snow- picnic anyone!

Weekly:
Family Home Evening
Date Night/Nurture Family Relations
Keep the Sabbath Day Holy
Attend all Church meetings
Help Neighbors
The executive secretary spoke on these goals.  He stressed that if we are attending church and Keeping the Sabbath Day Holy that the others will come easier.

Monthly:
Attend the Temple
Parent interviews/Family Activities
Generous Fast Offering
Home and Visiting Teaching
Provident Living Goal
The Bishops counselor stressed that Attending the Temple is the primary goal here that will help us to have the courage to accomplish the other goals.

The snow blew right up to our back door something that is unusual

Yearly:
Maintain or Get a Current Temple Recommend
Participate in Stake and General Conference
Pay a full Tithe and attend Tithing Settlement
Prepare and Preform Ancestor's Temple Ordinances
Develop Talent
Missionary Activity
The counselor that spoke on the Yearly Goals did a magnificent job of Relating the importance of the first four yearly goals by talking about one of his ancestors that helped to build the temple in Nauvoo before they left for the west.  He talked about how he had to pay tithing to help with the temple construction and then he was able to get his endowment before he left for the west.  Then he talked about how it is important to find ancestors who did not have the opportunity of getting their temple ordinances in this life and helping them to have the same opportunity as his ancestor.

It was a great meeting and made me want to work on some of the goals that I am not so great at getting done like working on my journal.

Sunday School was on the importance of understanding the atonement of Jesus Christ.  He challenged us to listen to the song "I stand all amazed" this week several times.

The front walk after the first snow

Relief Society was the George Albert Smith lesson on learning by faith.  I came away with a renewed commitment to continue to study the scriptures and to attend the temple more diligently.

Last Sunday Erick and Heather and Ryker came over to visit in the evening.  I had found some things that belonged to John and he was anxious to see those.  I had also been able to print out some Fan Charts on Friday and Erick seemed to enjoy looking at those and seeing who still needed work on but it comes from new.familysearch.org and when we looked on Family Tree at Familysearch there were some of the holes filled in. 

Ryker always wants me to go on Bluemountain. com and show him the "puppy".  We generally have to look at all the animated e-cards on the site for Birthday's before he is satisfied. He squeals and yells and even knows how to make it replay if I put the mouse arrow in the right place.

After the second snow when the neighbors did our sidewalks

Monday we had to visit the bank and ran errands.  I worked on my Familysearch Support Mission from 2-5 and then we decided to make homemade salsa for Family Home Evening Treat.  I once again made Salsa too hot for the Mexicans so on Tuesday we added everything from the recipe except more peppers and then it is still hot.  It has tasted good though.

Tuesday morning I have a  meeting for the FSS mission at 8:30 am and then I had another at 3:00 pm with the Mission Leaders.  I am now a Mission Leader Assistant (MLA) so I am privileged to attend those meetings. Larry has gained new energy from losing weight at Weight Watcher's so he spends the afternoon cleaning while I am doing my mission.

Tuesday evening I had to teach a class on attaching sources in Family Tree at Familysearch.org.  It was really frustrating because none of the things I was trying to do was working on the computer.  I tried to switch browsers because sometimes Internet Explorer does not show sources in FTFS but none of them would work.  I eventually had to try to explain how to create a source because it would not bring up the template.

After the second snow our house buried

Wednesday I have another meeting in the morning but we woke up to no Internet or TV service so it was a quiet day.  I worked more in finding places for things I have in boxes in my office and Larry had to go to the eye doctor at the Veteran's Administration. He came home very satisfied with the service he got in Ogden so he is going to transfer everything there from Salt Lake City.

Wednesday night Larry and I both were on a panel of people in the ward that have served missions of various kinds.  It was a very spiritual experience and there were a lot of testimonies of the Lord being in the small things in our lives.  Many experiences where the missionaries were in the right place to be the person to help someone with receiving the gospel.

Thursdays we help from 8:00 am until 5:00 pm at LDS Employment as missionaries.  We have a stake we are over as mentors and we call or email the people that have signed up at LDSjobs.org from that stake to help them in their job search.  We also spend some time looking for jobs for ourselves while we are there as we are both looking for jobs to cover our expenses.  If you are young and reading this make sure you are working on your retirement now so you will not be in the position we are in of having to go back to work after retirement.

