My Weekly Letter ending 1/3/11

Monday, January 3, 2011

Dear Friends and Family,

I can’t believe that it is 2011.  Wasn’t it just Y2K?  Where has all the time gone?

Last Monday evening we stayed home at Grandma’s in South Jordan, Utah with Cookie & Alton.  We ate leftovers then started packing to go back to the Great State of Texas.

Tuesday morning Grandma fixed us a nice breakfast then Bob, Sugar, and I headed out for Laramie, WY and Cookie & Alton headed back to Huntington, Utah.  We had a nice trip to Laramie.  It was a beautiful ride with all the snow. At one point the wind was blowing so hard that we had a ground blizzard, but it didn’t last long.  When we got to Laramie, we went to see Grandpa’s tombstone. It is nice.  We then dropped by Bob’s Aunt Pauline’s home for a minute then went to his Aunt Zella and Uncle Bob’s home.  They only live about two blocks from each other.  Aunt Pauline followed us over.  We stayed about an hour visiting.  Aunt Zella made us ham sandwiches and pumpkin pie to take with us.  We made it to Limon, CO before we stopped for the night. 

Sugar did much better that night in the hotel.  We had a nice breakfast at the hotel then were on our way again Wednesday morning.  We stopped in Jacksboro, TX to see Charles and Amber.  They gave me a pair of nice warm socks and an iTunes card for Christmas.  They gave Bob a floating pen and a nice bank that counts the money in it.  While we were gone on our vacation, Charles had been digitizing our old slides.  He got three trays done—only about 13 more to do.  I am really excited to get these.  Later he will digitize all my picture albums.  We got back to Weatherford around 8:30 that night.  It was good to be home.  We met our new missionary.  He is Elder Stanworth from Delta, Utah.  He is a greeny.  He replaced Elder Burt who was transferred out.  We went through the mail and put some of our stuff away then went to bed.

Thursday was Eric & Angela’s 7^th anniversary.  That morning we got up and put more stuff away and started the laundry.  We found out that our missionaries are on foot now.  Elder Struhs lost his wallet just before we went on our trip and never found it so Elder Stanworth got permission to drive.  Last weekend when it was raining so hard, he had a fender bender in town with a Lexis.  He had only been in the mission field for three days.  Consequently, he can’t drive and they are teaching the lessons to the lady that he hit.  They will be able to drive again as soon as Elder Struhs gets a new driver’s license from Idaho.  Around noon Bob and I went into town.  We dropped off his old electric guitar to be cleaned, went by the water station to order a counter stand for a 5-gallon water jug, and then went to the theater in Hudson Oaks.  We saw “Tangled”.  It was good.  Afterwards we saw Heather Norwood with her husband and four kids.  We also ran into Greg Melven.  He officially retired from Lockheed on December 31 after nearly 34 years. He has lost over 90 pounds and is looking good.  He will be moving to Utah about mid January.  We then went to see “True Grit”.  It was also good, but we liked “Tangled” better.  From there we went looking for me an iPod Nano, but couldn’t find one so just came on home—everyone is sold out.  We decided to just use Bob’s old iPhone 3G as an iPod Nano.  It works.   I cleaned up the kitchen and finished the laundry.  I was working on my computer when Brian and Tawnya Payne came over to see us.  They were down from Lubbock, TX visiting Brian’s family for a few days.  Dr. Payne is doing his residency in pediatrics in Lubbock.  After they left, I went to bed.  The two Spanish Elders have spent the night here for the last week or so.  Not much missionary work is being done, because they have been hauling the English speaking missionaries around.

Dan woke me up New Year’s Eve morning.  Tonia was up all night—sick.  He wanted me to watch Katie and Madison while he went over to Trish’s to put a power pole in.  Don was home from the oil fields and Jack Sparks was coming over to help also.  He brought the girls over around 8.  I was NOT ready to get up!  I eventually put “How to Train Your Dragon” in for them to watch, then they watched the new “Karate Kid”.  In the meantime, Charles came over with a couple more trays of slides that he’d digitized.  I gave him the last 11 trays to take home and do.  He stayed til noon then went on home—Amber was on call at work and Sadie was with her dad.  I put “101 Dalmatians” in for the girls to watch until we stopped for lunch.  Dan came and got the girls around 2.  He stayed a while before leaving.  We had six missionaries show up just as Dan and the girls were leaving.  Everyone left around 3.  It was nice and quiet.  We thought about going to the movie again, but decided to just stay at home.  We watched TV until Bob got ready to go pick Michael, Karen and Megan up at Love Field in Dallas.  Their flights were running late.  They were supposed to get here when they actually left from Saint Louis.  I went to bed when Bob left.  You know what?  The New Year of 2011 got here just the same as if I’d stayed up.  Bob got home around 1:30am.

Trish woke me up at 7:13 to wish me a Happy New Year.  We met them at IHOP at 8:30 for breakfast.  Don was still in town so he came with Trish.  Marilyn came a little later.  The five of us had a good visit.  Afterwards we went to Walmart and then home.  The new road (B.B. Fielder) that runs along the South side of our new Church building is open.  It runs eat and west just past Hwy 51 (South Main) to just past Bethel Road.  Now we don’t have to go on the Frontage Road anymore to get to the freeway and to Lowe’s and Target and PetsMart and Best Buy.  It is much faster.  It will be interesting to see how it changes the flow of traffic around the new high school when school starts up again.  We put the groceries away then I worked on my computer.  I did the ward bulletin and made the schedule up for Relief Society and Priesthood lessons for 2011.  Later Gerin Wilde came over.  He has moved in with us until he leaves for his mission at the end of the month.  He goes to the Young Singles Branch and he works at our Walmart.  His family lives in Granbury.  He used to hang out here before Charles got married.  He is really a good kid.  That evening Bob fixed supper for Gerin and me.  Afterwards I cleaned up the kitchen and watched TV.

Boy it was hard to get up and get ready for our block of meetings at 9am yesterday.  We haven’t had the 9am schedule for five or more years.  Our meetings were good.  It was actually nice having them in the morning.  Steven Davis was there visiting.  He is coming over next Sunday for dinner—brisket, potato salad, hot rolls, etc.  When I got home, I watched TV until Bob came home.   We ate then Dan and his family came over.  They brought me an iTunes card and Bob a basket of 1940’s candy for Christmas.  They stayed for a couple hours until Reagan pooped her diaper and they needed to go home.  After they left, I stayed up and watched TV until 2 this morning.

I had a nice long talk with Stephenie on the phone this morning.  She is doing well and so are her six kids. She is such a good mommy.  After I got off the phone, Bob and I cleaned house for a while.  I miss having a housekeeper!  But Bob is helping me clean it, so I guess I can’t complain.

I’m going to close now—send this on its way—and post it to my blog.  Hope that you have a good week!