Thanksgiving

"We'd like to come for Thanksgiving," son Reed told me a few weeks ago.  Hooray, I thought.  Holidays without family are what I like least about Idaho.  I felt so excited about their upcoming visit.  Then Ben sent a note that they'd like to come for Thanksgiving.  Wow, I thought.  "Of course," we said.  Then Jessica said she and Chris would like to come as well.  "So wonderful," I told them.  Reed and Dorothy and family arrived Monday night.  We had a sweet time with them and the boys.  We took them to Caldwell, a half hour away, to see their amazing light display.  Calwell goes way beyond normal to light up pathways around the river that passes through the town.  It was magical even if we had to use umbrellas to stay dry.  Even our James, who is often not enthusiastic about some of our family activities, was impressed.  It was so lovely that Layne and I decided that the rest of the family had to see it too.

The Caldwell lights:

Kids playing in the Caldwell lights:

Three granddaughters in front of a Caldwell Christmas tree:

By Wednesday night all three families were with us. Our Thanksgiving, with everyone's help, went well.  There was more than enough food and everyone had their fill.  We indulged in visiting and gaming of all sorts.  These kids of mine are night owls.  We stayed up until midnight and beyond every night.  For this early bird it was an effort.  Black Friday brought out the shoppers among us.  Some of the kids wanted to visit the fabulous art store in Boise so we went there on Friday.  Then our BJ Jes and some of the girls hit the stores.  I'm so not into shopping on Black Friday.  I rather resent the push by businesses to gather in as many people as they can stuff into stores to buy their "amazing deals."  I'd much rather pay a little more and not have to fight the crowds.  But to the BJ Jess and kids, it is part of the fun. So they went and returned with treasures and high enthusiasm.

Thanksgiving dinner, served buffet style:

Granddaughter Peyton loves to do hair.  Here she is fixing Abigail's hair while Abs draws a picture for me:

OK, Peyton got a bit carried away here; she insisted on doing the boy's hair as well as the girls.  They took it in good humor, as Miles demonstrates here:

The RD family left Friday morning and we surely missed their addition to our family mix.  We took the remaining kids back to Caldwell.  We had to talk them into it.  But once there, they were awed.  It was cold, 21 degrees or so.  Yes, very cold, but the kids got into the adventure anyhow.  We took all sorts of pictures and some of the kids even ventured to remove their jackets for a better picture pose.  It was such fun!  After another late Friday night the CJ family left Saturday, after lunch.  The BJ family followed soon afterwards.  Wow, what a sweet time wth so many people that I love.  Each precious person adds a measure of joy to my heart.  The grandchildren are all sweet and pure-hearted.   My own children seem to enjoy each other's company and seek out opportunities to reconnect.  But, as Ben mentioned, we missed Audrey and Gerald and their families.  But I will take what I can of family time, in whatever form it comes to me, and rejoice in it.

Reed and Dorothy left Friday morning.  Here they are with their 4 sons (Scott, the oldest is on a mission in Thailand):  Bruce, Vincent, Timmy and James:

 Here is Jessica and Chris with their thee:  Gemma, Peyton and Miles:

 Ben and his Jessica, saying goodbye with their 8; back:  Jacqueline, Olivia (with Jessica); middle:  Abigail, Alexis, Zachary, William; front:  Victoria and Jonathan.

I admit to feeling very tired once everyone left.  Layne and I stumbled into cleaning up the main floor and are saving the rest for a more rested day.  So ends another holiday celebration.  It was crazy and wild and, at times, disorganized.  But worth it.

Autumn has Fled

The trees are empty and the air is past cool and into cold.  The garage heater is turning on regularly.  The loveliest spot in the house is the seat in front of the fire.  I'm enjoying the dark and the cold, so far.  Change is good; it calls attention to itself and I like that.  When it is dark, I turn on the candles and twinkle lights, and the fireplace.  It's cozy.  There is a tendency towards hibernation in winter that I've come to like.  There is no snow on the ground and the grass is still green so we've a way to go this winter.  We had snow flurries this past week.  Here's our first peek at snow.

