February Happenings

It has been an eventful couple of weeks. There have been a lot of things going on, and Paul and I have had a number of experiences both separately and together.




Since the Christmas vacation, Paul has been remodeling the upstairs master bathroom. Our bathroom includes a separate room that has a toilet and shower/tub in it. This is the room that he has been working on. The tub had a fiberglass shell surrounding it on three sides and that was removed, the carpeting on the floor was removed and the floor and all the walls were replaced with a beige travertine style tile, with interest detailing in a layer just under the ceiling and about 18 inches lower again. The detailing was in a terra cotta color and is very attractive. Paul also made a little niche (alcove) in the wall across from the tub, which is just lovely. He worked on it almost every night for nearly a month. He finished up the last pieces of tile and did the grouting the first week in February, and then I spent one whole Saturday working on a final cleaning thoroughly washing down the walls and the niche and cleaning off all the excess grout and bits of glue and plaster. Then I put grout and tile sealing on the whole room and we have begun using it again. It is really nice and we are both really pleased with the way that it turned out. Paul did a really wonderful job. He also replaced all the fixtures in the tub so we have a new spout, water valve, handles and shower head. They are in polished nickel and we also have a new shower rod to match. Paul also put a little corner shelf in the tub wall and also a built in soap dish, so it is a very deluxe place. This has added value to the house and it is very pleasant to use. I have been enjoying it very much.
Paul finished up his work in the bathroom during the same period of time that he was trying to figure out why he had persistent and escalating pain in the left side of his back. The pain although intermittent for a number of years moved to a new level during the summer. Paul was continuously awakened during the night with pain severe enough to keep him awake the rest of night. He finally went to the doctor who recommended that he try a softer mattress to see if that was the cause, since nothing else seemed to be indicated. But when that didn’t work, he went in for a CT Scan. The technician who was reading his results diagnosed him with Nutcracker Syndrome. When his doctor received this news, she didn’t even know what is was—it is rare and almost never discovered in isolation, usually in conjunction with some other difficulty. Here is a little information about it. In medicine, the nutcracker syndrome—also known as nutcracker phenomenon, renal vein entrapment syndrome, or mesoaortic compression of the left renal vein—is a compression of the left renal vein between the abdominal aorta (AA) and superior mesenteric artery (SMA). The popular name “nutcracker syndrome” derives from the fact that from one view, the SMA and AA (with some imagination) appear to be a nutcracker crushing a nut (the renal vein).
On February 13, he went to the University of Utah Medical Center where he underwent outpatient surgery to correct this difficulty. The doctor inserted a three inch metal stent into his renal vein to keep it from collapsing when pinched by the two arteries and to increase the blood flow that had been constricted. The surgery was considered a success. While Paul is not 100% yet, he is feeling better. He did not have invasive surgery, they made a small incision in his groin and did the surgery laproscopically. It is pretty amazing. The surgery took about an hour and he was in recovery for two hours and then discharged. He will see the doctor again on the 2nd of March.
Paul felt well enough on Sunday evening to join with me and many family members for a birthday dinner at Grannie and Granddad’s house. It was celebrating the birthday of Emily Dailey. It was one of the most attended dinners in recent memory with Stephen, Steve, Paul and I, Philip (Camille was working), Peter, Emily, Laura, Jon and Gabriel, Merrick and Philip along with Grannie and Granddad.
We had a really great dinner, Hawaiian Haystacks and a tasty meringue and fresh raspberry dessert. After dinner we sang Happy Birthday to Emily and then we went around the group telling something happy from our life at the moment. It was nice to hear the good in everyone’s life.
On Valentine’s Day, Mom called me and asked me if I would like to attend the Utah Symphony that evening. She and Dad had tickets, but Dad had a cold and Paul was still not up to an evening activity following his surgery, but the two ladies were available so off to the Symphony we went. The guests that night were the King’s Singers. I was exposed to them before I was married and I have always enjoyed them. I have seen them perform quite recently. They were here two years ago as the visiting artists for the Church’s Christmas Concert and they were also here during the Olympics and I saw them in concert both times. They are delightful performers and charming men and they sing so wonderfully that it is always a pleasure to be at one of their concerts. I enjoyed it very much.
Paul and I have made a wonderful new purchase this month. My printer had given out before Christmas, but I hadn’t gotten around to replacing it, and we finally did that with a combination printer, scanner, copier and fax machine. With this new machine we began scanning scrapbooks that Paul had been given responsibility for after his father passed away. We wanted to make the pictures and documents available to family members so I have been scanning and we have been identify the pictures and Paul has been loading them onto a website that he is filling with family documents and pictures. It will be something really wonderful when it is completed. In the meantime we have put five albums up on the site so far. It has been a good activity to keep us busy during Paul’s convalescence.

