Forget the shovel, get a plow!

We don't often get big snowstorms where we live. Usually it snows a couple of inches and melts right away. Four inches can shut things down, because we don't average enough snow in the winter to justify spending taxpayer money on the cost of more snow removal trucks and equipment. Or so I've heard.

However, once every 4 to 7 years we get a really heavy snowfall. This is one of those times. At noon today I measured 13 inches on our side porch, which is not sheltered. It hadn't started drifting yet, so it was a pretty accurate measurement. It is expected to keep snowing till tomorrow morning. Predicted accumulation is expected to be between 14 to 22 inches (last I heard).

I've been sick, so I'm not venturing out, but I took a few photos from my open doors. If you click on each photo, you can look more closely at the details. The grainy appearance of the photos is actually snowflakes still falling. The top image is a view looking up the street from my side porch (and yes, that tree in the yard across the street does lean like that), the middle photo shows the drift piled in front of the corner of my front porch (which is sheltered by a roof), and the bottom photo is zoomed in on a couple cars parked on the street. When the plow finally comes through, all the cars on the street will be buried for days. They're getting buried now as it is just with the snow that's falling. The snowplows will just finish the job.

Sometimes I enjoy the rare heavy snowfalls, but today is our 34th wedding anniversary, and we had tickets for a concert tonight which we won't be able to get to now. We are definitely a bit disappointed about that. However, we have a nice, warm home, food to eat, games, and plenty of DVDs to watch if the Direct TV dish gets too covered with snow to get the signal.

If it's fall then it's time.....

To go to Cox Farm! Our oldest son and his family came to visit us in October, and of course we had to take them again to the Fall Festival. Although the farm mainly grows plants to sell in the spring, for the Fall Festival they bring in animals and produce. It's basically a farm amusement park that is only open in the autumn. The slides, rope swings, hay bales & tunnels, hayrides and animals make for a fun day for everyone, young or old. One thing we enjoyed that we hadn't experienced before was to see the milking demonstration. The farmer was quite entertaining, and the kids in the audience got to "milk" the cow a little. Even those that didn't try to milk the cow petted her.

Stranger Danger

Parents tend to coach younger children about the dangers of strangers, and you worry about your daughters, especially when they become beauties, but how often do parents worry that their teenage boys will be a target?

On Wednesday, Josiah went to an afternoon teaching appointment with the missionaries. I dropped him off at the local grocery store where the missionaries were waiting for him. I watched them walk off to a nearby neighborhood and went on my way. I was to be back to pick him up at 4:00 p.m.

At 3:55 p.m, I was on my way. Josiah called to see how near I was. I told him that I'd be there in 5 to 7 minutes. Brother Lowe was going to drop him off, and since I would be arriving soon, he left Josiah in front of the grocery store.

In the next few minutes while Josiah was waiting for me to come, a young man who was about middle to late twenties left his buddy near the doors of the store and approached Josiah and said, "Hey, give me a hug!"

Josiah was startled and responded, "No, thanks." Then he turned a little and walked a few steps further away. The man, who had a lighted cigarette in his hand, came around to face him again and again demanded, "C'mon, give me a hug, I won't burn you or anything!" Josiah said, "No!" more firmly this time and again stepped away.

Once more the man followed, and he told Josiah, "C'mon, two guys can give each other a hug and not be gay! Give me a hug!"

Josiah stepped back again and in a quiet but determined voice told him, "Get away from me!"

The man then asked, "What's the matter, are you Mormon or something?" (It was an easy guess, since Josiah was dressed like a missionary and was carrying his scriptures.)

Josiah responded, "As a matter of fact, I am."

The man, cigarette still in hand, said, "Great! So am I! Give me a hug!" He stepped closer.

Josiah really felt at this point that the man had malicious intent, and this time had to actually push the man away from him since he got so close. The man looked over Josiah's shoulder at a group of teen boys that were now fairly close behind Josiah. Josiah had been gradually moving closer to them as he kept trying to retreat from the man's advances.

The man then said, "I just want to tell you one thing."

Josiah replied, "What?"

The man said, "There is no God!" and turned and went back to his smoking buddy near the doors of the store.

I pulled into the parking lot right after that.

Had it not been for those teenage boys being there, the man probably would have continued to accost Josiah. We have no way of knowing what the man's intent was, but everyone I've spoken to about this incident thought the man was trying to harm Josiah in some way.

Josiah is 16. He is slight of build and looks younger than he is. The man who approached him was also slight of build, but he had a buddy not far away.

