Contemplations

It was great being all together at Christmas! Rachel and I wanted to finish the Book of Mormon before the end of the year. Each night we would get different voices to read the last days of the Jaredites and Nephites. It is amazing how the actions of leaders can influence so many people - for good or ill. I've thought a lot about the great blessings or curse this land has and how we call down promises on our heads or reap the consequences of our actions.

Though we miss Andrew we have our ways of including him

Time can be measured sometimes by glancing at Sheila. She grows before our very eyes and is smarter, faster, and much more willing to please than her human counter parts. But she does have the adolescent "only me in the universe" attitude down pat.

Rachel's December - Life is good!

Angel's singing

Rachel onstage, she and Jordon are the 1st clarinets.

Christmas Gingerbread houses!

Family is back together again - for a week.

Tuesday night lots of things were going on and it was busy around the house. Michael went straight to a basketball game on the bus from school but forgot to tell us where he was playing. Jeffrey came home early but couldn’t go. The Relief Society had a progressive dinner and I was making a soup to be at the Craig’s house by 6:00. Rachel was in a Band concert and needed to be dressed up and at the school a little early. Then Michael called and said he’d be late, the noise was so loud we couldn’t get much other than he was safe. We brought the soup over, I went to the store to exchange some things and Jeffrey and Rachel went to the concert where I joined them before Rachel played. We came home and got the news from Michael that the bus had broken down and he would be even later getting home and he was in San Leandro (too far to just go and pick up). My big project this week has been turning the office back into a bedroom for Nate and Matt while they are here for the holidays and in case Nate stays over the winter. While supervising Rachel in her homework, I finished cleaning out and packaging up boxes to go to the garage and sent the others to bed till Michael showed up. He came home around 10:30-11 and was ravenous but of course all the fast food places were closed. I had his portion of supper set aside but he wanted hot food now. I heated up leftovers and made a sandwich and he was ready to crash but Shelia still needed care. I figured out she hadn’t been fed because everyone felt everyone else had done it. So we all get to sleep and Rachel gets up around one o’clock distressed because she can’t breathe right due to congestion. So I take care of her and go back to bed. Then I remember I need to take a shower because my day will be too busy tomorrow. Quick shower and go to bed. But for some reason I can’t fall back to sleep, I’m so tired and I’m not sure what is wrong. I can hear the dog turning. I really wanted to go back to sleep. So I asked the Lord to have her whimper and cry if there is a reason I should be up. Be careful what you ask for, you’ll always get an answer. Sure enough she is crying and I get up to see what she needs. The back door is open – ahh. So I let her out to do her thing and then patrol the house to make sure everyone is safe and I don’t hear anything until Jeff leaves for work early in the morning and seconds later Michael is asking for a ride to early morning seminary. Ok, we might have been safe all night anyway, there was no evidence of anything wrong but I still felt blessed and protected. Nothing dramatic just content. May the Lord watch over and bless and protect you always.