Target

     It has been a day over a week since Paul and I took Target to South Valley Large Animal Clinic to have him put down.  I can't think of how many times I have cried over this during the last week.  I have cried alone and I have cried along with Paul.  It was a very sad thing.

     We started out to have a fun day sleigh riding in Park City with Bruce Kartchner and his two grandsons, and we ended up barreling down the canyon with Target in the trailer trying to get to the vet as quickly as possible.  In a freak and tragic accident, the sleigh overturned and then Target dragged it empty and on it side for about a quarter of a mile, and in the process damaged his rear leg/hoof beyond repair.

I have many happy memories of Target, who joined our "herd"--usually two or three horses, as an unbroken 18 month old, and turned out to be a fine riding horse.  I haven't been out riding nearly as often as Paul or even Erika, but most of the rides that I have been on in the last six years have included Target in one capacity or another.  In the last few years, I have usually ridden Rory while Paul has ridden Target.  We have had some eventful rides together.  And I have watched Paul train, and delight in Target.  Paul has gotten much satisfaction from working with Target these years and we are so glad that we got a chance to own him.  Our greatest regret is the lost 20 or so years that we would have had with him, without this unfortunate accident.  I pay my respects to him and all that he has been to our family.

January Book Clubs

This year my opportunity to host both my book clubs came in January. Bibliobabes met on January 6, 2009 to discuss Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy and on January 22, Bookworms met to discuss The Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens.

Bibliobabes has eleven members although at any given meeting we have around eight in attendance, but this January meeting we had ten of the eleven. Petra, our fearless organizer and leader, encouraged a group photograph to celebrate the New Year and the occasion.

In honor of one of the characters in Jude the Obscure, Drusilla, the baker, I served an all bread refreshment, with banana bread, a lemon cream cheese filled pastry with cinnamon apple topping, a wonderful hot Parmesan cheese casserole bread and fresh rolls as crescents, cinnamon rolls and rolls with butter and jam. There was herbal tea and hot cider to wash it down with.

I thought that Jude the Obscure was by far the darkest of all the Hardy books that I had read, and I expected there to be a lot of antagonism about it, but because Hardy is good at characterization and because he is deep in his own way, there was a surprisingly upbeat discussion about the book and its characters and no one said they out-right hated the book. In the meantime there were a few crazy moments, especially when a large segment of the table broke out in a lively version of Hey Jude by the Beatles.

Bookworms has eight members and six of them were present. This is a very companionable group and I especially enjoy the comments of the members. Everyone is very gracious about the book choices and we tend to safe books. However, we don’t hold back on the endings in the event that someone hasn’t read to the end, and we did have to share with one member that sweet Nell does die in the end, although one keeps hoping that she will get back to London somehow.

Bookworms is a slightly more staid group, so there was no boisterous singing but they, too, had good and positive things to say about The Old Curiosity Shop even though it was LONG. Dickens had some great asides, particularly one about conscience, where he describes it as being very elastic in some people. We spent some time talking about that.

I’m glad that book clubs are a part of my life.

Woodrow and Natalie Arrington's Wedding

After a fun Christmas Day, we received a huge snowstorm on December 26. It snowed most of the day. It was a difficult situation because Marilyn and Howard and their family were traveling with Grandma Kern to Salt Lake in preparation for the marriage of Woodrow Arrington to Natalie Thompson on December 27th. We tidied up from Christmas and waited out the day. Grandma and the Arrington’s finally arrived around 2;30 p.m. The Arrington’s visited for a while and then left Grandma and Mikyla and went off to the Little America hotel.

