Spring is Coming

 I sat outside on my front porch swing today, for the first time in awhile.  It was warm!  I sat surrounded by budding flowers and leaves.  Our lawn is turning into a delicious, rich green.  What a lovely time of year!  Yes, I know, it has been awhile since I have written...again.  Somehow this covid season has not inspired me.  So, no more apologies.

It has been over a year since our country...and the world...has been in a pandemic lockdown.  It seems that folks are beginning to feel like it is time for it all to be over.  Indeed, the signs are that it soon will be a bit more under control.  I can't help feeling that all our precautions are way over-kill.  But what do I know?  We have been resisting getting the vaccine due to some material that we have read warning against it.  But when the Prophet and apostles got vaccinated it gave me pause.  Then the Church donated some 20 million dollars to help spread the use of the vaccine.  That is a resounding vote to get it, it seems to me.  Add to that some family encouragement to do it and we finally decided to go ahead with it.  Layne got the first moderna shot and was sick the first day but fine afterwards.  I was a bit late for the appointment for mine by the time I got the directions for getting to the clinic.  But, magically, the many traffic signals along my path were all green for me.  I never slowed the car down at all!  I seemed to feel sweet angels in my car with me, encouraging me along.  That sounds strange I know.  But to summarize; I felt good about finally getting the first shot.  And I made the appointment on time, thanks to my angels.

Seth and Angelica have been singing with the school choir every year they have been at Eagle High.  But covid has shut down their usual performances, until now.  We were able to see a short performance held in the gym, not the theater.  I'm not sure why that location was safer, but many things these days defy logic, including singing with masks on. At any rate here is a picture of each of them.  Seth is pretty easy to find.  Angelica is in the back row, on the right.  Can you find them?

We tried to make Easter a little bit special this year.  Angelica helped me prepare a special dinner, with Reed, Dorothy and boys in attendance.  It was a Taiwanese dinner and Angelica went way over the top in her preparations.  We had food enough for a week.  In fact, we ate the leftovers for just about that long.  It was so good!  Afterwards we had a small Easter Egg hunt in the backyard, mostly for Bruce.  But all four kids participated.  I don't think they were especially fond of the goodies inside though.  Since Seth and Angelica don't eat candy, I filled the eggs with nuts, a little bit of candy and dried fruit.  Hum.  Not my best effort at treats as it turned out.  But the hunting was fun.  Here is Bruce on the lookout.

I love having Reed and Dorothy close by.  We had such fun several weeks ago piano shopping.  One of the local colleges was having a sale on pianos so I talked Reed into going.  "I'm just going to look," he assured me.  He played quite a few pianos there.  Dorothy and I smiled as we looked on.  Audrey was with us too.  Finally he found one that he fell in love with.  He was very low-key in his admiration but we could tell.  So we put our heads together and talked him into buying it.  It was delivered that very day!  So finally this son who is so gifted with music has an instrument worthy of him.  It makes my heart glad.  Here are Reed and Dorothy in a recent picture.

Last week we were surprised by a visit from Steve and Julie Harris.  They are friends from our Fremont days.  Steve was part of a quartet that Layne sang in for quite a few years.  Steve was the organizer and a very musically gifted fellow.  He and Julie moved to Oregon and that was the end of the quartet.  We haven't seen them for quite a few years so it was so much fun to take them in again and remember how much we love them and miss having them in our lives.  Maybe this sweet meeting will lead to more.  We can hope.  Here they are.

Friends are one of the great joys of life.  It is hard to lose them, whether to distance or death.  Our very dear friend, Nora Jacobson, just passed away on Friday past; April 16th.  It is that time of life for losing friends.  I'm so glad to know that sometime there will be no losses.  Sometime we will all share eternity together.  

I've been working on putting Layne's life story together.  It is taking so much longer than I planned.  It has been fun to read through his memories and look at pictures taken through the years.  Here is one of Layne and me on our wedding day.  We've just been married in the LA Temple and are on our way back home, to San Diego.  The year was 1966.  

