Service

Today I taught the lesson in Relief Society.  It is true that the teacher learns the most out of lesson because she's had the time to read, ponder and pray about the message.  The lesson in the manual was excellent and I hope I conveyed at least part of what was intended.  While planning the lesson I was reminded that I can do more.  I had two women in our ward share what the service they do has done for them.   One of the women has a day each month where she opens her home for "Days for Girls" where women come together to make feminine hygiene kits for girls around the world where these items are not readily available.  They have to be washable so they can be reused.  We take so much for granted here.  She spoke on how she schedules her service so that it is something she can do without thinking about it.  The other sister has a calling.  She's the ward "Refugee specialist."  She spoke about how she was inspired at conference (the one where the General Relief Society Presidency spoke on helping the refugees) to get involved.  She has worked for a year with a refugee family that has six children.  She said it has been really hard, and there were times where she thought she couldn't do it anymore, but she said, she has seen blessings, one of which is that she now knows she has the ability to love all of Heavenly Father's children.  I emphasized that there is a time and a season for everything, that not everyone is in a position to take on that kind of service responsibility, but if we are listening we can feel the promptings that the Lord gives to us for acts of service, however small. 

I always admire women like these two sisters who make such an effort to make service a part of their lives.  I am always glad that the church has service built into it; you serve in your calling, you fulfill assignments, you reach out to your neighbor, etc. 

Family also gives us lots of natural opportunities to serve.  I was able to serve a little myself this past week as I helped out with Adrienne's boys while she was in Europe (I didn't help nearly as much as the Green grandparents, but, nevertheless, I helped out quite a bit).   I think that the boys were totally spoiled by us (and even more-so by the Greens)

Making playdough

Singing with grandma

mom and dad are nearly home

Gunnar got all the way to the top

I also had opportunity to spend a short while on Saturday morning enjoying Nick's girls while he and Sara and Roy went on a bike ride.  I told Nick that Ori is no ordinary little girl.  She used the word, "hilarious," to describe Jennie, and she asked me "Can I play with the 'kinetic sand' grandma?  She has an amazing vocabulary for a 3 year old.  

Effie is crawling.  Her glasses have helped her
in her progression.  She's such a sweetheart.

Whether it's service to family or to those around us, we usually find that through our service, we are the ones that are blessed. 

Happy 4th!

Happy 4th of July.

We had a fun 4th that included skating with Caitlyn,  swimming and watching our grandchildren swim at the Green's, a wonderful BBQ, and then fireworks (courtesy of Mark Green-again).  Gunnar told us, "This is the best day of the year! The Fourth of July is my favorite holiday!"  And we could certainly see why, as he helped his dad light each firework for a fabulous display. 

Yuna

Finn and Adrienne

Caitlyn, Jieun, Dojin

Adrienne and Finn

Cait and Dojin

Ollie and AJ

The Green's really know how to spoil their grandkids

Gunnar started off the fireworks by leading the group in the
Pledge of Allegiance.  

We also celebrated Sarah Christensen's upcoming wedding when we hosted a shower for her and Paul.  It was a fun shower for several reasons.  Mainly because we got to see lots of family, and husbands and families were invited.  Nan made delicious BBQ pork, and provided the buns and some gluten free items, and I made some salads and desserts.  Char brought a salad also, and Jieun brought fruit, so we had an excellent meal.   I did make one horrible mistake in my efforts to provide a little entertainment to the children-- Roy and I went to the local Farmer's Market on Thursday and there was a little girl selling a "Gak" like product.  The mother told me it wouldn't be messy, "it won't even stick in the carpet--as long as you get it up quickly."  Luckily, I wasn't dumb enough to try out that theory, but I gave the kids (all my own grandchildren) the goo and they went outside to play with it.  Guess what--it was messy.  Very, very messy.  I had to take a scraper out the next morning, sit on the ground in 90 + degree heat, and scrape goo off the back steps, the driveway, and even some of our rocks.  There was plenty of it in the dirt, too, but that came up easily (coated with dirt, of course). 

Oh well, the joys of being a mom and grandma.  I'm sure it's not the worst mess I've ever cleaned up.

Front: Kenzie, Tristan, Jieun, Jennie, Yuna
Back: Spencer, Olivia, Peter, Cameron, Charlotte.