Saturday morning, the Kern’s with Grandma headed off to downtown Salt Lake for the day of wedding festivities. The first item on the agenda was a wedding breakfast in the Empire Room of the Joseph Smith Memorial Building. This was a very lovely affair with many expensive extras added to the decorating. The bridal colors were black and taupe with red accents. The tables were all set with taupe tablecloths, and black bamboo chairs with taupe bows tied to the backs of each chair. The tables were set with gold chargers and black napkins folded into bishop’s miters. The floral tributes on each table were three foot thin vases with a red rose and red rose petals at the bases. It was very dynamic to see when we walked into the room. There were also huge clear blocks of ice with a frozen red rose inside on either side of the entrance. There were table assignments, and a master list to find where you were to sit. The single cousins were all at one table. Paul and I were at a table with Bee and Ed Kimball, Grandma Kern, Rob and Cindy, Kern, Ralph Kern and Woodrow’s bishop and wife—(last name Judd). The meal was very tasty, including a salad course, chicken filled crepes, and cheesecake for dessert. The mother of the bride did a multimedia presentation of a scrapbook that she had made called “Once Upon a Time”, and each of the parents of the bride and groom said a few words. The breakfast started at 10:30 and was concluded at around 12:30., we were to be at the temple at 1:50p.m., so people milled around and then went off to the temple across the plaza.

A sealer named Elder Brown performed the temple sealing and it turned out the Paul knew him from his translation days. Elder Brown had worked in audio-visual and they had been in meetings together. He did a very nice job and the ceremony went very smoothly. It was held in one of the large sealing rooms and the place was full. Two benches were brought in to accommodate the overflow. There were Kerns and Arringtons represented, as well as missionary companions and friends and the entire Thompson guests as well.

When the sealing had been completed, we waiting in the upstairs waiting area for the bride and groom to come out, but after a long wait, we left without being in any pictures. We returned to home and Paul and Grandma went to feed the horses. At about 7:00 p.m. we left to go to the reception that was held in La Jardin of the Rose Shop. I knew this was going to be a green house—and I have been to other receptions in this kind of facility and they are very nice. This was very exceptional. There were lots of twinkle lights, and pathways wandered in an out of greenery displays and it was warm and inviting. The bride’s aunt had made a Snapfish photo book, which was what was used as a guest book that I thought was a good idea. You could look through it and sign where you wanted. There were four bridesmaids including Mikyla and Natalie’s sister and the colors were very nice and striking in this setting. Everything looked great. The food was also very interesting. There were crepes with fruit, caramel nut, or chocolate toppings, lots of fresh fruit and finger sandwiches in buns for the refreshments. There were tables set up around the shop with beautiful floral arrangements on them and framed pictures of Natalie and Woodrow. There were lots of family members there and we enjoyed visiting and being with them. Philip and Camille who didn’t come to the wedding or the breakfast did join us at the reception and that was also fun. We are very happy that we were able to participate in the happy family occasion.

Christmas 2008

We have had a great Christmas. It has been wonderful to have all the children at home for Christmas day. We made a few changes in our Christmas traditions and had a few of the old ones hold over.

As always we have had a Christmas Eve activity here at Oak Valley Drive. For the past several years we have had a Christmas Eve surrey ride. This year it was so stormy and windy that we decided that it would be unwise. Nevertheless, Grannie and Granddad came over for Christmas Eve dinner and our Christmas devotional. They arrived at about three thirty and we visited and then watched a DVD –The Stonecutter. This was not a Christmas DVD, but it had a wonderful message, and it had been a Christmas gift. Then we put on dinner and ate in the dining room, decorated for Christmas. K.C., Peter and Erika were present for this, as well as the Gates grandparents. It was a traditional dinner, with turkey, dressing, potatoes, green beans, a jelled salad and rolls. For dessert we had chocolate pound cake with chocolate chip mint ice cream and chocolate sauce. After dinner and dessert we had our Christmas devotional, which included Christmas missionary memories of Peter, K.C. and Granddad, and Christmas caroling, Erika playing the piano, Paul playing the guitar and the rest of us singing. (Some numbers were better than others.) K.C. had a version of the Christmas story from Luke and Matthew on his Ipod and we listened to it, and just as things were winding down, Philip and Camille arrived. They had their Christmas Eve with Camille’s family but then came over so that we could celebrate Christmas morning together. Camille had to work at 12:00 noon until 6:00 p.m. on Christmas Day so they came so that they could have Christmas morning with us. After the Christmas Scripture story we had hot chocolate. Paul gave one gift to everyone on Christmas eve. There were gift certificates for everyone. We shared our week at Westgate with Grannie and Granddad, Peter and Philip and Camille, and Erika and K.C. got ski passes. Then Grannie and Granddad left. (One of the changes that we made this year, was that we didn’t read, A Visit from St. Nicholas—it will be saved to be used when there are grandchildren; we have no more children at home now.)

Another change that we made this year was that Santa didn’t come to our house. All the gifts were wrapped this year and placed under the tree. Paul did the majority of the wrapping starting in the afternoon and then doing more wrapping while I was cleaning up the kitchen. We got to bed about 12:30p.m.