After a winter without yard work, Layne has turned the outside water back on.  The grass is a lovely green once again.  Today, as we were cleaning up the kitchen, we took in a view of the back yard, with the sprinklers at work and spied these two ducks enjoying the spray.  They stayed for quite some time, enjoying the water and picking at the grass...or maybe bugs.  The male was continually on the look-out for potential trouble.  Perhaps he was protecting his lady.  I'd like to think so!  

Life moves quickly on.  In a couple of weeks I will have cataract surgery.  It's finally time.  I'm looking forward to good vision; no more contacts and no more glasses.  Won't that be a sweet gift to an old lady!

Lazy Girl

 Yes, I know.  It has been awhile.  I have been a lazy girl.  The Pandemic has slowed down our lives, and slowed down my blogging.  It is interesting to me that more open time has actually made me less productive.  Why is that, I wonder!  Not that things haven't been happening.  We are blessed to be able to get together with lots of our family over the past few months.  We shared the purchase of a whole beef with Audrey and Cliff.  The beef was all cut, wrapped and ready to roll a while before Audrey and Cliff could come and pick it up.  But they finally did in February.  We had a lovely weekend with them.  They packed up their share and took off to share it with some of their kids.  We shared our half with Reed and Dorothy.  By the time we did all that dividing, we had room in our freezer with plenty of space left over.  Here's Cliff and Audrey, with Cliff wearing a Valentine's vest made especially for him by daughter Allegra (one talented girl!).

Daughter-in-law Dorothy and I have made an agreement to visit Seattle every 4 months or so together, me to visit Chris and Jessica and she to visit son James and his family.  So we flew there on the 18th of February and had a fun weekend.  Chris and Jessica are redoing their kitchen and it is looking beautiful.  Chris is doing all the work!  He can do just about anything he puts his mind to. I don't have a picture of the finished work just yet, but it will be forthcoming.  In the meantime, here is a picture of Jessica reading to Alex, our great-grandson and son of James and wife Alejandra.  They spend lots of time teaching Alex and it shows.  He knows so much for such a little guy.

We had a lovely weekend and have decided that we need more visits like this one.  I think Dorothy and I will travel together to see our California family too, later this year.  Here's a picture of some of my girls; Audrey, Dorothy, me and Jessica.  

Seth has been duplicating Layne in his teasing of our kitty.  Cherry (the cat) has chosen Layne as her favorite human.  But Seth is moving up to a close second.  The more he teases Cherry, the more she seems to like it.  Here she is, making herself comfortable, right in the middle of Seth's efforts at doing school work.  Most of school happens at home these days, you know.

Daughter Jessica had a birthday on March 6th, which just happened to be the day that Grandson Isaiah and his new bride Avery flew to California, via our house, to be sealed in the Oakland Temple.  As you no doubt know, these are strange times, thanks to CoVid.  Only live ordinances may be done in our Temples, so they had to make an appointment to be sealed and could only bring 12 or fewer people to witness it.  Our temples have been mostly closed for a year now.  These are troubling times for many reasons.  We enjoyed a little time with the happy couple before and after their sealing day.  Here they are on their way back home, now connected together for all time, and happy about it.

Granddaughter Rayne and hub Dominic drove over last weekend.  They came for some furniture we have been storing for them, but we had a fun time with them in between packing up Dom's truck.  They come to visit pretty often and we love their company.  They have their own place now and Rayne is having lots of fun getting it all set up and decorating.  Both work remotely, which Rayne enjoys, but Dom loves being with people so it is a bit harder for him to spend so much time without the usual family interaction they enjoyed when staying with Audrey and Cliff.  Here's Rayne and Dominic with Reed and Dorothy.  Dom is even smiling (which he doesn't usually do in pictures).