The picnic table after the second storm 

A lot of the time in the evenings we work on our laptops and watch something on TV. Larry and I like the new TV program called "Elementary" and it is really convenient to watch what we want on Xfinity on demand TV programs.

I mentioned before that Larry and I are doing weight watchers.  We go on Thursday's to weigh when we go for lunch from the mission.  This week Larry lost 5.2 lbs and reached his 10% goal of losing 10% of the weight he weighed when we started, that is about 30 lbs.  I lost 2.6 and I am just a lb shy of losing my 10% at 20 lbs. lost.  The thing that is great for us is that Larry is getting off of insulin and his blood sugar is under control.  As a result he feels better and is more active.  We walk a lot and do more things around the house that we could not do the last few years.

Thursday night the snow came in and it snowed from Thursday evening until Saturday afternoon.  I am posting some pictures of the snow in Kaysville.  We got about 18 inches overall.  It took us 2 hours Friday morning to dig Larry's car and truck out and shovel the walks but it felt so good to be doing it ourselves.  And of course the temperatures plummeted so it has been very cold but not in the minus figures.  Davis School District canceled school Friday because of the snow which is almost unheard of in Utah, but they were not the only school district in the state.

Friday afternoon I worked on my mission and Larry started cleaning out the garage so we have a place to put his car in.  We are finding all kinds of treasures that we thought we had lost.  But, we are also finding a lot of trash also.  It is a good thing that garbage pick up is Monday because we have both our Trash cans full and the Recycle can also.

The bridge is almost buried by the snow

Friday evening Larry and I looked at some of his genealogy as I had to teach a class on how to add and correct relationships in Family Tree at Familysearch.org.  We found a few things that needed correcting and I was able to give a class at the FamilySearch center that went well but Larry had to dig out the truck while I was doing my hair because it had snowed again through the night.  While we were working at the Center we called Judy as we were the only ones there and talked to her about some of the genealogy that we had found.

Our wonderful neighbors finished digging us out while we were at the Family Search Center so we were able to go to Lehi to see Mom and help her with a few things.  She is doing well but does not like the snow and the cold.  She was complaining that she could not get warm the night before even with several blankets.  She only had a skiff of snow in Lehi.  The northern end of Utah County did not get much snow for some reason.  It is always good to see her.  She is doing well after Dad's death even though she misses him dearly.  She has been good to reach out to other widows in the ward and have them go to Senior Lunch at the Senior citizen center or to Church.

Well that brings us back to Sunday.  We have had a quiet afternoon.  Larry took a nap and I talked to several of the kids on the phone.  We are going to do endowments with some of the names I have printed on the 24th of January at the Bountiful Temple.  We are also going to celebrate January Birthdays on January 28th when Maren is here.  Life is good.

I thought I would use this medium to publish our Christmas letter for this year. I was shocked to see that I had not posted anything since 2011.

It has been an interesting year. We are really counting our blessings this year. Larry and I are in good health and using Weight Watcher's to lose weight and get Larry's Blood Sugar under control. We were inspired to use Weight Watcher's after watching our daughter Kirsten lose 35 lbs. on the program. Last year at this time Larry was recovering from a fall that broke his hip and required him to have surgery and then be in a care center until 2 days before Christmas. It took him about 5 months to recover from that and move on but he is doing very well now.

 Half of our children are now living out of State and BJ and Holly are moving to Hawaii on the 27th of December. Jeff and Misty are living in Puyallup, Washington , Jacob and Nikki are living in Red Wing Minnesota, Maren and Landon are living in Richlands, North Carolina, and Nathan and Sara are living in Converse, Texas. So we have decided we need to get a job with Delta so we can have free flights to visit them all.

 I have been retired since 2010. Presently I am serving a part-time from home mission for the LDS Church in FamilySearch support. I have learned all you need to know to use the new product Family Tree on FamilySearch.org. It has really given me a boost of self esteem to be able to help people with these products. I also work at the local FamilySearch Center and teach classes and I am a Ward Family History Consultant. We did a lot of campaigning for Romney and even went to Las Vegas to stump for him this year.