We should have reported it to the police immediately, but we didn't actually go in to make the report until the next day, after realizing that what happened probably had very sinister implications. The policeman asked Josiah if he would recognize the man again. Josiah told him that he definitely would. The officer then told Josiah that if he ever saw the man again, to call 911. Evidently the policeman also thought the incident had potentially serious implications.

Parents, warn your children, no matter how old they are. Teach them to YELL, "LEAVE ME ALONE!" if anyone approaches them in a way that makes them uncomfortable. Josiah never yelled or did anything that would have drawn attention to his situation. I have no doubt that he was protected by the Lord, and that those teenaged boys who just "happened" to be there weren't really there by chance.

If the creep had grabbed Josiah, I might have arrived in time to see Josiah struggling with him, but possibly not. It happened in so little time.

I am so grateful that my son is safe, but I will never again be so careless about my son being alone in a public place in broad daylight.

Indian River Inlet, Delaware

No matter where we go to the beach, it's usually about a 4 hour drive or more, depending on traffic. The last Friday Jeanne was with us, we went up to a Delaware beach that is part of the Rehobeth Beach Ocean Park. It's a nice beach with warm showers in the bathhouse. The waves aren't usually that great, but we still enjoy going there.

We went on Friday, Aug. 7th, the last weekend Jeanne was visiting. We went up and back the "same" day, so we came home pretty tired, and pulled into our driveway around 2:00 in the early morning on Saturday.

Water Country USA

We had to wait for good weather and for a time when Jon could get a day off work to try again to go to Water Country USA. We ended up with the perfect day, and had a wonderful time. However, even on a weekday, we had to wait in long lines at times. Going on that Saturday would NOT have been worth it, but the day we actually went was all we could have hoped. The photo and very brief video are of Jon and Jeanne at two of the slides. Josiah was with us, of course, just not in these pictures.

I love to see the temple....

Our daughter went to the temple for the first time. It was one of the main reasons why she came to visit. The Washington, DC Temple is so lovely, and a place of such peace! We stayed as long as we could and were among the last to leave that night.

Virginia Beach

Near the end of July, our daughter Jeanne came to visit us for two and a half weeks. We tried to go to Water Country USA near Williamsburg, Virginia, the first Saturday after she arrived. That was a big mistake! Vacation traffic was so bad that we spent twice as long driving there than we'd expected. Because the tickets are so expensive, we decided that we would go to Water Country USA a different day and go to Virginia Beach instead for what little time we would have. We didn't bother to put on our swimsuits when we got there. We just rolled up our pants and walked along the beach. There was a very cool Poseidon statue on the boardwalk, which was actually made of concrete. By the time we got home that night, we had spent 11 hours driving for about 3 hours at the beach.

In a day or two I'll post more about our summer fun and Jeanne's visit.

Pioneer Trek

In July was the Pioneer Trek. Our son Josh had gone on Trek. Our daughter Jeanne had gone on Trek. Our son Jordan had gone on Trek. This year it was finally Josiah's chance to go on Trek, and he looked forward to it with enthusiasm.

It was hot, it was hard, and it was worth it, according to all those coming home in our car. I managed to get there just a few minutes before Josiah came in with his "family" and got a good photo of him at the front of their handcart. I also took a photo of him with Ma and Pa Webb, the "parents" of his Trek family. Ma Webb was also the Prop Manager when our Stake did Savior of the World. When she found out that Josiah was my son, she told me, "I love Josiah!"

That's the kind of thing a parent loves to hear!

Especially for Youth

I obviously haven't been very good about keeping my blog updated. We've had a busy summer. The latter part of June, Josiah left for EFY (Especially for Youth) at Buena Vista, in the southern part of Virginia. He chose a week that some friends from last year's EFY were going. Unfortunately, no one else in our Stake was going that we knew of, which meant no one to carpool with. It's a three hour drive each way.

EFY is basically a spiritual "boot camp" with a lot of fun activities thrown in. One aspect that Josiah looks forward to particularly is that there are more girls than guys. Here is a photo of Josiah with all the girls in his group. Josiah's sense of humor and courteous manners made him one of the most popular guys in his group.

Blocked messages

A couple of days ago, I texted my son to see when he'd need to be picked up from an Eagle Court of Honor. I got no response back. So about 15 to 20 minutes later, I finally called, thinking they had to be done by then. He said he'd sent me two text messages. I never got them.

Two days later, and I still couldn't get text messages from my son. He could call me, but not text me. I could get text messages from others, and he could successfully text others, but he couldn't text me.

I finally found the problem. Somehow, not quite sure how, his number was blocked from sending me texts in the messaging settings. I fixed it, naturally, and now my son can text me again. At least it was an easy fix.