Layne has been feeling very strongly lately that we needed to get rid of the jeep.  You know, that bright green, sporty little jeep that we just got a year and a half ago.  I've loved the jeep but Layne's feelings were strong, so one day we drove it to the Toyota dealership and traded it in for a red Toyota Highlander.  Just to be a little difficult, I made a list of everything I wanted in a car, including a place for my purse (a particularly difficult request).  The Highlander had it all.  So gone is our 2018 Jeep and now a 2018 used Highlander sits in our garage.  We now are the proud owners of three red vehicles!  I have a thing about being colorful, you know, and Layne sweetly allows this indulgence.  

I've been Marco-poloing the kids each Sunday and usually get responses back.  I love looking into their faces and hearing their news.  It is almost like having them present.  Things are opening up here more and more, so we have ventured to have some social events with friends, face to face.  Well, to be truthful, the events are almost universally lunches.  That is a start to getting things back to normal.  Or somewhat close to.  I can't help thinking that our treatment of this "pandemic" is an atrocity.  We are ruining more lives with our stupid response to CoVid than damage from the illness itself.  I dare not think about it too much.  Instead I'm counting my blessings that we are all healthy and making due all right. In spite of everything, life is good.  I hope it will continue to be.  

Quiet Times Continue

 Covid 19 and the pandemic that it brought, has lasted for almost a year now.  We thought it would be over in a month or so when it made its appearance last March.  Our world is still full of masked people, and pressures to take a vaccine that was rushed to market.  For that reason we have felt hesitant to take it.  But a prophet of God has encouraged the use of it.  There is talk of making it mandatory for everyone.  In fact, there is talk about making other things mandatory as well.  This pandemic has people scared, and that makes them more vulnerable to control.  Is it really better to be safe than free?  I guess a lot of people think so.  We don't.

Another birthday for me came up in January.  I spent the day talking on the phone to friends and family who remembered my special day.  That made it a sweet celebration for me.  

Gerald was with us for the holidays this season.  It was so very nice to have him with us for over a month.  His influence is always uplifting.  Here he is with Reed.

Being in the presence of family is such a joy.  They are all good people and easy to be around.  That is a blessing that descends upon me every day.

I've been working on getting Layne's story written up.  It has been fun to go through some of his papers and discover little things that I didn't know.  He has written his story, but there are additions that I continue to find.  So, as easy as I thought it would be to put his story in a book, it has become a bit more complicated to figure out what supplementary materials I should include.  Here is a picture of him and his buddy, Dave Garrett, taken sometime in the 1960s.

While working on those materials, I found a scrapbook of my Dad's pictures, taken when he was single and in the Coast Guard.  There were some I don't remember seeing before.  Here is a sample, of my Dad, Gerald Kiser, when he was studying for a radio exam,  Note how tan he was; it was during a period of time when he dove for coins tossed to him and others, including his buddy Goldie, by people on board touring ships, pulling into shore on one of the pacific islands--maybe Hawaii. 

We have a lot of family birthdays in January and February.  Thank goodness for calendars to keep track of them all.  Most of the birthday people were not close by.  But grandsons Bruce and Timothy are here.  They are the 4th and 5th sons of Reed and Dorothy.  Here is Timothy, a new 17, enjoying a pile of gifts, as yet unopened.  Bruce is looking on.

Our two resident grandkids are maturing and doing well.  Angelica is a junior and 17 now.  She has a passion for dancing and has lined up numerous dancing lessons that keep her busy most nights.  Conflicting with her driving schedule to lessons, is Seth's schedule for Basketball.  That makes sharing a car challenging.  They manage it and I think it is good to learn how to share with good humor. Which sometimes happens and sometimes doesn't!  Seth is an 18 year old senior now and is growing beyond his 6'6" height.  That boy is now the tallest one in the family!  Here he is, doing his part for the school team.  

He graduates this year.  Here is his senior picture.  I think he looks pretty yummy.