Three of the kids and families are coming here for Thanksgiving!  I'm so excited to have family here.  Holidays are the hardest part of being in Idaho.  Jessica, Ben and Reed and families will all be here by Wednesday.  Reed and Dorothy will arrive tomorrow night! So I'll use the day to clean and bake.  I'm excited to spend some flesh time with them.  There are some fun holiday
things going on here and am hoping that the kids can enjoy some of them.

We've been giving lots of talks on pornography lately.  I think we finally have our message organized properly. We are getting some good responses to what we have to say.  I'm also enrolled in a course designed for kids who are into porn.  We meet very week to go through their program.  I'm hoping to learn more about what helps there are.  Since we will be involved with addiction for some time to come, it makes sense to keep learning about it.  Layne would like to be through with it all, but I think he is seeing that we can do some good.  Hopefully.

Our main floor furnace broke down today.  We are hoping that it can be easily fixed tomorrow.  It has been interesting to see how hard it is to keep warm in the house without the furnace.  We have kept the fireplace going and have stayed quite warm.  That is pretty good considering that it is in the 30s outside.  I'm so grateful for our comforts and luxuries.  We have an extraordinary way of life in this country.  I never want to take it for granted.

Seattle

We had a lovely weekend with Dean and Margo Layton.  How I love having friends.  Idaho is a great place for making them, but our California friends will always be treasures.  Actually, Dean Layton is related to Layne; she share the same great great grandfather William Wilkie Galbraith, who had 4 wives.  So Dean and Margo are family.  We parted company with the Laytons on Monday morning, when we began our drive to Seattle, to visit Jessica and the kids.  We drove through rain, snow and sunshine, arriving in Normandy Park in the afternoon.  Miles was there to greet us and chatted away as he showed us all the changes made to the house since we were last there.  He is handsome, bright and friendly.

Dean and Margo Layton, in our kitchen.

Our time with the Gendreaus was quite lovely.  We had time to bond with each of the kids and time to visit with Jessica.  She takes such joy in her bookstore and, indeed, it is the nicest bookstore I've been in. Really.  It is charming, with lots of room to move around, places to sit, a fireplace to warm the space and lovely sights in all directions.  The restaurant across the street provides us with delicious lunches.  Who could ask for a better set-up than to be surrounded by good books and good food?

Jessica loves puzzles.  We put this one together on her dining room table.  She covers it up with a table cloth when dinner time comes up.

While there I managed to get my most worrisome tasks done.  Layne ran the kids to their various activities while I spent time with Jes and the kids at home.  Jes is something of a gourmet cook.  I tried my best to get her to use up the leftovers in her stuffed refrigerator, but she took pleasure in creating new dinner dishes while we were there.  And they were yummy.  I tend to look inside the fridge and plan my dinner meals around whatever is in there.  Jes does much more exciting things.  I felt inspired to think about using recipes more often.

My Jes is a wonderful woman.  She is pure hearted and works hard to keep her family happy and progressing while running her bookstore.  I believe that Chris gives it his all as well.  The kids really missed him last week.  His touches were all over the house as he turns his hand to many home improvement projects.  The three kids all feel good to me.  They are bright, healthy, happy and doing well in school.  I would love to give them the gospel as well.  That would magnify every good thing for them.  I love my Gendreau family.

Here's Jessica and her girls, Gemma and Peyton.

Layne with our Gendreaus:  Miles, Peyton and Jessica.

Our drive home was sweet and seemed to me to pass quickly.  Maybe that's because I didn't do the driving!  We are home again and it feels good to be here.

Things are changing in the Church and the country.  Now that homosexual marriage is legal, the Church has established some policies to address it.  One of them is that the children of homosexual households cannot be baptized until they reach the age of 18.  Homosexual couple's children now join the children of polygamous and Muslim families.  I believe it will be a blessing to the few children that fit in that category as they will not have to choose between Church doctrine and family life.  It allows families to lead their children as they see fit.  I think it is a protection that will prove itself to be right and good more and more as time goes by.  There is plenty of societal criticism of this policy.  Perhaps this adds more fuel to the coming struggles for religious tolerance and freedom that the Brethren keep reminding us is coming.  How I hope we can all hang in and brace for the rough ride ahead.

