The Post Page Returns

Wow, after several months of not being able to access the post page for this blog, it has suddenly reappeared.  At least on my old computer.  Still no luck on the new one.  So I will give a shot to catching up with three months of Galbraith Gab.

Corona Virus.  There has been nothing to compare with the panic this virus and the hype that has accompanied it has created in the world, in my lifetime.  We are all home; no school for the foreseeable future; many businesses are closed, by government mandate.  Should government have that kind of power?  It seems to me that people are smart enough to deal with the potential dangers without being forced to respond as dictated.  How dangerous is it really?  I can't help feeling that our societal response is overdone.  But I could be so wrong.  In the meantime, I'm enjoying being home with no obligations outside of my own pursuits.

But I awoke Saturday morning with the strong impression that we need to hold a home school curriculum with Seth and Angelica.  So I'm hot to establish one for them, starting on Monday.  They could potentially be out of school the rest of the school year.  Wow.  Imagine kids home for the next 3 months.  And then its summer vacation and more time off!  So study time is coming up.

And so, a quick catch-up.  Audrey, Cliff and family came to our place after Christmas.  It was a full house and so much fun.  We had Adams-Harts everywhere!  We had a Christmas exchange and made our usual visit to Caldwell to see the Christmas light display.  That is always magical.

L to R:  me, Rayne, Dominic, Seth, Timothy, Vincent, Reed, Dorothy and Bruce. 

Friends Pat and Larry Green joined us for a quiet New Year's Eve.  We were a little noisy at midnight though.  Just a bit of a mess after our midnight shouts.

Our winter brought very little snow.  But here is a sample of some that did arrive.  It soon melted.  I love the snow in winter so I'm a little sad about our warm winter.  But there are plenty of other who are rejoicing.

Our great-grandchildren are growing and getting cuter and cuter.  Here are Hunter and little sister Hazel.  Below is Alex, enjoying Seattle snow.

We've got lots of January birthdays, including mine.  Grandson Bruce and I celebrated ours together at Dorothy and Reed's house.  Birthday pie for Bruce.  He reluctantly posed with me below. 

After my birthday I flew to California to stay with my BJ kids for 5 days or so while Ben took his Jessica to Hawaii for her birthday.  It was very busy with 8 babes but so much fun.  I loved spending time with them.  They are kind and obedient and willing to accommodate a grandma's different ways with smiles on their faces.  I feel like I had a good connection with each one.  It it work but so worth the effort for the family connectedness that results.  So I got a babysitting job for my birthday, not a trip to Hawaii but before you feel too badly about that I will tell you that I was compensated with a pair of apple ear buds that are super!  Love those BJs.

The last part of the month my buddy Pat Green and I attended a Shen Yun performance.  "It will change your life" the promise goes.  Well, it didn't do that, but it was a lovely performance that told some Chinese history in dance.  You can't go wrong with dancing, you know.  We had a fine time.

We got most of our medical visits done over these few early months.  It seems that all is well.  My doctor told me that, based on my current health status, I should live another 20 years.  But do I want to?  That would make me pretty old indeed.  Old goes on for such along time, it seems.

Reed took me to the movies.  Just the two of us.  We saw Little Women and both loved it.  It has been a long time since I've been on a date with my son.  It was lovely.  

Angelica came home from Taiwan hot to get her braces.  She even made her own appointment.  How many people do you know that are excited about braces?!  Looks like she will have them for a couple of years.  If you look closely you can see that they are pink.

Eagle High's Sweetheart's Ball happened in February.  Seth and Angelica (especially) talked about it non-stop for many weeks preceding.  It's a girl-ask boy event so there was much ceremony involved in inviting and responding.  Angelica made a special sign for her date and Seth received one from his.  They stressed over it, then enjoyed weeks of preliminary connections to get better acquainted with their dates and have fun with their date groups.  Seth ordered a special Asian themed jacket for the dance.  Here they are, sporting their Sweetheart's outfits, Angelica with her date, Miles.

You know by now that Seth is crazy for basketball.  He played in the JV team for Eagle High, sitting most of the time.  But it's a start and he's optimistic about bigger opportunities to come.  During the season, someone (maybe his mom) took this great picture of him on the court.  You gotta say, he looks pretty yummy.

Gerald and Frances were here over Chinese New Year, and stayed for about a month.  It was great to have them.  Frances cooked just about every night.  Loved that.  She also took lots of photos.  She's good at that too.  Sadly, they left with promises of returning soon.  But then the Corona virus arrived.  So who knows when we will meet again.  Here is a sample of Frances' photos:  Gerald, then me with Seth and Angelica.