Speaking of cars (which I was a few sentences ago), Layne has been pushing for us to trade in the jeep for something else.  I have been resisting (I love the jeep), but he really pressed for his cause.  So last week we drove into the Toyota dealership and traded the jeep for a Toyota Highlander.  As sad as I was to see the jeep go, I have come to love the Highlander.  So, once again, Layne's impression has been for the best.  I have found that paying attention to his instincts is always the right thing to do.  Here is our last view of the jeep, in the Toyota parking lot, and its splashy green color.  Our new car is also bright and beautiful--red!  So now all three of our vehicles are red.

Audrey and Cliff went in with us on an order for beef this year.  We took delivery two weeks before they were able to come and claim their share.  So we stored what wouldn't fit in our freezer outside, on the back porch, preserved by regular supplies of dry ice.  One of the great things about Idaho cold winters, is that they provide additional cold storage...outside.  It worked out well.  Just before Audrey and Cliff arrived this past weekend, we had our first real winter storm.  It snowed and snowed!  For the first time this winter, we have snow on the ground.  The whole weekend was full of snow!  

It was magical.  The weather cleared up a little for Cliff and Audrey's drive home on Monday.  Their company is always pleasant.  It is hard to see them go.  Here they are, in the living room on Sunday, with Cliff wearing a Valentine vest made for him by daughter Allegra.  

We had a sweet, low key, Valentine's Day, with Dorothy joining us for dinner.  Cliff cooked!  

So our days are slow-going with activities still on the down-low.  But life must go on and there are things to enjoy despite all the disruptions in our usual way of life.  For that, we can be grateful.

 

Christmas and New Years

 We planned on going to California for Christmas this year, along with Chris, Jessica and kids.  But the pandemic caused increased restrictions there, so we cancelled our plans.  Instead, we invited Chris and Jessica and family to come to our place for Christmas.  And they did!  Here's Miles, Gemma, Peyton, Jessica and Chris.

So our celebration included quite a few people; Reed, Dorothy and boys, Chris, Jessica and kids, and Gerald.  We planned our traditional Christmas Eve at our house, upstairs, with costumes and narration to review the birth of the Savior.  We followed up with our candle ceremony, where each of us lights a candle as we express whatever positive feelings we wish.  Both turned out so well.  There was a palpable spirit of goodness among us.  It was lovely.

After that we did our Christmas Eve gift giving for the kids.  PJs of course.  On a count of three, all scramble to open their gifts at once.  On went the pjs as we progressed to dessert.  It was all much fun.

Older kids prize sleep over early morning gift exchanges.  So our Christmas morning didn't really begin until 10:00 or so.  We handed out gifts and took the rest of the morning to watch each person open their gifts in turn.  We made a happy mess.  

When our Jessica is around we can count on a puzzle to do.  Here's Reed, Jessica, grandson Scott and

his Jessica hard at work.

We spent Christmas Evening at Reed and Dorothy's.  After a delicious dinner, we had a family talent show.  I say that loosely as the only family to actually do something was Reed, who played a beautiful piece on the piano, and our family of Layne, me, Gerald, Seth and Angelica singing a carol together.  It was not a work of art but an effort was made!  The rest of the evening was taken up with a game that entertained the players for a good long time.

The Gendreaus left the day after Christmas.  The remainder of us celebrated New Year's Eve at our house.  The guys played a game; even Layne, the game-avoider, joined in.  We girls, and Bruce, painted to an online tutorial.  It took quite a bit of time, but was so fun.  Now I want to do more.  Here's Scott's Jessica, Dorothy, Bruce and me with out masterpieces.  You might be able to see that Bruce didn't use the tutorial.  His is the one with the dots.

We toasted at midnight and popped poppers until they were all gone.  There was food galore, thanks to Layne.  Earlier in the day I sent him out for cheesecake and he came back with oodles of additional goodies.  Yup, we were buried in them and now have an emergency supply of sweet stuff.  Junk food, you could say.  Here are some of our celebrators:  Layne, me, Gerald, Seth, Reed, Jessica, Scott and Bruce.  