I realized afterward that there was a gospel lesson in this. Sometimes we do this kind of thing to our communications with the Lord. It isn't that He's not sending us messages, but through our choices we can unintentionally "block" Him from getting through to us, without our even realizing it. Then we think that He doesn't care about us because we think He isn't communicating with us. In reality, He cares so much more than we can even begin to comprehend. However, He doesn't trample on our freedom to choose, and we have to choose to let His messages and His love come through to us. We can block them, or we can correct the problems on our end so they'll come through.

By the light of the Silvery Moon

For some reason, every time we go on a trip, we end up making numerous trips to the local Wal-Mart. They're everywhere, fortunately. As my son Mike likes to say, "If Wal-Mart doesn't have it, you don't need it." That's not quite true, but they happen to be the closest store to where Mike lives, and they're open late at night. I don't remember what we went running out to get, but we were all trying to help Mike & Lena get things finished up in preparation for putting their house on the market. When Jon & I went out to the car on our way to the store, we saw the moon floating just above the trees.

Cousins

This is our second to oldest son with his son Jacob. Alyssa is behind Jacob, and they are playing together in this photo. Actually, Alyssa is sharing her toys, since she's too young to know how to be possessive yet. Jacob is about 8 months older than his cousin Alyssa.

Alyssa & her Grandaddy

This is Alyssa with Grandaddy. As you can see, she has discovered how to use her tongue. She's also quite willing to ham it up for the camera.

Baptism

Early in May we went to visit our married children. We went to stay with our oldest son & his family. Our second son and his family came to join us. The reason was that our oldest grandchild was baptized. Here he is with his dad, just before the baptism. It's hard to believe that he is 8 years old already!

His Grandma Bartholomew gave the talk on Baptism, and I gave the talk on the Holy Ghost. His grandfathers were the witnesses, and his daddy baptized and confirmed him.

IKEA Cart Riding

Okay, we're doing something we shouldn't here. This is my youngest son doing something which his older brother started: IKEA cart riding. The carts aren't exactly the easiest to steer, so if you're going to ride them, you need to do it when no one else is around. Okay, double reason to do it when no one is around: first, so you don't run into any innocent bystanders, and second to avoid getting into trouble at IKEA.

The pick up area is a nice gentle slope, so it works fairly well as long as you hold onto the handles of the cart and don't do anything particularly stupid. You may not go where you want, since it is pretty hard to steer, but my sons say it's a lot of fun!

Tender Mercies of the Lord

This has been a week of Tender Mercies of the Lord. First of all, my missionary son's letters seemed to have been lost in the mail. We had received a very brief email from him over a week previously saying he was mailing letters (plural) that day. That was welcome news since we hadn't had any letters or emails since he'd arrived in his mission. By last Monday, I was sure the mailman had misdelivered them to some neighbor, and I was crying and upset when I talked to my daughter on the phone. Later that evening, by "chance" a pair of missionaries showed up to Jeanne's FHE. She asked them if they ever saw Elder _______. They said they saw him all the time. So she told them to "yell at him" because "our mom is crying" because of not hearing anything from him since he got to the mission. Apparently they called him, because he came in with his companions the next day to the place where Jeanne works. It turned out he hadn't been able to find a place to mail the letters. His companions just email their families, and they get mail delivered to them by the Zone Leaders, but Jordan hadn't found a mailbox or place from which to mail his letters home. So he handed the letters to Jeanne, and she mailed them after she read them to us.

His being called to the same mission as Jeanne has been a blessing in itself in many ways, for both Jordan and us. Even though we hadn't gotten letters from him for weeks, at least we knew he was okay. Jordan and his companion were protected from a vicious dog that bit someone else right after. That's a tender mercy.

And Jordan is the "designated driver" among his companions since one companion doesn't have a US driver's license, and the other one is handicapped. His Mission President had told him that when stopped at a light, to wait till the count of seven after it turns green before moving forward. Following the Mission President's advice may have saved their lives. Jordan counted to seven after the light turned green, and when he got to five, a car came whizzing through the intersection. The driver had run the red. That was a big tender mercy, or at least a blessing from obeying the council of his leaders.

Another "tender mercy" was that we had gotten a tax bill for a previous year that said we had underpaid, and with penalties and interest, it had gone from $105 to $435. Ouch! However, we ended up getting some extra income that we hadn't expected, and it's enough to pay the tax.

