Jan 2 2007

January 2, 2007

Finally back at work after a wonderful Christmas break. Here’s the Cliff Notes version of the past 2 weeks:

December 20: Zone Conference at Rosie and Steve Lefkowitz’ house in Pinetop. We had training in the morning, then a really nice lunch. The couples all furnished salads (we brought Frogeye and a relish tray) and the mission provided a big Subway sandwich and dessert. Rosie and Steve’s ward also provided desserts. After lunch we did more mission stuff and finished about 3:30. We left from there and drove to Kingman where we spent the night.

December 21: Nice drive to Santa Clarita. We were almost there when Randy called and said for us to meet Heather at Ethan’s school. That was fun! We got the VIP tour of the Kindergarten classroom. Ethan was so cute and surprised to see us. He introduced us to everyone with a big flourish saying, “This is Grandpa Robert. This is Grandma Linda.” We went from there to lunch at Burger King with Heather and Ethan then home to wait for everyone else. Beckie took Allison to work then went to LAX to pick up Cade and Andi. Allison must have been quite a hit at work as a doctor in the clinic sent her a present a few days after Christmas—a china tea set the doctor had in her office. It was so fun to have everyone there. Heather fixed a beautiful dinner and then Beckie, Randy, Cade, Andi, Ethan and Allison all went caroling.

December 22: Went to the Ronald Reagan Presidential library. Ed and Dede went also. It was a neat place to see. A retired Air Force One is parked there for people to tour. Also had a Christmas tree exhibit. I bought Robert a Christmas present…a hooded sweatshirt for him to wear so that he’ll fit in on the rez. Came to discover that there was quite a bit of Christmas stocking shopping that went on there, too. Ethan got to pick where to eat tonight (it was in one of the pockets in the Christmas Calendar) so he picked Red Lobster (we just love that child) and Ed and Dede went to dinner with us. Heather and Randy went to a Christmas Party for the Hampton Inn staff.

December 23: Official Christmas Eve outing since tomorrow is Sunday. We saw Charlotte’s Web, a lovely, beautiful movie and then got tri-tip roast takeout for dinner from Firestone Grill. Between movie and dinner we did our stocking shopping at Target. That was really fun. Veda and Shawn drew names for everyone and e-mailed them to us then we all shopped at the same time and had the same budget.

Christmas Eve: Spent a quiet morning then went to church at 1:00. Church was excellent…every meeting was a Christmas program. In Relief Society the teacher had slips of paper we drew out of a cup and they all said to either bear your testimony of Jesus Christ of tell of a favorite Christmas or pick your favorite Christmas hymn and then we sang it. Went home to beef sandwiches, chip dip and lots of goodies. Andi and Beckie made sugar cookies then we had our Christmas Eve program. We opened 1 present…pajamas..Veda bought all the pajamas, wrapped them and sent them up to Heather’s for us. So everyone was surprised and delighted with our jammies. We took a picture and e-mailed it to her to show her how cute we looked. Ethan and Allison we so excited I took them upstairs and turned on Polar Express to help them go to sleep. It worked so well that I also fell asleep, so the 3 of us missed Santa’s visit.

Christmas! It was such a great day I don’t even know how to describe it. Seemed like the presents were just extra thoughtful and wonderful, the food was yummy, yummy and the kids their absolute most adorable little selves. They were so excited. It was such fun to be there Christmas morning with them. The weather was so beautiful that we ate Christmas dinner outside in the back yard. The only sad part was that we all missed Shawn, Veda, Ashlin and Jaxon (and Jeron almost). We hope they had a lovely first Christmas in their new home in Arkansas.

December 26-29: Eat, drink, have fun, see movies, go to Ethan’s basketball practice, talk, play games, shop, celebrate Cade’s birthday (movies and dinner at Claim Jumper), have Ed and Dede and Gammer to dinner (they brought more presents…yeah!) We had so much fun and the time just went by way too fast! There was lots and lots of Nintendo Wii playing!