John, Sarah, Paul, Greta and Matt

Bruce, Nan, Violet, Kenzie, Tristan (Spencer and Olivia in back)

Phil and Steve

Roy, Catharine and Ruby

Jennie

Nan brought some various discs of photos for Dave, Phil, Christine and I.  She gave me one labeled, Philip and Catharine.  I picked out a few pictures of when I was small.  

Catharine

Catharine

Catharine

This picture is of me and my duck.  Apparently it adopted me and followed me everywhere.  I'm not sure why my parents decided to take the duck to my cousins house to live, but they had horses, and my duck met it's demise when it was stepped on by one of those horses.

(It's also amazing how far photography has come since then!)

Roy and I enjoyed an hour walk on Saturday morning, an hour or so of work in the yard (I did goo clean-up, and Roy worked on adding sprinklers to our garden).  We had a nice rest, and then did a little shopping at Harmon's (believe it or not, we think it's a fun date to go to Harmon's together).  It's a little on the expensive side (except for the Jicama is cheaper than anywhere), and they have gelato!

Saturday night also offered us the opportunity to attend a Dirty Pinewood Derby with the Elder's Quorum in the Young Single Adults Ward.  Dirty means no rules.  It was fun.  There were cars with balloons tied to them so they could get the "tallest car" award.  With the drag, however, they didn't go down the track very fast.  There were a couple of cars with barbie dolls attached for the ride.  There were some fun, creative cars.  We had a good time.

Dirty Pinewood Derby with the YSA's

We settled down for bed at around 11:00, and then Roy went down to check on Caitlyn, because she was coughing so hard.  He decided he was going to take her to the ER and have her checked out.  She has bronchitis, which is horrible, and it will mean she'll have to skip or go late to girls camp.  I'm afraid she's not too disappointed.  They got home around 1, but Roy didn't come to bed until about 1:40.   I think he went up to his office to work.

Caitlyn and I played, "How Great Thou Art" today in our ward sacrament meeting.  We've now played it several times.  We played it in our old ward and in Roy's single's ward, Crista played it with me in her ward in Logan, and Adrienne played it with Caitlyn in her ward.  Dan played it with Caitlyn is his ward, also.  Jieun has played it every time.  I think she probably has it down by now.  Next time we get asked to play, we'll have to come up with something else :)

We had a busy Sunday with church (Roy went to 3 Sacrament meetings: Ours to hear us play, his, and then a missionary farewell in our old ward).  We had Home Teachers and Ward Prayer, then we went to congratulate the missionary and give him a card.  It was on the late side when we got home, so we read my dad's book together and went to bed.  

A couple of mostly routine weeks (pre-July 4th Holiday)

 I took Roy to the hospital, early Monday morning, June 19, for his 2nd excruciatingly painful treatment.  This time (because of prior experience), I left him there and told the nurse to call me when he was nearly done.  I went home and took Caitlyn to the airport and then did housework to pass the time.  Roy wasn't ready for me until around 3:00. This time he went to bed when we got home and rested.  He said it has made his recovery this week a little better than last time.
This week I enjoyed a sewing/embroidery class; Roy and I went to the play 1776 with Lloyd and Gayla Allen, I spent a lot of time sewing while Roy went to his HAM radio camp (this year he didn't stay all night, but did a lot of driving to and from).
Also, Roy and I started reading Grandpa Cook's autobiography together.
We saw pictures from Max' birthday party.  It looked like he had a fun day.


As this week was so uneventful, I took a couple of backyard pictures to show how well everything is coming together.  Our garden has already produced about 5 yellow and green summer squash, 1 cucumber, radishes, and numerous herbs.

Garden Boxes

Week of June 26-July 2:

Caitlyn returned from Europe on Wednesday night. It's interesting to me that in many countries in Europe, marriage is becoming a thing of the past.  Caitlyn said that the road crossing lights are not a stick figure of a man anymore, but symbols that randomly change throughout the day from man/woman, to man/man, to the symbol for a transgender person, etc.  She said that her guide said that London is all about equality.  I thought it was ridiculous.  At least in our country, marriage is still the ideal for most people.
We were able to take her and her friends boating on Saturday for a fun day in the sun.

We bought a new tube on the way (I'm not sure I told the story of the tube we popped at Lake Powell).  You can ride this one forward, sitting down, or backward, kneeling.  It was a lot harder backward.  Forward it seemed impossible for anyone to fall off, which is good for the grandkids.  It is a really stable tube.