I'm not quite sure if this quite qualifies as a tender mercy, but it was a blessing: I saw the pool truck parked in our shared driveway. It meant that our neighbor was having his pool drained and cleaned out in preparation for filling it and preparing it to be used for the summer. I also noticed the hose coming from our neighbor's back yard was set to drain the pool into our front yard! I went out and spoke with our neighbor. I remained pleasant and polite, even though I was unhappy about the situation. My neighbor assured me the water was clean, not chlorinated, and that it would drain from our yard right out to the street. I didn't believe any of his assertions, but instead I said that my yard doesn't drain well. Then I smiled and said, "If my lawn gets really long because I couldn't cut it due to it being too wet, then YOU get to explain to your wife why I'm not cutting my lawn." His wife gets really uptight if my grass gets long. The hose got moved so it went straight down the driveway, and somehow it reached just far enough that it drained into the street instead of backing down the driveway (which also doesn't drain).

And finally, here is the tender mercy that just happened today. I got a lengthy email from Jordan, and photos were attached. Among them was a photo he'd found in the basement of one of the buildings at the MTC. It looked like his grandma, but he couldn't find anyone who knew anything about the picture or who was in it. It was indeed my mother (she's the one on the left). She and my dad served a mission and spent a couple of weeks at the MTC before they went to the Independence Missouri LDS Visitor's Center. Apparently the photo was taken while she was studying in one of her classes. Jordan was the one I called "Sherlock" when he was little, because he noticed things no one else did. His two older brothers were at the MTC, but if they saw the photo and recognized their grandma, they didn't mention it. My mother died eight years ago, the day before Mother's Day, so Mother's Day is a little bittersweet for me. Jordan was 14 when she died, but still the fact that he recognized her was a little surprising to me. It was a tender mercy, though, and a nice Mother's Day present to me. Even better is that I'll get to talk to my missionary son on Sunday, too, and find out all the cool stories he said he hasn't had time to tell me.

Called to Serve

After delays for medical testing to find out why Jordan had unexplained high blood pressure, the doctors finally gave their okay for him to serve a mission. They still don't know why, because every test came back normal. They decided he either has a very slow to develop kidney disease (he has to take more tests in a year), or else that he just got unlucky with the genes, and probably the latter. Anyway, he got the all clear to go as long as he served in the USA.

When he opened his mission call, we were surprised to hear that it was to the Salt Lake City South Mission. I have a brother and a sister living there. Still, it's nice to know that if I need to get something to Jordan in a hurry, all I have to do is pick up the phone and ask one of my siblings to drop whatever he needs at the Mission Office.

Here are a couple of photos taken at the Missionary Training Center (MTC) when he reported there in March. He only stayed there for three weeks. Today he went to his actual mission.

Jeanne and I went with him to the MTC. Since I've escorted Jordan's two older brothers to the MTC previously, I thought it would be easier this time. It wasn't. I still cried.

I really miss him, but I'm so happy that he finally got to go on his mission.

Pirates of Penzance

My daughter has been singing the role of Mabel in "Pirates of Penzance" this month. Needless to say, this proud mom saw the show multiple times and took literally hundreds of photos. She sounded beautiful, and gave her character a lot of personality! One of her favorite photos (and one of my favorites, too) was this one of her poking the Pirate King with her umbrella.

Savior of the World part 2

This is a little overdue. It's been a few months since my last post.

All through the fall our family spent time making costumes and attending rehearsals (for the musical production "Savior of the World" being performed by our Stake), on into the beginning of December. Coming back from Thanksgiving vacation, I could tell I was getting ill. Our first performance was December 5th. At the dress rehearsal I had almost no voice at all. I had many people praying for me, and I was given Priesthood blessings. I had some voice for the actual performances that first weekend, but I was disappointed that my singing was far from my best. I had hoped for a miracle that would make my voice whole, just for the time I had to sing. I learned that I actually got a miracle, but it was a bit different than the one I expected.

Between the Saturday matinee and evening performances on the 6th, I was handed a comment card that an audience member had filled out. The individual said that my voice her favorite and was truly amazing. I knew what had come out of me. It hadn't been anything to brag about. Somehow, though, the Lord had touched the ears of those who heard me so that what they heard was far better than what I could actually give. The comment card wasn't the only evidence that this had happened. Others that heard me thought I'd been healed, until they heard me try to speak afterwards. One friend who came to the performance and sat on the front row said she had no idea that I was sick when I performed.

The Lord always hears our prayers. And He always fulfills His promises. Sometimes the blessings just come in different ways than we expect.

(The above photo of my husband and I, singing/playing the parts of Elisabeth and Zacharias, was taken by a friend of Brother Toma, the director)