Larry at a campaign rally in Las Vegas

 Larry retired in September from Discover Card. His health was in jeopardy and so he needed to retire. It helped and he is feeling much better. We are serving a part time LDS Employment Mission at the Layton LDS Employment Center. We work there on Thursdays each week and teach the evening Career Workshop once a month. Larry is also the Ward employment specialist so the two combined keep him busy and he feels grateful having the opportunity to help those in our ward who need employment.

June's dad, Lars Jenkins died this July after a long illness at 90. We have enjoyed going to Lehi each week to help Mom with whatever she needs in the way of housework and errands. June also had two brother-in-laws die this year.  Redge Hermansen in January and Paul Christiansen in December.

Max Gentile

 We were also able to increase our grandchildren to 24 this year with the addition of Maximus Landon Gentile to Maren and Landon's family in June and Myles Kelly Lars Christiansen to Jacob and Nikki's family
 in November.

Ashton, Abbie, Lexie, and Baby Myles

Isaac, David and Sammy for Halloween

 Nathan completed his Master's Degree in Social Work this year but due to the Economy is presently playing Mr. Mom while Sara teaches at a local Charter School. He is also an officer in the National Guard in Texas. They were able to by a new house this year and are enjoying the transition from apartment to home. They were able to come to Utah for a while this summer. It was fun to spend time with them and their 4 children David, Issac, Sam, and Maggie.

Maggie dressed for Halloween

 Michelle lives in Layton and is busy teaching school. Daniel still works for the company that sponsors Resume Rabbit online as a computer engineer. He works from home so they are able to live in Utah even though the company is in California. They are busy keeping their children in several activities. They have four

Michelle and Kallise after a dance recital

children Ethan, Hailee, Jaron, and Kallise. Michelle has had some health problems but keeps working hard. Daniel is in the Tabernacle Choir Bells Choir so he is often on Music and the Spoken Word at this time of year. They are taking their children to Nauvoo this year for their Christmas Present so it is going to be a quiet Christmas this year at our house.

Nikki's deck Garden and the wilderness in their backyard

Ashton and Abbie as Minnesota Vikings

At the National Eagle Center with Lexie, Ashton, and Abbie

 Jacob moved his family to Red Wing Minnesota in July of 2011. He is working for a nuclear energy company, Xcel Energy there. He is also still in the National Guard in Minnesota. Nikki is able to stay home and take care of the children. I was able to go visit them in June and see the area there. It is right by the Mississippi River and they took me to the National Eagle Sanctuary.
It was a beautiful area. Raspberries grow wild! It was fun to see their home and my grandchildren, Lexie, Ashton, and Abby. Nikki was able to have their fourth child Myles in November and everything went fine despite some complications.


Jeff and Misty just recently purchase a new home in Puyallup, Washington. We were excited that they were able to purchase a home. Jeff works for Comcast as a Call Center Manager and Misty is completing her studies in Elementary Education. They have three wonderful children Leah, Matthew and Owen. They were able to visit us this spring and we had a great time with them also.

Kirsten lives in Layton and so I am able to see her family often. She and Jon have a combined family of four. Kennedy, Kyle, Brooke and Taylor. Kirsten works for a couple of companies doing medical transcription. Jon works for Utah Transit Authority as a mechanical supervisor. Kirsten has had

Brooke, Kyle, Kennedy
Kirsten, Jonathan, Taylor

problems with a foot that she just had surgery on and earlier in the year Taylor headbutted her like children do and broke her nose so she had to have surgery on that. Taylor has a heart problem so she will be having surgery in the first part of next year but she is basically a healthy 3 year old right now. Kirsten has taken up selling Avon so she will have something to supplement her income when she is taking care of Taylor after the surgery.

