PS

The Christmas cards still aren't out..... (see November post, recently posted)

2 old posts and one new one.....

I had two drafts listed that I had started and not finished. I decided that it wasn't how wonderful the blog was but that it was done so you all knew what was going on. So there you are!

Christmas and the New Year have to this point flown by with hardly a chance to enjoy them. I took off for Pocatello shortly after Christmas to spend some time with Mom and Dad as Mom recovered from an unexplained(to this point) illness. I had a terrifying adventure on the way home and am not thrilled about going back up until the roads are clear. I think that I knocked my muffler or something loose in my spin and am checking it out tomorrow after going visiting teaching at 7:30 AM!!!! There should be a law against that! But I got a new companion and the sister who used to visit her is who we now visit and they did it at 7:00 or 7:30 in the morning! I am barely functioning to tie Larry's shoes(which I have been doing for the last 6 weeks) at that time of the morning.

Speaking of Larry, he will be having surgery at the end of this month. His back is bad, he's taking Lortab to survive and the doctor has finally decided to do something about it. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that when the nurse called to change his appointment, I let her know not only how miserable he is, but how miserable I AM!!! Lack of sleep, being the main problem. Poor Larry doesn't sleep well and so neither do I. He can not get comfortable and is trying a new combination of blankets, foam pads, golf balls, pillow forms, back stretchers, leg stretchers, etc...each night.

I read on Jeremy's blog the idea of 52 books in 52 weeks. That is a great idea and corresponds with one of my Christmas gifts. Amy gave me a cool journal that I will be using as my book journal for listing the books I read and my reaction to them. It's a beautiful book and I have already made some entries into it. I will be going in a few weeks to my favorite of my three book groups and getting a whole list of books to read. Each year at our after Christmas meeting, we do a gift exchange(of books, of course!). This year three people gave Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin. I was one of the three. I LOVED this book. The subtitle is "One Man's Mission to Promote Peace One School at a Tome". From the back of the jacket, a short synopsis..

"In 1993 a mountaineer named Greg Mortenson drifted into an impoverished Pakistan village in the Karakoram mountains after a failed attempt to climb K2. Moved by the inhabitants kindness, he promised to return to build a school. Three Cups of Tea is the story of that promise and its extraordinary outcome. Over the next decade mortenson built not just one but 55 schools- especially for girls- in the forbidding terrain that gave birth to the Taliban. His story is at once a riveting adventure and a testament to the power of the humanitarian spirit."

This was a fascinating book from the historical view and from the informational view of the country and also Mortensons's efforts to build his school. How easy it would have been to give up, but he didn't and his perseverence can teach us all something. Anything worth doing is worth doing well....and something that is very lacking in our society a Promise made is a Promise Kept! I learned more about that as we talked in Sunday School about the Oath made to Zoram by Nephi and the knowledge that they would die before breaking an oath. And yet how easily we see promises, oaths and covenants made and broken.

To go along with this book I read an article from the September 2007 National Geographic on Pakistan. And wasn't it interesting that the week after Bhutto was killed, her struggle was highlighted in Parade Magazine for all to see who don't read a paper on a regular basis.

I worry for my grandchildren.

Sleepover

We had a sleepover with Taylor and Easton. We had loads of fun making gingerbread Christmas trees. Here are a few pictures from the night.

UTAH RANKED MOST DEPRESSED

That makes me so sad.....I saw a report by a psychiatrist that states it is from High expectations and lots of guilt because of organized religion. Wow, are we good at "should'ing on ourselves. I should do this. I should do that, I should have done this....Many years ago I heard a phrase "I shall not should on myself today." I am trying to use that in my life. I try not to use should in my vocabulary. I can use the word could, because that allows for choice.

I thought I would take the time while Larry is out of town to do an update. If I did it each time he was out of town, our entries would be much more often. It has been a busy last 6 weeks for Larry. He has been to Germany twice, Brasil twice and to Minneapolis sometime in between. He also got his million mile status notification and is very tired of the travel. His back is still very sore and we hope that it will get some rest while he is home for the month of December.