Paul was the first one up on Christmas morning, he left to go feed the horses and I got up and set up the table for Christmas breakfast and did some of the preliminary stuff. When Paul got home, and the children began to wander in, we went into the living room to begin unwrapping gifts. We were able to unwrap for about a half an hour then had a break for breakfast (Breakfast Sausage Pie—a great recipe, but the sausage was too spicy). After breakfast the unwrapping began again. The four children surprised me with season tickets to Hale Theatre, and Paul got us a set of Adirondack chairs for the patio. Everyone got some nice gifts and we were very contented and happy. I think everyone felt that they got things that they wanted and needed.




Camille gave the accessory that provided the best photo opportunity for Christmas morning. And the pictures of the children in their ‘do rags” were fun to take and funny to look at.

Later in the afternoon we headed off to Grannie and Granddad’s house for Christmas dinner with Stephen and Steve. Grannie, or course put on a great spread—this time ham and all the fixings and eggnog mouse for dessert. We exchanged gifts with Stephen and Steve—I had made a quilt with Nancy’s T-shirts with a matching pillow, and I had tickets for the Hale Theater, a family photo, cookbook and CD of Cowboy Poetry for Grannie and Granddad. I thought that we would probably play a game of charades, but we just visited and left in a significant snowstorm and arrived home tired, but happy.

Christmas Parties Galore

We have had a couple of very busy Christmas Party weeks. And it has been fun and has gotten me in the Christmas mood. Christmas activities are one of the things that signal Christmas for me.

The first week in December I enjoyed two book club parties. Bibliobabes had their annual Christmas party at the home of Petra Pinto on Tuesday, December 2nd. It is a nice group of women, and Petra originally has done the whole meal herself, but in the past couple of years she has been willing to let some of the other club members bring something, so this year I brought the appetizer, which was a Spinach and Krab Quiche. It looks very Christmasy because the green spinach and the decorative red food coloring on the Krab make it look rather “red and green” which is festive. It was interesting because it turned out to be a seafood evening. The other appetizer was chips with a seafood dip, and the main course was pasta and shrimp, so my contribution was a very good fit. We had a few activities after dinner. Petra had some word puzzles that we tried to solve, they were quite tricky, and the first one required that she give us a very big hint, but we did get into the spirit of it. Then we played a game of book title charades which I helped to lead, being a very big charade player myself. We decided that it was too easy however, because we used only titles of books that we have read in our bookclub and that was too small of a universe of books. It will be harder if we don’t keep so limited the next time we try it.

On Thursday, December 4th, Bookworms had their annual Christmas dinner and party. I ended up hosting it this year, kind of by default. Camille Mendel has been the hostess many times, but she had another party the next night and didn’t feel that she could handle the two back to back, and Jolene, who has also been hostess, was going to be late and couldn’t hostess, so I volunteered. Everyone was assigned to bring something so all I had to do was set up the party and make lasagna. This was also a very fun party and we laughed a lot. Paul went to bed before everyone left, and the last ones left after 11:00, so that was a late evening for Bookworms. We did a white elephant book exchange, and Shauna Syphus suggested a new way to pick the books. We had a very funny exchange about changing the tradition, in which everyone laughed until they cried, but we did end up doing it her way, which was new and fun. She had a story that included the words ‘right’ and ‘left’ many times and each time the word was said you shifted the book that was in front of you either to the right or to the left and at the end of the story you ended up with the book that was in front of you. There were some really interesting books exchanged this year. I got For Such a Time as This the women’s conference talks from 2007.

On the weekend, December 5,6, and 7th, we went up to the cabin and attended the Christmas concert that the BYU-Idaho choirs presented, which I have already reported about.

The following Tuesday, which was December 9, I once again hosted the Career Center Christmas party. This is a traditional event as well and we always have the same thing, and do it in the same way. We always have it on a Tuesday because I don’t have to work on Tuesday and can be home to set it up. We always have it at my house because I live the closest to the school and we always have Raclette because it is a fun and unique meal and also easy to prepare. The rest of the guests, which this year were Carolyn Chipman, Sandi Simmons, Linda Anderson and Nancy Reynolds brought other food items, the drinks, the salad, the appetizers and the dessert, so I provided the chopped up vegetables, the shrimp, ham and crab. It was a very fun luncheon and went on until well after 3:00 which was no problem this year because I didn’t have to go back to the school to pick up Erika, like I did last year and failed to do so because we were having such a good time. I was happy this year to host two parties early in the month because it gives me the incentive to get the house all decorated early and get the stuff that I am not going to be using sorted through and stored out on the back patio. I am using a lot of the same stuff I use year after year, but I am slowly getting rid of the stuff that I am not using anymore. I gave some stuff to the Deseret Industries last year and will probably give away some more this year.