Heather , Ryker and Erick relaxing after Trick or Treating

Erick and Heather are also in Layton. They have one son Ryker who is the light of their lives. Erick graduated in Mechanical Engineering in 2010 but has not been able to secure a job in Mechanical Engineering. He is working for the Civil Engineering firm that he has worked at for several years and preparing to try to enter Law School. He would like to be a patent lawyer. Heather is a stay at home mom with an avid interest in Family History right now. They grew a garden this year and Heather canned many bottles of food for their storage. She made some yummy pickles

At Temple Square with BJ and Holly

BJ and Holly are moving to Hawaii on a leap of faith. He is attached to a Naval Reserve Unit there and has had to go their several times for duty. Holly has gone with him and they love it there. So they decided to move there to finish the last year of BJ's schooling in Computer Science. BJ will be going to the University of Hawaii. Holly has been working as a nurse in Logan to support them but is hoping to find a job in Hawaii. They were able to get things to fall into place in renting their home in Providence so they are hoping that it will continue that way.

Ellie, Gauge and Brinlie on July 4th

 Maren's husband Landon joined the Navy in 2011 and is presently stationed at Camp LeJeune in North Carolina. He is working as a medic with the Marines. He pulled some tendons in his ankle early in the year and has spent most of the year trying to recover from that. Finally in August he had surgery to help him heal properly. Maren does hair for people in her garage and is a stay at home mom with 4 kids under 6, Brinlie, Gauge, Ellie, and Max. I was able to go and visit them at the end of June and stay for about 3 weeks. However I was the bearer of ill tidings and got strep while I was there and gave it to all the kids which turned into

Gauge, Ellie, and Brinlie 

pneumonia. They came back to Utah with me after my visit and we were all sick for three more weeks here. I was grateful to be able to stay with them but it was not the trip I had planned. It was fun to see the area they live and see the Atlantic Ocean. They have an amazing neighborhood where they live all military people that take care of each other and we are grateful for that. Brinlie broke her arm in October and had to be sent by ambulance to Chapel Hill about 3 hours away for surgery because of the extent of the break. While they were gone the neighbors took care of things and cleaned their house and had food waiting for them when they returned. I am grateful that Heavenly Father watches over my children when I cannot be there.

At the beach with Ellie and Landon

 Larry and I are grateful for the many blessing we have at this time of year. We are especially grateful for the Gospel of Jesus Christ and his church on the earth. We are grateful for this season that reminds us that the purpose for this life is to accept Jesus Christ and his teachings and use those teachings to return to him and overcome our sins and weaknesses. We are grateful for all the friends and family that we have that make our life better and hope that you have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Well the rain is really coming down today! It wasn't to bad in Gunnison but iit started when we went to put the flowers out in Mayfield. We are by Nephi now and it is pouring. It is already almost 6:00 p,m, and we have a ways to go. Everything is quiet in the car. BJ is playing Angry Birds on his Ipad. Holly is asleep. Larry is driving and says he doesn't need anything to listen to, so I decided to blog..

I often wish when we make this trip we had more time to stop and see more people. Kimo lives in Mona but, it is always so late when we are passing through. We did get to see most of the people in Karalyn and Redges family. I had a good talk with Marcia Christiansen. Paul has sure changed. He is gaining weight from his medication but he is losing height also. He looks like someone has been trying to pound him together from both ends.

Cutler gave a good talk on the importance of service, based on President Eyring's talk from last conference. It talks about teaching our children to give service. I wonder if I taught my chiildren enough about serving others. Their Bishop taught them to think of keeping the Sabbath day as what life will be like in the Celestial kingdom. He emphasized that we need to like reading the scriptures and attending our meetings if we are going to be happy there. It was a good wake up call to ask the ward members to examne their priorities.

Larry is driving too fast on these wet roads. We just passed a car that ran off the road. I hope that will not be us but at the speed we are going it may.

I just found out I can update my blog on my phone! We are traveling to Mayfield and Gunnison today. It is Cutler Frandsen's farewell today in Gunnison. We are going down with BJ and Holly. After the farewell we are going to put flowers on John's grave. We will also put flowers on Aleda and Reed's graves, John's parents.

It has been a busy week. Monday night I got some type of virus that caused diaharea so I stayed home from school. I was feeling somewhat better on Wednesday so I went to school so I wouldn't have to plan for a sub. I didn't feel like eating though so I just drank apple juice until evening. The next day Larry had the same thing and so did Ellie. Maren said that she did not feel good the day I got sick so it was there for all of us.