Stressing Out

I've made up my mind to visit my sister at least every other month.  October was a month for visiting.  This time I talked Layne into going with me.  He doesn't like to leave home, as I've mentioned before.  He likes to be busy and visits don't usually provide much of that.  But I reminded him of things he could do during our 4 or 5 days in Utah and he finally succumbed to my prodding.  So off we went Monday of last week.  He is good company.  He and Bob did lots of gabbing while Maryanne and I happily bonded over family history.  As usual, we found new things to copy and save.  I've got to find the time to organize it all.  And I will.  Sometime soon.  As soon as I get all the other stuff done that demands my attention.

Here's a picture of my sister, Maryanne, sitting in her study; the location for our family history sessions.

Bob loves Christmas lights.  He put lots of them up in the surrounding trees and turned them on for us while we were there.  He isn't ready to leave them on though.  Even he agrees it might be a bit early.  But, when the time comes, he will be ready!

Hence I've been feeling a bit stressed lately.  For the first time in awhile, there seems to be more to do than I feel capable of doing. At least on the time frame that seems to be demanded of me.  There's Christmas coming right up.  There's porn presentations, which have accumulated over the next few months.  There's family history to do, stories to write, art to compose, music to practice.  Oh the list goes on.

Halloween did show up at our house.  We bought a bunch of candy to accommodate the crowd we expected, based on last year when we almost ran out of treats.  But this year proved to be different as we received much fewer goblins.  So we have tons of left over candy.  Wouldn't you know, Layne is on a diet.  So I gave it all to my neighbor, Carol, who teaches piano.  It seems to me that it is just the thing to offer students after a well prepared lesson.  So I talked her into it.

This weekend Dean and Margo Layton are staying with us while they explore homes in Idaho.  They are from our California home but are dreaming of making a change.  Each of them has found a home to love.  Unfortunately they are two different homes.  Funny how that happens.  It'll be fun to see if they really decide to make the move here.  It would be fun to have some kids from home.  In the meantime its fun to get reacquainted.

Its getting pretty cool around here.  The leaves are beautiful as you can see from this view of our yard.  The seasons here put on such a show.  I love it.

Monday we are headed to Seattle, to help Jessica while Chris goes on a business trip.   I'm hoping to get a few of my own projects addressed while we are there.  We will see how that goes.


 

Porning and Writing

It is nice to be in a routine.  It frees my mind to have the basics of living already decided.  We've needed free minds lately as we've been called upon to give multiple talks on pornography.  I believe we have the basic presentation effectively organized, after changing it multiple times.  I now have three talks, to various audiences, organized and ready.  Except that we are about to be released from our missionary assignment as Addiction Recovery Missionaries.  For awhile anyhow.  It seems that we will soon be involved in addiction programs for the whole Boise area in the not too distant future. So I'll keep those talks handy.

Besides pornography, I've become immersed in writing short family stories for our grandchildren.  The writing seems to come easier than figuring out what accompanying pictures I should include.  There just don't seem to be photos of what I'd like to illustrate.  So I've been photoshopping some and combining elements from several illustrations until they say what I want them to.  It is time consuming but fun.  But also not authentic.  Not the doctored pictures anyhow.  I'm hoping to accumulate quite a collection of stories to give the kids that, hopefully, they will read and save to share with their own children in time to come.  I am hoping that the stories will serve as a kind of family blanket, surrounding the kids and grandkids with family love through generations of living and dead family members.

I have a hard time finishing what I start, as, before I can finish one project I get an idea for another.  I begin that one so it doesn't escape me and then I get another idea.  And so it goes.  But I have FINISHED three stories and two books!  So far!  I'm so excited about FINISHING.

Here's the first book:  Layne's Dream (I suppose it isn't too hard to figure out that it is about flying airplanes).