So it is away with 2020, a pivotal year by anyone's measurement.  It has been a year of a pandemic, our response to which is unprecedented.  Never have we locked up our whole society and shut down our economy on purpose before.  I can't help feeling that we have turned this into a disaster that we will be playing for, for years.  Added to that was all sorts of radical, violent demonstrations, along with a national election that certainly has been controversial, with accusations of voter fraud in the election of Joe Biden.  If that turns out to be true, we can only hope that it will be addressed and corrected.  It is terrible to contemplate that our elections cannot be trusted to be fair.

And so we close 2020 with hopes for a better year ahead.  We can hope, but I fear that there are greater troubles to come.  Here is hoping that we can find our way through it with some semblance of recovery and blessing.

Almost Christmas

 Things here are pretty quiet most of the time.  As I look in my closet every morning to decide what to wear it is usually the same thing; just casual.  Much of my wardrobe sits unused.  There is no where to go and nothing much to do outside of home.  There are things to like about this; more time to do what I like for one.  But I do miss all of the mixing with others and our activities together.  And it remains strange to see the whole world masked.  

But lately things have been picking up.  We planned on going to California for Christmas this year as it is a "Galbraith" Christmas.  But CoVid has picked up there so the state is on something like a lockdown.  We cancelled our trip.  We will be home.  Chris and Jessica, who planned on meeting us in CA, are now coming here.  So, without our CA family we will still have a family Christmas.  Reed and Dorothy, Chris and Jessica, and Gerald, plus kids will all be here.  Fun is anticipated.  

Angelica turned 17 on the 15th.  We had the local family over to celebrate.  We ordered pho for her and I made a Taiwanese style dinner. It was lots of work but turned out really well.  I think she loved the dinner and her gifts.  Score!

Gerald finally made it here after a long absence.  His last trip here was in February.  It is so good to have him with us!  He has settled right into our routine so easily.  It is easy to have long conversations with him, which I so enjoy.

Rayne and Dominic were here this weekend, to get furniture for their new apartment.  They are so excited to finally be out on their own.  So we consignment shopped on Saturday.  I love doing that.  There are so many lovely, quality things for reasonable prices, usually.  

Many of the local Christmas celebrations are not happening this year.  The neighborhoods seem to be compensating with more Christmas lights than ever.  Our area is alive with lights.  One of the local businesses, Scentsy, has a beautiful light display, designed for walking through.  We all went last night.  It was lovely!  I love being surrounded by festive lights.  It can't miss putting a song in my heart.  We walked through them with delight. Here are pictures of Rayne and Dominic, Gerald and Angelica, Jessica 3 (wife of grandson Scott) and Dorothy at the Scentsy lights.

 

Thanksgiving

 October brought cooler weather quickly.  It has snowed here several times.  But, typical of the Treasure Valley, it melted by lunch time.  Still, it is beautiful to behold.

Our daughter Audrey visits us about once a month.  This month Cliff came with her.  They spent last weekend with us.  What fun it was to have Cliff with us too.  Sadly, I didn't get any pictures so you will just have to take their visit on faith.  Cliff loves to cook.  This visit he filled us with all sorts of ideas for cooking and food prep.  He introduced us to air frying.  We had fun trying that out.  I suppose I must admit that cooking isn't something I do for fun.  It is more of a necessity in my world.  But Cliff makes it sound pretty fun to try new things.  So this year we ventured to try deep flying our turkey.  Seth took it on and it turned out quite yummy.

Cliff and Audrey left for their home early Tuesday morning.  Their son Isaiah and new wife Aver arrived that night, on their way to California to spend Thanksgiving with the Adam-Harts.  They are such a cute couple and so much in love.  It is still their honeymoon you see.