Maren left early Thursday morning to go Great Lakes to be with Landon. She flew into Milwaukee because it was cheaper. The kids went with Shirley and Evan to California so it has been a quiet week for Larry and I. But we still have Koda with us so we can't get bored. Maren is looking for a place to rent back there so they can be with Landon.

Taylor and Kyle came over on Friday while Kirsten and Jon went to a movie. We ended up watching a couple of movies and when Tayor went to sleep I worked on some school papers that needed recording.

Saturday morning I went to get Michelle's kids to take to their piano lessons while she was at Leadership meeting. Kallise came over and we watched Scooby-do. She sat on my lap and hugged me for a while. It was a fun time to be with her.

After she left I watched movies and worked on school work all day. When Larry came home we made a simple dinner and did some dishes. Then we spent about an hour reading some of the scriptures from Jeremiah for the Sunday School lesson. Larry and I have read the scriptures from the lessons each evening and each morning and the Old Testament is really coming alive for me. I can't believe that I have read it so many times before and not understood what I am understanding now. Isaiah is comming alive for me. I did not realize that the Book of Mormon gave so much clarification to Isaiah and the Doctrine and Covenants as well.

Today was the children's Sacrament meeting presentation. Brinlie had a part, I know that Heavenly Father and Jesus love me because I have a special Grandma." She did a good job. We were late for Sacrament meeting because we were too tired to get up when we should have.

I am concerned about Larry because he has slept most of the day. We got home from church, he took a nap. He went with me to get a recommend, when we got home he took a nap for about 4 hours. Then he went to bed at 8:00 a.m.

Erick and Heather came over tonight. Ryker has really grown. He did not like it here at first because the kids were so wild and excited to see him but he eventually got used to it.

Maren's dog Koda has spent alot of time indoors today because it was raining. He is so huge that it is hard to control him if he has a different idea of what he wants to do.

Well, I made it through the first week of school. I have a motorized scooter that I can drive around school so I can stay off my feet and it helped a lot. I seem to have really good classes so far but time will tell.

Larry and I are delegates to the county convention and the senator from Davis County was just put in as the new lieutenent governor so we have had a lot of phone calls this week from delegates wanting our vote at the county convention on Sept. 12th. Even a few free meals. There are a lot of good candidates so I am having a hard time trying to decide who I want for sure.

Larry is not feeling very well today. He overdid working on the yard yesterday and he forgot to go buy his blood pressure medication last night and he is out. He slept for 12 hours last night and he is in bed sleeping now. He was feeling better earlier today. We went to church and taught our primary class and he did not seem to be feeling bad until about 5:00 p.m.

Maren was up all night with Gauge throwing up. She has had a lot of hard nights lately. I wish I could help her more. She was able to go to sacrament in another ward today and then Shirley tended Guage while she and Landon went and taught their lesson.

Well I was going to try to upload pictures but I think that I will not worry about it tonight.

Today is my birthday. I am 60 years young today. I never thought I would be this age, and it is weird because except for all the physical aches I have I feel the same as I did when I was younger about a lot of things.

Today was the dedication of the Oquirrah Mountain Temple. What a birthday present. I was thrilled that it could be today. They said that the one we attended at 9:00 a.m. was the seventh dedication service. I did not know that they had some previously. We attended at the Stake Center but it was telecast by satilite from the Temple. They had pictures of the temple to view and prelude music playing but when I was doing my hair I lost my glasses on the floor and we could not find them so I decided that I better go without them or we would be late for the 8:30a.m. time they wanted us in our seats. Not being able to read it gave me time to contemplate the music and my relationship with Heavenly Father.