Fun With the Ostlers

Layne turned 75 last Monday.  As his twin reminded him, that is the age at which both his father and grandfather died.  Hum.  Could he really be old enough to die?  Could I?  It doesn't seem so.  Not until I consider how old we really are.  But I'm not worried.  Somehow I feel full of life and still very connected to this mortality.  I feel that there are still things to do here.  But I'm beginning to feel an urgency about getting them all done.

When I was younger I longed for what I would call a "balanced" friendship; one where the give and take between us was somewhere around equal.  As the years have passed I have found a few friends that fit that model.  One of them is Trudy Ostler.  I met Trudy and her husband Bill in Fremont, California, where we worked together on various Church projects.  We seemed to find a meeting of the minds on most things and tended to think down the same mental roads.  We understood one another and seemed to have very similar life experiences and goals.  Bill and Trudy moved to St. George, Utah.  We eventually moved here to Star, Idaho.  Because we enjoyed our shared mental journey our friendship has continued.  And so we have developed a tradition:  every year since we have moved here they visit us and we visit them.  In between visits we rarely talk, but when we are together, things pick up where we last left off.  There is little need to become reacquainted.  It just so happens that Bill and Layne are very compatible as well.  So our visits have been so pleasant and fun.

The Ostlers arrived for their yearly visit on Layne's birthday.  We celebrated with his requested dinner and dessert.  Every birthday Layne says he doesn't want anything.  Every year I try to find him something anyhow.  It has to be useful.  This year I decided on sunglasses.  His favorites are years and years old.  It just so happens that his old ones broke several days before his special day.  So the gift I offered seemed to fit perfectly into his needs.  Score!  It is rare so I've got to brag.

This is the first house built in Idaho City, an hour north of us, and it was built by Galbraiths!  Gotta be related.  Its located next to a blacksmith shop, seen to the right in this photo.

We spent a fun-filled week with Bill and Trudy.  We saw the movie, The Martian (very good), toured the almost ghost town of Idaho City, went ATVing, and, most daring of all, we went zip lining.  I was too chicken to zip line at our July reunion, but decided to try it, since all I read about the company here was encouraging.  We took a leap of faith and reserved a spot on Wednesday.  I admit right now that standing on a platform high above the ground was a bit unnerving.  And I admit that leaping off of said platform was even more so.  But I was not about to let anyone know that I was so nervous.  So I made the leap.  Over and over.  Because I did it, so did my chicken husband, Layne.  Bill and Trudy leaped with pure delight.  By the end of the experience my fears were somewhat dissipated and it became sort of fun.  Perhaps I can do it again.  Sometime.

Here we are, gathered, confidently, for our first zip line adventure.

We are standing on top of the first zip line platform, safely connected to the wire cording you see around the tree.

First zip line challenge:  cross the bridge.  For us greenies it was challenging.  I am leading here, with Layne following.

Here's Layne, newly arrived from a zip.  "Zippin'" the worker with us called it.

There are two zip lines here.  Layne is on the left, I'm on the right.  We are about to race to the other end.  As you might imagine, the heaviest guy wins.  I not only lost, but didn't have enough momentum to make it to the very end and slid slowly back to the middle of the zip.  I had to be rescued by grabbing onto a rope and being pulled to the end by our young worker.  It was quite a workout for him.  Kinda embarrassing actually.

Our three days together came to a quick end when Bill and Trudy drove off Friday morning.  We will see them again in the spring, when we visit them in St. George.  I'm looking forward to it.

We will be finished with our pornography mission in another month.  During our two years doing this we have been asked to speak about it three times.  Three times in almost 2 years.  Now that we are in our last month, we have three more speaking assignments, all this month!  How strange is that?  Layne is very ready to be finished with addiction. I don't think he will miss it.  But I will.  The women I work with every Sunday night have been an inspiration to me and, in many ways, have changed my life.  I'm grateful to be ever learning what appears to me to be important concepts.  After tonight, theoretically we have just 3 or 4 more addiction meetings.  Wow.  Then what?