Sunday, there were many who bore their testimonies and expressed gratitude for the privilege of living in this country.  I am also so grateful for those who have given up so much for the freedoms we enjoy today.  Those who have fought and died for our country, and those, like Phineas Wolcott Cook and other ancestors who accepted the gospel of Jesus Christ and left everything they knew to give us a wonderful place to live, but more importantly, our own testimonies of the gospel of Jesus Christ that is the key to living wonderful, fulfilling and happy lives.  We are so blessed!
Our Sunday School lesson was about not allowing ourselves to be deceived, and our Relief Society Lesson reminded us to "Ponder the path of thy feet and let all thy ways be established." Proverbs 4:26.  Both of these lessons brought my thoughts back to my agency and the blessing that I have to be able to choose my path.  It's good to ponder our path often and make sure that we are not getting off the path by many small choices.


Sunday evening we had the family for our 4th of July dinner.  We cooked hamburgers and hotdogs, and everyone in Utah came.  We had little toy boats for the creek in our backyard.  We had told the kids to make sure their kids wore shoes and clothes that could get wet because we had boats for them to race in the creek. Gunnar came in and immediately asked grandpa where the boats were.  Roy brought out the plastic Dollar Store boats to show him.  He said, "grandpa, these aren't boats.  I thought we were going to be able to sit in them."  He was quite disappointed.  We had a good laugh at trying to put boats large enough for a child to sit in, in our little creek that is only about 4 to 6 inches deep.

 The water and boats entertained them for a long time.

Ruby

Finn

Dojin, Ollie, and Finn

Father's Day!

Happy Father's Day to my dad, whom I miss, and love.  To Roy and my sons and sons in-law, who all make wonderful fathers!  Also, Happy Birthday to Max on the 20th. He's the only June birthday.

We had nearly another week with Elise before she flew back to Texas.  She flew to Midland, where her in-laws live, because it was cheaper than flying to Houston.  Andy finished his test (the one that if you fail you only get one more chance to take it and if you fail it a 2nd time, you won't be a doctor.  I don't know what it's called), and was so lonely from being alone for 10 days, that he immediately drove to Midland to wait for Elise and the boys to get there.  They'll spend a few days with Andy's family before they head home.

While Elise was still here, she had a few things she had to accomplish.  First, she drove to Provo to visit grandpa Verl.  They stayed an hour, and grandpa loved having her there.  He didn't want her to leave, but she was exhausted from keeping Mav from breaking anything.

Tuesday Roy took Elise and the boys up to the Heber Creeper, because  Max loves trains, and because his birthday is coming up.  They had a fun ride, and were only momentarily scared when the bandits hopped on the train to rob it.  Max asked to go to the train again the next day.  

Roy, Mav and Max

Mav, Max

Roy with Mav and Max

Elise and I were able to sneak away from the boys for a short time to go to the temple one afternoon.  We picked a great time (3:30), Hardly anyone was there and we were in and out quickly. 

Thursday we got almost everyone to meet us at the Rec Center.  Yuna was sick, so Jieun didn't come with her girls.  We stayed a little over an hour and everyone had a great time. Adrienne doesn't use the Rec Center much because the Green's have a pool, but the boiler is broken right now so their pool is unusable. 

Ollie 

Adrienne and Finn

Max

Caitlyn and Mav

Finn

Apparently I didn't get pictures of Elise, Sara, Gunnar, and Effie.  They were there, too.

Ori

I took Caitlyn to a couple of doctor appointments this week.  Her jaw isn't giving her as much trouble, the Enbrel seems to be working with minimal side effects.  She does sometimes have an allergic reaction at site of the injection.  I also took her to the eye doctor to check for Iritis; inflammation of the eye that sometimes occurs with juvenile arthritis.  Thankfully, her eyes were not only inflammation free, but her vision is still 20/20.  If she has to have a crummy jaw problem, at least her eyes work well.  

Roy also had a couple of doctor appointments this week in preparation for his 2nd radiation treatment that will occur tomorrow.  Keep him in your prayers.  

Caitlyn leaves tomorrow for Europe with a group from high school.  It might be a bit quiet around the house.

It was a little different Father's Day.  Since Roy can't eat after lunch, we didn't have everyone over.  It feels a little weird on a holiday such as this one to be without our family,
AJ is coming over to give Roy a blessing tonight.  He will bring his dad to assist him because both Nick and Dan are sick.

I love you all.  The relationships we have with each other are the most important thing to me.  Thank you for trying to work out problems that are inevitable sometimes so that we can maintain the loving relationships we enjoy.  Have a great week!