The first speaker was Margaret Liffereth. She looked like an angel to me in the white dress and the light background of the temple, especially with me having no glasses. She started out by talking about her three year old grandson Charlie. She mentioned that her daughter was often telling him that he needed to listen. To this he would ask why. She said that often her daughter would explain why but sometimes when the reason was above his comprhension she would simply say, "Because I am the Mom". She noted that this answer denoted that she loved him and wanted the best for him and his happiness and that she was doing everything she could to help him know how to be happy. Sometimes just like this Mom our parents direct us in ways that we wonder about but if we listen we usually realize it is because they care about us and want us to be happy. The same thing applies with Heavenly Father. Often in the scriptures he tells us to do something but he does not tell us that it is because he loves us and wants our happiness that he is directing us to do the thing he asks. Many time we just have to trust that because we are his children and he wants the best for us he is directing us to do the things that we do. This thought really stuck in my mind. I felt like I needed to share it.

Paul Johnson talked about the road to the temple. He told about how in the early days in Utah the people often had to travel for days or weeks to be married in the temple. He told of how Heber J. Grant traveled to St. George to be married in the temple and how hard it was because the train did not go into southern Utah and they had to travel by carriage over dirt roads to get there. Many people told him to stay home and get married in Salt Lake and then they could be sealed in the Salt Lake Temple when it was finished. Be he had the faith to go to St. George and testified that their were many blessing that came from being married in the temple. And Elder Johnson said his wife died before the Salt Lake temple was finished.

He counseled with the youth to think about the things they are doing that will get them to the temple. We have 13 temples in Utah now and we can get to most of them in a matter of hours or minutes but they still need to think about what they are doing to make it possible to enter the temple when they are twelve for baptisms and later for endowments and prepare their lives for that time. I found myself hoping that my grandchildren are being prepared to want to attend the temple. He talked about the example we as parents can set in making the temple important in our lives and I contemplated whether I had made a sufficient example of temple attendance to give my children the desire they need to keep going.

I honestly can't remember who spoke third. All the talks were good but it has faded already. Maybe they were the one who talked about example because I remember the emphasis of the meeting shifted on the third speaker to focus on adults more. Someone talked about how we cannot make choices to be saved for someone else. God can encourage us to do what is right but he will not take away our agency and Satan cannot take away our agency he can only tempt us. So we are the ones that make the decision that will decide which direction that we go.

Elder Bednar talked about the differences of the temple and the world outside. He gave several contrasts like the peace inside the temple contrasting with the increasing noise in the outside world. He also mentioned several blessings that we will receive if we are faithful in our temple attendence. Unfortuanately I cannot write them now.

President Uchtdorf told of a Samuel Bingham who settled with his wife Martha in the area where the temple district for the Oquirrah Mountain Temple is now. He was a rancher with his brother. They found ore in Bingham canyon and showed it to Brigham Young. BY advised them not to go into mining but to continue to farm the land. They followed his counsel and left the mine for later development. Even thought the canyon was named after them they did not become wealthy financially but reaped spiritual blessings of followning the prophet. President U gave this example talking about the fact that we can all claim the heritage of the pioneers who came to Utah even though we have no pioneer ancestors of our own. Also he pointed out that many ordinary people like me have contributed much to the building up of the kingdom of God on earth.

President Monsongave a beautiful prayer promising many blessings to those who will take the responsiblity to work in the temple and help in the work. I left with a renewed commitment to attend the temple.

President Bednar led the Hosannah shout and gave some good scripture references to document that the Hosannah shout is not unique to this dispensation. I am so grateful that I had the opportunity to attend the dedication. One of the speakers challenged us to go home and write in our journals our feelings and thoughts about the dedication so I am trying to fulfull that commitment.

This week I started back to school on the 19th, with the beginning days of set up,. Where I just had surgery a week and a half ago and I am not supposed to be on my feet a lot I rented a scooter for the first month of school to use. It was fun learning how to use it but I am still apprehensive about how much problems it might cause in my classes. But I made it the three days and I am prepared for tomorrow.

Larry's birthday was on Friday and everyone at his work decorated his workstation so he brought some of it home and decorated the house for me, he said, even though it was his birthday. He is so thoughtful. We went to dinner at the Asian Buffet that he likes and then attended another session of the Churches addication Recovery program. Larry and I are excited to maybe do a full time mission in that area. He told the Bishop today that we wanted to apply. We went to bed fairly early after talking to a candidate for Greg Bell's senate seat that was seeking our vote because we are county delegates.