December 30: Had to go back to Cibecue. We cried until we got to Needles. Not so much that we had to go back but we just hated leaving all our family. Left at 6:00 AM and arrived 7:30 PM (680 miles). Within a few minutes of arriving here Pres Bonito called and said he left the Gospel Doctrine manual on his desk and would Robert please teach the lesson tomorrow. No surprise there. We were expecting that one. We were pleased that all was well with the trailer…no theft, or vandalism, unless you count all the food the Elders ate while they stayed here. They left a note on our board that said, “We hope you had a great Christmas. Sorry we ate all your food. Give us a call when you get back in town.”

New Year’s Eve: Church started with no one there, but by the time Sacrament meeting began we had about 48 people, which is pretty good for us. While I was waiting to play the opening song Bonito announced that I would also be giving the opening prayer. I feel so “taken for granted”…he doesn’t even bother to ask any more. He did, however, come up during Primary and ask very nicely if I would speak in Sacrament meeting. So we can’t say he never plans ahead. He asked Robert to be one of the speakers just after he finished his lesson and right before meeting started. Actually, this is one of the things I love most about the mission. I never thought I could speak on the spur of the moment. I still don’t think I could unless the Lord helped me and so it’s a great testimony builder whenever we have this kind of opportunity.

After church we were so excited because we had planned one of our just do nothing and don’t contact anyone days. Why do we even try? We had been counseled to stay in because of New Year’s Eve. Seems the way to celebrate the New Year here is to shoot guns at midnight. Also, there was a murder the night before we left at the community dinner we attended. The friends and family of the boy who was killed had promised there would be a vengeance killing on New Year’s Eve. So we came directly home, did not pass Go, did not collect $100, and fixed a little dinner and got comfy and Bonito called inviting us to a New Year’s Eve dinner at their house. Robert accepted but I did not want to go and was sort of unhappy about it. But we went at 8:30 and when they started Maxine said she had invited just the friends and family who most stood by her during the past year. She wanted to have this little dinner not for her whole family but just for the people she feels closest to. Wouldn’t I have been ashamed if we hadn’t gone? It was a lovely dinner and we got back about 10:00 without being shot and we stayed awake for the New Year and listened to the guns firing and went to sleep. Pretty calm, really. Next morning when we woke up I said, “Well, we woke up. I guess we didn’t die in the night.” And Robert said, “Well, if we did die, we went to hell.”

New Year’s Day: Only had 1 phone call, 3 drunks who brought back chairs, and 2 kids who came to visit. Other than that we had a delightful day talking to our kids on the phone and watching the most exciting football game ever. Boise State defeated Oklahoma University in the Fiesta Bowl in overtime. Even the announcers today are saying it may be the greatest bowl game ever played. When the kids came they wanted to see the pictures we had taken of them on our camera, so as I was looking for them they kept asking about the Christmas pictures and who was in them. I had a picture of Beckie and explained she’s my daughter. One of the girls said, “Who’s her dad?” I quite honestly said it was Robert. Then I showed them a picture of Heather and they said, “So who’s her dad?” They were quite shocked when I once again assured them it was Robert. When we got to Cade they were totally rocked out of their world. I explained that actually all my children have the same father. It’s a concept they just can’t grasp.

January 2: Back to work today. Went to visit Gilbert, who spent some time in jail over Christmas, Christmas Eve and Christmas Day to be exact. He failed to appear for a court date so got his little self thrown in jail for a couple of days. He said Sunday they still needed help moving to their new apartment so we went over to see if we could help today. He was there alone and said Alma had gone to San Carlos to see her mother. After we got home Alma called and we got the rest of the story. Seems New Year’s Eve Gilbert drank a bit too much and threw Alma and the baby out of the apartment. Someone called the police and Alma went to mom’s. She called to tell us Gilbert was in jail again but we assured her we had just seen him and he was home. Don’t know what’s going to happen. We thought we might go back and talk to him but Bill from Facilities Management came and we needed him to fix our toilet, which sorry to say took precedence over Gilbert’s marital woes. We also stopped to invite Simpson to ARP tonight but he wasn’t home. No one came again. Put up some new flyers around town and tomorrow we’re going to visit the court in Whiteriver and take them an announcement about the groups. Maybe Gilbert would like a ride to court tomorrow.

We are now home snuggling down to watch a movie or the Orange Bowl and eating our candy and nuts from Christmas.