March has brought dramatic changes with the Corona Virus.  Our lives are very changed.  No school, no English classes, no nothing actually.  So here we are at home with all the activities that presents.  Just a little confining.  But so far we are having fun. And staying well.  My girls even came for a visit and we painted together.  That's alway a great way to use the time.  Here's me, my Jessica, Rayne and Audrey and our masterpieces!

Thanksgiving and Beyond

At last here I am.  I have had trouble accessing this blog and today, for some magical reason, here I am.  At this Holiday time my heart is full of gratitude, for family and for all the magic that the holidays bring.  Thanksgiving this year was especially sweet for us as most of our family chose to come to our home to celebrate.  We set up numerous beds and cooked tons of food and enjoyed the happiness that comes from being together.  Crazy, wild and wonderful.  Here's a sample.

Angelica, Gerald, Seth; Gerald was with us for Thanksgiving, a first!

Chase and his baby girl, Hazel.

Seth has his Dad's touch with children; Audrey's grandson Hunter loves him.  

Sisters, Tia and Olivia in their fancy dresses.  Daughters of Ben and Jessica (number 2).

Game time for Vincent (L), Jacqueline (center), Angelica, and Abigail (back view).

Daughter Jessica holding nieces, Tia and Olivia.

Olivia, rearranging the "what-not".

Two beautiful granddaughters, Angelica and Peyton.

Grandchildren born the same year, 2002; Miles, Jacqueline, Seth and Vincent, in poses to match a photo of them as babies.  Take a close look.

Another set of grandchildren born the same year, 2003; Angelica, Timothy, Peyton, and Alexis, posing to match their baby picture.

Jessica makes sure we always have a puzzle to work on.  Gemma, Alexis and Jessica are hard at it.

The whole gang gathered after dinner upstairs for a Thanksgiving discussion.

Some of us walked through the sights in Boise.  Here are Miles, Gemma and Vincent in a jump.

It was wonderful to have family here with us.  By the end of the week everyone left for home.  Christmas is soon to follow; perhaps too soon.  We began singing with our singing group the Monday after Thanksgiving.  We had performances most weekdays for two and a half weeks.  It was so fun but demanding.  Layne sang a solo with us, "Hallelujah".  He was fantastic.  

After our singing was finally finished this past week, Layne and I drove to Utah for a couple of days.  We spent the first day and night with Bob and Maryanne and the second with Lynn and Camille (Layne's twin brother).  It was lots of fun even with a quick trip.  We are home now with a couple of days to get ready for Christmas.  I think I can do it.

Granddaughter Angelica flew back to Taiwan to have oral surgery and will be there for the whole school vacation.  So it is Seth and us for Christmas.  I'm so glad that Reed and Dorothy now live here as we will spend Christmas Eve and Christmas with them.  Otherwise it would be a quiet Christmas.  But quiet or busy, the holidays are sweet.

October"s Rush

I'm glad that our family October birthdays come early in the month.  Because the rest of the month was filled with trips and visits.  So much so that the month sped by with not a moment to write about it.

Our fruit trees have outdone themselves this summer.  We spent lots of time processing those treasures.  By October it was apples that were left to us.  Our tree was loaded.  So I've been fitting in processing apples in between travels.

Seth and Angelica were in a fall concert at school, along with grandson Vincent, who now lives here.  The concert was amazing, as they always are.  Don't these three look great together?

My two girls and I planned a weekend together on Oct 12th.  We decided to go to McCall so I made reservations for Saturday and Sunday nights.  Then we discovered that grandson Jonathan was going to be baptized the morning of the 12th, in Palo Alto.  Whoops.  The reservations were not refundable.  So we made a quick plan.  Layne and I would fly to San Francisco Friday morning, spend some time with the family, attend the baptism Saturday morning, then fly back to Boise as quickly as we could.  So that's what we did.  Except the family wasn't available for bonding on Friday.  So I called my cousin Judy.  No answer.  Then I called my friend Hedy. She was in Utah.  So I called our foster daughter Michelle.  She was working.  We then tried our buddy Beverly Trutner.  She was sick.  Hum.  It was turning out to be rather a lost day.  We decided to go to the Oakland Temple and hang out on the grounds, eat some lunch and take a nap.  So we did.  It was there that we ran into an old friend from our Fremont days. We had a great visit.  It turned the tide of almost feeling depressed.  It was at last time when we could get in a visit with Ben and Jessica.