CoVid has made a different world for all of us.  This year our Thanksgiving was smaller than it has been for some time.  By small I mean it was only the four of us celebrating together.  Reed and Dorothy had lots of D's family at their home so we didn't share the holiday with them either.  But it was nice.  How can we live in this wonderful place and not feel grateful.  We all worked together preparing our Thanksgiving dishes and all helped cleanup.  Here's a glance of our meal.

It was small but sweet.  We are counting our blessings every day.  One of those is our grandson, Vincent (son of Reed and Dorothy) who just left for his mission.  He was assigned to Australia but until it is open he will serve in the Washington DC mission.  He's there now and loves it so far.  We all joined in to wish him well; here is Seth and Angelica with Vincent.  

In the midst of troubled times, it is good to see the good.  There is much to see, and thank God for.

Winter in November

 The election for President of the United States is over.  At least it seems to be.  Votes are in but there are some claims of voter fraud.  But as of now Joe Biden is our new President, in a very close race between him and Donald Trump.  This is the first election that Seth is old enough to vote in.  He took pride in voting with us on election day.

There has been more division and violent demonstrations surrounding this election than I've ever witnessed before.  So there was some fear for what might have followed the election.  But so far all seems peaceful.  Perhaps that is because we have an incoming President who is Democrat.  At any rate, whatever the final result, we will adjust and make the best of it.

The Sunday following the election I had a major attack of vertigo.  It was sudden and strong, bringing on a visit to the ER.  They took all sorts of tests and found me healthy.  They treated the dizziness and resulting nausea and I returned home just about normal. My sweet daughter in law, Dorothy, followed me around and waited on me for two days following.  She is an angel.  

Last weekend Dorothy, her two boys and I drove to Seattle; me to visit daughter Jessica and family, Dorothy to visit her grandson, Alex and his parents.  Chris and Jessica are remodeling their kitchen.  Jessica has wanted to do it for a long time and, now, Chris is on board.  They are excited.  Jessica invited me to come and help with their plans.  So we talked kitchen most of the weekend.  It was fun.  Chris has part of the kitchen torn apart and is thinking that, if he works weekends, he can be finished by February.  He wants to do just about all of the work himself.  How wonderful to be able to do that!  Here's a view of the kitchen.  He's starting with the ceiling and upper cabinetry.

Dorothy and boys stayed in a hotel near her son James, wife Alejandra and Alex.  It was boarded up, along with all buildings nearby.  We suppose it was in anticipation of demonstrations, which Seattle has had lots of trouble with.  It was odd and a bit chilling to see it.

The hotel.

Surrounding stores.

We walked from the hotel to James and Alejandra's apartment.  It was dark, but, despite the boarded up buildings, we felt very safe.  It was Alex's 3rd birthday.  We celebrated a little of it with him.  Here you can see him opening a gift, with the help of Bruce and Timothy.  It seems happy with it.

Dorothy drove us home on Sunday.  It was an odd way to spend a Sabbath but we made the best of it.  The drive started out beautifully.  There was not a cloud in the sky in Seattle, a good omen we thought.  But as we dove the clouds gathered.  Then snow flurries.  Then the heavy snow came, requiring chains.  Luckily for us, all-wheel drive cars were exempt.  Good news since we didn't have chains.  But it was slow going and a little scary as the darkness gathered around us.  Slowly we moved forward until at last we drove out of the snow and reached clean, dry roads.  What a relief.  Happily we arrived home safely Sunday evening.  

Here is our first sign of trouble ahead.

It's been a quiet week.  The kids school routine keeps changing, thanks to CoVid.  Idaho has returned to phase 2 reopening since an uptick in cases.  Sigh.  I can't help feeling that we'd be better off just getting back to normal, with each of us responsible for taking our own precautions.  This has been a year of change and I feel a sense that things are not going to return to the normal we've enjoyed before.  It isn't just the Virus; there is a growing anger and animosity among some that is a little frightening.  What is our future, I wonder.