I am sitting in my basement, while up above me my living room floor is being installed finally. Hopefully my hardware will be next and then the trim and finding someone to do the backsplash. My living room furniture will be delivered somewhere around the 12th of December. I'm not sure how the furniture wil look with the paint and so may end up doing some type of treatment over the yellow paint. The temple has been closed for the last two weeks and so I have been busy cleaning out closets and drawers, going through the last 5 or 6 boxes in the basement that are left from the kitchen. I really need to decide what in those boxes will be going up into the kitchen.

I loved our Thanksgiving Holiday. It was wonderful to spend time with my extended family. I think that my daughters gained some very valuable insights into family dynamics.

Our first Christmas party is coming up on Saturday. The ward is having its party the first Saturday of the month to avoid all the other conflicts. It will be a very pain free party. We have divided things and each of us have a fairly short list of things to do for it. We hope to set a wonderful tone for the Christmas season.

I have Christmas cards to get out. I think I will do some type of photo montage of what we have done throughout the year. However, since my computer crashed, I have very few of the addresses of friends that I used to send cards to every year. I keep hoping that somehow I can get them all back, but some only send cards every other year. And since they haven't heard from me for a few years, they may not send them at all. I miss my friendships that I ahve formed over the years, but am grateful for those who keep in touch. I told my kids that all I want for Christmas is a work day where they can all be here to work on things in the basement room. I have a ton of books that we will need to go through.

Our Hawaii Vacation, Part II

The second part of our vacation was the "working" part of the vacation. Our hotel and most meals were paid for at the Grand Wailea Resort Hotel and Spa( http://www.grandwailea.com/). It was a beautiful and relaxing place to spend a few days. We arrived on a Wednesday Morning and Larry's scheduled shift was Wednesday from 1 to 5 p.m. for registration. I was there to help. It felt strange NOT to. We met some wonderful people as we worked the registration desk. Each meal we shared tables with different people from different areas of the world who are successfully improving their lives with their careers with Tahitian Noni International. It was wonderful to see the business from that end. All I ever see is the view from corporate HQ and manufacturing.
That evening they had an opening reception down close to the beach. The next morning we went to the general session and then spent the afternoon at the beach. The water was wonderful. It wa even warmer than the water at Tahiti, at least as far as I could remember. We spent an hour in the water and actually spent time talking to some distributors from Atlanta, Houston and Florida. The water was very clear.
I loved the grounds of the Hotel. I wish that I could grow Hibiscus at my home. I love the beauty of the flowers and they come in such vibrant tropical colors.
On Friday we had a "free" day (as compared to having to go to lunch on Thursday) and so we rented a car and went to the top of Haleakala Volcano. This is a dead volcano and the crater reminds me of Craters of the Moon on a larger scale. So we went from sea level to 10, 023 feet in a period of 3 hours. We also went through clouds into a beautiful blue sky, the only time we saw a truly clear blue sky the whole time we were onMaui. You could never tell from looking at the surroundings that this area of the island gets 35 inches of rain a year. Can you imagine what we could do with 35 " of rain in a year?
From the top of the volcano, it was so cloudy below us that all we could see was the crater and above. It almost floated. As we came back down the very windy highway, we crossed into a heavy rainstorm. From there we went to 'Iao valley, which gets 435 inches of water a year. It was like a jungle and as we were at the end of our day(there was a dinner we had to be back for at 5:30), we didn't have time to explore it. What we did see was quite lush.
It was a great day and there is so much to see that we didn't get the chance to see. HOWEVER, I think the big draw for me on Maui was the beach and the relaxation that it afforded us. I think that this is the first vacation Larry has really spent time on the beach relaxing. It was very nice. And that is how we spent our Saturday was once again on the beach.

Sunday was the long flight home. After arriving in Salt Lake, we found that our luggage didn't make it on the Delta flight, as the belt at the Seattle airport had broken and the bags weren't transferred. So much for the end of our dream vacation.

So, Oahu: busy, touristy and crowded; avoid it after you have seen the obligatory sights.

Maui: beautiful, not so crowded and lots of natural beauty to see. I do hope to return there to see all I have missed, especially the whales in the winter.