Here is the baptism boy, Jonathan, with his younger sister, Tia. 

That turned out to be fun.  Ben worked on my old computer and then talked me into getting a new one!  That was exciting.  He drove me to the Apple store in his Tesla.  It was an amazing ride; it almost drove itself.  In fact, for awhile that's what it did.  The technology in that car made our new little jeep seem outmoded.  But I still like the jeep!  We spent the night in a motel (no room at Ben and Jessica's), attended the baptism, where Jessica's dad spoke on baptism and I spoke on confirmation.  Fun times.  Then we headed for home, arriving about 5:30 PM.  Got Audrey and we drove to McCall and met Jessica at our motel there.  It was lovely.

Here is our motel, on the night we arrived.  Doesn't it look lovely?

We talked and walked on Sunday, then drove around the Payette Lake.  Lovely.  Altogether we walked about 6 miles.  It was a good day.  Audrey and I even managed to fit in a sacrament meeting at a local chapel that morning.  Monday we walked through the little town and found some bargains, then drove home after lunch.  Audrey flew home and Jessica spent that night with us.  My buddy Margie Thomas arrived just after we did and also spent the night.

Here are Audrey and Jessica just as we were beginning our Sunday walk.

Here's the three of us in Ponderosa Park.

Tuesday morning Jessica headed for home (I gave her some apples) and Margie and I drove up to Richland, Washington, to visit our good friends Gary and Nora Jacobson.  She is ailing a bit so we want to spend some regular time with them.  They are two of those special and rare people that are loving and pure of heart; eternal friends.  (I brought them some apples).  After a sweet visit, we drove back home the same day.  Margie spent Tuesday night with us, then drove back to Salt Lake (I gave her some apples too).

On Thursday I drove to Draper to visit my sister, Maryanne and her husband Bob.  I forgot to bring them apples.  But I did bring her a birthday gift and some pear jam (from our pear tree).  We did our usual visiting and started writing our grandmother Margaret's life story.  That was such fun.  We looked through all sorts of photos and records and it made her come alive again.  I'm anxious to write her story!  I drove back home on Monday. Here's a picture of the two of us, in Maryanne's study.

After a few days of recovery, granddaughter Allegra flew in for a a few days on Thursday.  It is always a treat to have this redhead with us. She stayed until the following Wednesday.  She is full of ideas and shares them readily.  I love it.

Halloween soon followed and the end of a very busy October.  The colorful leaves of fall have now faded into a dull brown.  It looks like winter now, only without the snow.  Fall is a wonderful time of year, full of cool temperatures, winds, showers and beautiful colors.  I'm sad to see it go.

Last Wednesday Seth got his driver's license!  He is a free man and celebrates it every day, so far, with various drives and errands.  Much of our travel time taking the kids to their various activities is now provided by Seth.  He's enthused about it so far.  I wonder how long that will last?  It is making for more open days for us.  Pretty fine!  Here he is, plenty happy with himself.

Now to finish up the apples.  Pie perhaps?

October Birthdays

The days are shorter and the temperature is down.  Hooray for Autumn.  This is the most beautiful time of year, with fall colors erupting all around and crisp air to fill the lungs with the pleasant scents of Fall.  This might be my favorite time of year.

Angelica was asked to speak in Sacrament meeting a couple of weeks ago.  When she first came here she absolutely refused to speak in Church.  But this year she agreed easily.  What a change!  Her turn came up and, as she sat on the stand before the meeting began, I noticed that Seth sat nearby at the Sacrament table.  What a sweet feeling to see them both, ready to do their part in the meeting.  Angelica did a great job.  I think her fear is now under control.  Here is my happy view of them.

October brings early birthdays in abundance.  My sister, Maryanne, celebrated 74 years on the 2nd.  Seth turned 17 on the same day.  Birthdays in Taiwan come and go with little notice so it is fun to try and make a bigger deal of it here for him.  We got him a little cake. He doesn't like really sweet things so we kept it small.  We added candles and had him make a secret wish and blow them out.  He opened a few gifts.  We ordered him some new basketball shoes and they arrived on his birthday (kind of a miracle of timing).  He loves them!  "Grandma," he said, "I never want to take these shoes off."  That was a heart warmer for sure.  Here he is, with a cheesy smile.