Florida

Layne isn't much for traveling.  But our friends the Wintersteins pressed us into going with them to Florida, mostly to see the Epcot Center in Orlando.  We joined them and another couple, Fred and Linda Denison, in Orlando for a week of touring.  Larry rented a house with a pool for our week.  Florida is experiencing an unusually hot summer, we were told.  The heavy, humid air of Florida multiplies any summer heat.  We felt weighted down by it, but soon adjusted fairly well.  After all, there was a pool if we really wanted a cool-down.  Here's a view of the pool in back, surrounded by a screened enclosure.  Lots of yards in Orlando have these enclosures.  The locals say to keep the many bugs out.  Or maybe alligators?

We spent two days in Epcot.  I tried to talk our gang into making those two days week days, but was out-voted, so our first day was a Saturday.  If you like mobs and mobs of people it was a good pick.  But we didn't.  Layne just barely tolerated that first day, walking along the crowded, steamy paths in between the mobs gathered for the weekend tour.  I think we all thought that people would be involved in school and so the crowds would be thinner.  No way.  Somehow the sights dull a little when viewed in between bobbing heads.

Epcot is a lovely park, mostly built to appeal to adults I think.  But there were plenty of children there as well.  It is mostly about featuring various countries, recreated in the form of small villages, offering some films of their countrysides, occasional live performances, food and lots of overpriced souvenirs.  There are fireworks every night.  We loved seeing them on Saturday night.

Three girls in Epcot:  Linda Denison (the screamer), me, and Carol Winterstein.

We dragged Layne along for another day at Epcot on Monday.  The crowds were much thinner and so it was more enjoyable.  Larry used a wheelchair both days, which got us into various rides and shows ahead of the line.  That was pretty nice!  Our favorite ride was a 5 minute one called, "Soar!"  It offered an imaginary ride over various sights in California, putting us right up next to the screen.  With every shift of scene, Linda squealed in abandoned delight.  It made that 5 minutes quite magical.  The best of the day for sure.  Layne and I stand in front of one of the many lovely sights in Epcot.  I'm holding my one and only souvenir:  a fan, bought in "Japan".

Here's the Orlando Temple

There were other sights to see in Orlando.  The Church has a huge 290,000+ acre ranch there.  We took the time to tour it.  The ranch is one of many that the Church has and runs on a for-profit basis.  The profits go to the humanitarian arm of the Church.  I had no idea of the scope of the Church ranches!  We also saw the Orlando temple and the nearby beach.  Beaches are pretty special to me since they were the recreational place of choice when I was growing up.  The Florida beaches offer warm water and lovely, white sand.  It was a beach paradise.  Here's a scene from the LDS Ranch.  Don't the cows look happy?  They should; their job is just to do what comes naturally and bear calves each spring.

Orlando started out as a fort named for a man named Gatlin, in the mid 1800s.  It was built to protect early settlers from the Indians during the Indian wars of the mid-century.  Dr. John Gatlin was a young surgeon when he found himself involved in an Indian battle.  Sadly, he was killed in that battle, along with almost all the white men involved.  But the fort that was built soon afterwards was named for him.  There is nothing left of it now except a marker and a street named for him.  When the Indian Wars ended, the fort was abandoned.  The area was later renamed Orlando.  But it so happens that John Gatlin is a distant uncle of mine, so it was exciting to be able to talk our gang into checking out the marker for what is assumed to be the site of Fort Gatlin.  Historical sites are much more exciting when family is involved!

Our last night we ate at an all-you-can-eat lobster feed.  I think this guy would rather not.

All of us flew home on various flights last Thursday.  We were pretty tired for a couple of days but soon recovered.  Well, Layne is still dragging a bit.  We vegged out this weekend while watching General Conference.  What fun that was, and special too as three new apostles were introduced.  How wonderful it is to belong to the Church of Jesus Christ.  I feel overwhelmingly blessed on every level.

Layne turns 75 on Monday.  We plan to celebrate it all week since our good friends Bill and Trudy Ostler will be spending it with us.  So next week promises to be full of new adventures.