Friday night Erick replaced my faucet in the kitchen that has been leaking for far too long. That was nice to have done and then on Saturday he replaced a lot of door knobs so we can lock the doors to various rooms if we don't want people in them. That was the present we got from he and Heather along with the fact that they are preparing a birthday dinner for the August birthdays and not letting us help. It is nice to have them here. They also organized the party which was a big help with school starting.

Heather was called to Young Women today as a Mia Maid instructor so the Lord has not taught her all that she needed to know there. She just thought she was being released because she moved.

Well, I will write more later.

This has been a very frustrating summer for me. I had two surgeries. The first one was having the bunnions on my feet removed July 29th. I thought that would be a breeze because of the way the Dr. talked about it but it was very painful and I had so many things planned that I felt like a zombie all through July. My feet are finally starting to recover, then last Wednesday I had a bladdar repair and I was anticipating feeling very bad again and I feel relatively normal but I am not supposed to lift anything over 5 lbs. and I need to stay off of my feet. Feeling as good as I do I know that I am going to have a hard time keeping to that restriction. But I am glad that I feel good because school starts for teachers on Wednesday August 19th and so I need to bounce back quickly. No more zombie days for me.

I have been trying to get myself to write a little every night on this blog but generally I remember after I have gone to bed and I am tired. I need to figure something out. There are so many things I would like to record on a daily basis.

Erick and Heather moved in with us last week. They are living in the basement while she does her student teaching. It has been good to have them but I also feel frustrated because she is doing a lot right now with my surgery and I feel like a lazy daisy doing hardly anything.

BJ came down on Friday night and is staying because of Reserve training this weekend. I forgot to tell Erick and Heather he was coming so when they woke up to all the lights on downstairs they freaked out for a minute until they discovered that it was B.J. When he came the house was dark and he just went downstairs then I could not sleep so I got up and was reading in the recliner. He came up later and said that everyone seemed to be waking up. It was a crazy night. He went home tonight but then he and Holly will be down to go to Lagoon for military day tomorrow. They almost have their house in Providence, Utah built and are living with Holly's parents until they can move in there.

Maren and Landon went to California this week to work. Maren being so pregnant has not had a good time sleeping and Guage is not sleeping well either so it has not been the best trip that they have had from reports back. They will be home tomorrow evening.

Michelle and her kids went to Tacoma to visit Jeff and Misty and thier family. Daniel had to stay home and work. She said that it was a great visit but it is a long drive.

Kirsten and Jon had all the kids for two weeks when Kyle came home but now they are back to winter schedule of having the girls on Thursday's and every other weekend. She was excited to find out that her baby was a girl. Everything seems to be going okay but she is swelling a lot. Kyle has been mowing our lawn for us lately and that really helps out.

Jake is working nights right now in Moab so he doesn't have to leave on Sunday like he did before. Lexie starts school tomorrow so they have been busy getting her ready for school. They are thinking about getting a dog lately so we will see.

Jeff and Misty are enjoying cooler weather lately. Misty is having fun taking care of the kids and staying at home. Leah starts school the day after labor day so she has a while yet. Jeff has to wait until January before he gets more personal time off so they are not traveling a lot. The boys are being boys.

Nathan and Sara made it home okay and they are settling in. David decided that he wanted to go to public school so they are going to let him try it. Nathan is looking for something part time and dreaming of moving back to Utah so maybe we could all pray for them that it would work out.

Yesterday was the John Thacker reunion in Kaysville but I could not go because of my surgery. Kathy and Mom gave me a report and said it was fun. They said that Uncle Ralph looked better than he has for a while. They had to move it indoors because of the rain the night before so it was at a church rather than the park.

Erick and Heather went to Seth Jenkins's mission farewell and said it was good. Seth both talked and sang. They had a good time visiting with family after the meeting and came back with a good report.

Grandma Jenkins is feeling better with physical therapy. She said she is feeling more like cooking again. I think that she is trying to please Grandpa too because she said that he did not like some of the food they had on meals on wheels like enchiladas (crazy Grandpa)

We had Aunt Judy here for three weeks in July and had a good visit with her. We went to the Family History Conference at BYU the last week in July and learned some things about how to overcome "brick walls" in family history. Judy went to the Family History Library in Salt Lake City and was able to find some information on a "brick wall" they had with a John Wall from Ireland. She was also great to help me with the grandkids that came over. She is really good with kids.