Dad was a quick follow-up with his birthday on Saturday.  He wanted Corned Beef and Cabbage for dinner, one of his favorite things.  So I bought all the ingredients, except the cabbage (I forgot it).  He wanted canned corned beef so I bought two tins.  I asked Layne to get the cabbage since he was right by the store, on his birthday.  He huffed and puffed about having to buy his own birthday dinner. Kinda funny I thought.  He settled down though.  I fixed dinner at just the right time and looked for the two tins of corned beef and they were nowhere to be found.  I searched all over the house in desperation, then asked Layne and the kids to look.  No good.  Those tins had disappeared.  Finally I decided to go to the store and buy two more.  Dinner was late, but Layne loved it.  So I guess all that trouble was worth it.  He's 79!  How in the world did that happen so quickly?  Angelica got him a knit hat, which she enthusiastically placed on his head.  Here he is sporting his new hat and eating one of his favorite desserts, a milk shake from the local ice cream shop, Reed's.

Daughter-in-law Dorothy's birthday is tomorrow.  So today, Sunday, we decided to get together and celebrate all three birthdays.  It was a fun time, with a combination of favorite foods of the birthday people.  Here's Dorothy about to open her birthday gifts.

It feels to me like there is plenty going on in our life these days.  It is a race to keep up.  Tomorrow I'll process the many apples on our tree and maybe help Seth get ready for the upcoming Homecoming Dance.  His buddies are pressuring him to ask a girl and go with them.  But will he?  Tomorrow we will have the final decision.

Busy Normal

It was so nice to have Frances and Gerald around.  They stayed for a month!  As of Friday they are back in Taiwan.  So our delicious Chinese dinners are at an end...unless Angelica takes over.  Our two grandkids are growing up fast.  Seth will soon be driving.  That should make quite a difference in our routine.

I am feeling overwhelmed lately.  English classes for our refugees is taking lots of time.  The fruit trees are bearing their hearts out.  Family events keep coming (love those) and our singing group has started preparing for our Christmas concert series.

Our microwave quit.  I'm glad because it was mounted above the stove and I found that annoying.  It gave very little light and compromised access to pots.  So I talked Layne into getting a counter top model and putting it into the pantry.  We put a hood above the stove and voila!  Light and room.  I love it.  Grandson Isaiah and his friend Ben stopped for the night as we were about to install the hood.  Ben took over and almost single-handedly installed it.  We were so impressed.  Isaiah helped too and was his usual pleasant, loving self.  Here he and Ben are, just before departing for school in Rexburg.

Reed turned 47 this month.  We celebrated it for several days, ending with a birthday dinner at their house.  Dorothy baked his favorite pie, peach.  She has gotten very good at making pie crust and it is clear that crust is the secret to good pie!

Their boys seem to be settling in to Idaho life just fine.  Angelica is greeting Vincent and his tuba in the school parking lot.  He is in the marching band, runs track and sings in the choir.  Seems like he is enjoying his busy life.

Life is undeniably busy these days.  But they are sweet days, filled with blessings.  Speaking of that, here is a recent picture of our great granddaughter, Hazel.  After a rough beginning, she is flourishing.  

As the leaves turn their beautiful fall colors, life seems rich and good.  How I hope the days ahead will also bless us.

Summer's End

Flying stand-by can be a blessing and a curse.  We've given Gerald and Frances standby passes, to be used for the rest of the year.  They spent several weeks trying to fly from Taipei to the US but there were no open seats.  Finally, in desperation, we bought them tickets.  So, I'm happy to say, they are here!

It is always good to have them here with the kids.  There is less for us to do, but the real blessing is that they are all together.  Frances, as usual, has shopped for almost endless amounts of food so she can cook for us.  She is a fabulous cook so it is a joy.  I worry about the delicate balance between encouraging her with our thanks and making her feel obligated to cook.  Hum.  I'm working on that.  In the meantime we are eating like kings and I've gained a couple of pounds as a result.

Audrey joined our enlarged household last weekend.  That is always a joy to me.  She is easy to be around as she does not want to do anything special; just be here with us and visit.  I so like that.  We get along very well and I've come to look forward to her regular visits.  Here she is, busy at work on a Zentangle.  She has a passion for it and has designed some beautiful drawings.

This past week I've been especially obliged to work on the English curriculum for our Refugee students.  Classes begin September 3rd and I'm the only one working on curriculum.  It does weigh on me even though I enjoy working it out.  I suppose you could call it a mixed blessing.  As I read and think about it, I can feel my mind sparking.  It likes this kind of thing.  But the "natural woman" would so like to just veg for awhile.  The battle wages daily it seems--major effort vs. relaxing.  It isn't hard to know which is best.

I spent last Thursday being especially productive.  It was mostly about the English program but I filled in with some other productive stuff too.  I felt pretty happy about the day as I measure my pleasure by how productive I've managed to be.  I suppose that isn't an especially good trait, but it seems to persist anyhow.  Thursday night we had dinner with friends and stayed pretty late visiting.  So by the time we got home we were pretty tired.  I'm telling you this because granddaughter Rayne and her husband, Dominic, were due to arrive at our house sometime in the middle of the night.  I fixed up their room and gave them the code to the garage so they could come in that way.  But we both forgot to leave the door from the garage to the house unlocked!

I heard nothing in the night to indicate their arrival.  But I awoke like a shot about 4 AM with the sudden thought that the door was locked.  So I walked outside to find them.  There was Dom's truck in the driveway.  I approached and opened the front door.  There they were, sleeping on the truck seats.  Ohh, did I feel badly.  I awoke them and lead them inside to the room I organized for them, filled with memory remorse.  Not a good way to welcome them.

But things picked up after that.  We had a fun catching up visit with them on Friday and planned to go to a special showing of hot air balloons complete with a light show that night.  Balloons were said to be on display at one of the Boise parks, with plans to put on a sky show with them all lit up once it was dark.  So we all drove into Boise to see.  What we found were masses of people and cars, with no place to park and no balloons in sight.  It was a disappointment.  The only good thing about the evening was ice cream at our favorite shop, Reed's.

I took Rayne, Frances and Angelica farmer's market shopping on Saturday morning.  We went to two local ones and found a plethora of craft displays and a decided lack of farmer's products.  Hum.  Not what we were hoping for.  So we contented ourselves with smoothie bowls at a local place.  Another disappointment.  But Dominic's enthusiasm for fun was not to be doused.  He went online to look for a fun river to go tubing.  We filled our tubes with air, packed his truck and all headed out for the location he found on the Payette River.  We followed the truck in the jeep as Dom drove on and on, past where we thought a good spot along the river would be.  An hour and a half later we found the drop off spot and everyone except Layne, Frances and me took off on tubes down the river, with instructions as to where we were to meet them 2 and a half hours later.

Rayne had the pick up spot located on her phone, which she left with me.  The problem was, her phone turned itself off and I didn't have her password.  So now we are in the dark as to the pick up spot.  Since we had 2 1/2 hours to figure it out we were pretty confident that we could.  So off we went looking for a good spot.  We finally found a pullout that was next to the river and parked.  Layne was sure we could hail them from the cliff above.  Hum.  I was sure it would not work.  What if the pick up was before our location?  I could picture them waiting in vain there while we were waiting in vain where we were.  So Frances and I decided to drive back and find someone to ask.  Layne waited by his cliff.  We found a very nice young man who knew just where we needed to go.  He gave us clear instructions and, sure enough, it came earlier than Layne's chosen waiting spot.  Ha.  Vindicated!

We drove back to Layne's spot and led him to the right pickup place which happened to be directly across from a rodeo show.  Frances loved snapping pictures of their various events and we enjoyed the general activity.  It made the waiting much more pleasant.  Just about the time we thought maybe they had some trouble and were delayed in arriving, we spotted them.  Happy to meet up at last, we loaded their wet selves and tubes up and headed for home at last.  Stopping for huckleberry ice cream on the way, of course.

Frances cooked up a tasty Chinese meal and we ate dinner at last.  It was about 9:30 by the time the first bite was taken.  So, after some misfires, our day ended on a contented note, with full bellies.

Sunday we took lots of pictures.  Here's one of them:  Frances, Angelica, Rayne and Dominic in the front row; Gerald, Layne and Seth behind them.

Rayne and Dominic left for home on Monday afternoon.  Having them with us is always a pleasure.  I'm grateful that they are willing to come to us on occasion.  We love it.

This past week has been busy but nice.  Our English classes have gone well so far. Our microwave, on the other hand, hasn't.  It quit.  Why do these things happen when we have company?  We are working on a different configuration for a new microwave.  In the meantime, the kitchen is stacked up with stuff from our pantry, as that is where we want to put a new one.  Will it work?  I guess we will soon find out.

We celebrated Reed's birthday; he turned 47 on Friday.  Gerald, Frances and the kids are gone this weekend so we are back to two.  It is relaxing.  But, you know, I miss them.