Nathan and Sara and the kids were also here in July and we had a pretty wild house while they were here because the other brothers and sister were here also to visit. We also went to the Michaelson reunion during that time and had a good visit there.

We had bouts of being without water for three days (right after my first surgery)and being without power this summer which made us appreciate the many conveniences that we have but Larry wants to run for Kaysville city council to get something done about the power. Ha,Ha.

Actually, Larry is enjoying not having to go to school and being finished with his MBA. We are contemplating a part time mission but have nothing definite yet. We went to Disneyland the first part of July with Maren and Landon and their kids and it was fun but because I was in a wheelchair definately a pressure on Larry to push me all the time, so we are taking it slow.

Hopefully I will keep my commitment to write more often. If not then you will have what you have.

Well it looks like I am averaging about one post per month. Not a great average but I am hoping to improve. I decided that I would post on my blog before I checked email or facebook.

We had a good 4th of July. Because of my Bunnion surgery on Tuesday we did not go to any parades or stuff in the morning. I tried to keep the ice on my foot until evening when we had a barbecue and several people over including, Maren and Landon and family, Jimmy and Shelley and family, Evan and Shirley; Maren's in-laws; and their son Jared, Michelle and Daniel and their kids and Kirsten and Jon with no family because their kids were all with their ex's. There was tons of food but just as everyone showed up the power went out so we were glad that we were grilling. The power stayed off all evening and came on about 2:30a.m. We joked that the city probaby took the backup generator for the fireworks music. About 9:30 p.m. just before the city fireworks we all went in to get dessert and use bathrooms. At that point we found out that we had very little water pressure and it has not come back. No other neighbors have a problem so we have a plumber coming tomorrow. It was an intereseting 4th but we had a good time and the grandkids had fun with thier fireworks.

I iced my feet only once this morning and then went to church. I iced them when I got back but they are still purple in several places tonight. They actually looked good this morning so I don't know if that is normal or if I overdid. They looked really good this morning.

Michelle and Daniel and the kids, and Maren and Landon and the kids came over tonight and helped us to eat some of the food that was left over from last night. It was good to have them here and talk with them and the kids. Maren and Landon were both realy tired and Landon had a headache. Larry was worried about how it would work out with the water low but we had water stored in the food room so we made punch and washed with that and it worked out.

Larry had his last test on Thursday and it looks like the stomach problem he had was an ulcer. He is takeing stuff for that and seems to be doing okay but he is so self-sacrificing he would not tell me until he was dying. He has been good help with my feet. I felt really stupid because I did not understand from the doctor how painful the first three days would be and I literally had to get other people to help Larry with his test. Michelle took him in and brought him home. Then Maren had to take me and him to the doctor about my foot because he couldn't drive. Erick and Heather helped out with my surgery but Larry ended up coming because he was able to get off work early.

My Mom fell and is slowly recovering. She has an MRI tomorrow to see about a crushed disk. She is still hoping it is something like internal bruising.
She said that my cousin Nancy had a heart attack so I need to call Aunt Marva about that.

Nathan is coming around the 15th of July and Judy, Larry's sister is coming on the 21st. We are going to Disneyland with Maren and Landon and thier kids on Thursday so it will be a busy July.

When I was reading Nikki's blog she mentioned a funny thing Ashton had said and it reminded me of something Brinlie said this week that I thought was cute. She was pulling baby's breath off of a bouquet in my living room. She came and said, "look Grandma roses." I told her that they were not roses they were Baby's Breath and she looked at me and said, "Gauge breath?" Her baby brother is name Gauge for anyone who does not know.

We went to Hailee's dance recital tonight at the Val Browning Center at Weber State. It is always a nice show and Hailee did a good job. She looked very pretty. I took a picture but I am too tired to upload it.

Michelle is very sick with some virus that has settled into her joints and is very painful. If you could remember her in your prayers I am sure she would appreciate it.