Thusday, December 11, was the biggest and most time consuming party effort so far. It was the Back Country Horseman Annual Christmas party and Paul was the chairman this year. We put on a dinner and program and silent auction for about 80 people. Paul did the organizing and delegating and handled the program, the auction and the decorating, and I did the dinner. This included ordering a party favor for everyone in attendance, this year large forest green bandanas, and also setting the tables and decorating them. I bought pine garlands from Roberts’s crafts and then attached red bandanas to them bunched up and pulled through the greenery so that they had a kind of poinsettia look. I put disposable green tablecloths on the eight banquette tables that I was setting, and used bright red plastic plates with the green bandannas centered on each plate and tied with a length of red raffia. The tables looked very festive when they were set with the red and green table decorations and the red plates and green bandannas. The room looked very nice, one of the members brought a tree and decorated it and several women brought decorations which were spread throughout the room. The tables for the silent auction were covered with red disposable tablecloths as well and so they looked like a party as well. I worked for three days solid making the food, but the evening came off really well. The menu is pretty standard, year after year and I didn’t deviate. Bruce Kartchner brings his huge grill and serves as the grill master. I ordered 80 New York strips from the local Reams grocery store and they did a wonderful job on them. I also bought four packages of Tyson frozen chicken breasts that were also grilled and so there was plenty of meat. During the previous three days, I made four big trays of funeral potatoes, and three pans of green bean casseroles, and six batches of brownies. The last day I did final shopping that included soft drinks, ice cream and the makings for two huge Caesar Salads. As it turned out the meat was wonderful, tender and well trimmed and very delicious by many accounts. There was plenty of food, and the brownie sundaes were a big hit. Everyone was very pleased with the dinner. People were also very generous with donations for the silent auction and things sold well and a lot of money was raised, and the program was very entertaining. Paul had arranged for Gordon Thomas to come and “be Santa Claus” and he came and they did some poetry exchanges and then Gordon made himself available for pictures with Santa Claus in the red sleigh that Paul brought as part of the decorations. I got to know a few of the women in the club better as they came and helped to set up the room and do decorations. It was a long and exhausting day, but we felt that it went off very well and were glad to have participated in it.

Saturday was the annual Christmas Concert in the conference center with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and the Orchestra at Temple Square. The guest singer this year was Brian Stokes Mitchell and the orator was Edward Herman. It was a spectacular of grand dimension and we enjoyed it very much. We went with Grannie and Granddad and went to dinner at Sizzler first. This was in part a reward for all the effort that Paul and I had gone to for the Back Country Horseman Christmas party; we felt that we deserved a little pampering after all that hard work.

Sunday, December 14th we attended a neighborhood party hosted by Bob and Marilyn Heiner. It was a lot of fun and we had some nice visiting with old neighbors and ones that we didn’t know very well. This is the first year that we have been invited to this party which has been going on for several years. Everyone is invited to bring an appetizer (I bought the same Spinach and Krab Quiche that I had made last week for the book club party) and then there was a delicious frozen chocolate pie served after everyone had had a turn around the appetizer table. Apparrently this party has been going on at the end of the Oak Valley drive for some years, but this year the Frisks and the Shenks and the Secrists and Kerns were added to the guest list—so it was fun to be a part of this party. It was an enjoyable evening and a terrific end to two weeks of non-stop partying.

Weekend in Idaho: Island Park and Rexburg

We spent the weekend in Idaho. On Friday evening we headed up to the cabin. It was cold and had snow there sometime in the past, but it wasn’t particularly snowy or icy. The roads were clear and dry the whole way and we made it there by about 10:00 p.m. Paul set up the torpedo heater in the doorway to the garage and started a fire in the fireplace. I changed the sheets and started the heated bed pad and the space heater in the bedroom and by the time we went to bed it was quite toasty in the cabin. I never even bothered to unpack the cooler, we just kept it in the garage and went out there when we needed something.

In the morning, I heated up some seafood quiche that I had brought and some hot chocolate and herbal tea and made some Pillsbury caramel rolls, and we had a tasty breakfast. Paul did some errands over at the Kern Parents Cabin, some collecting and removing of some items Grandpa had requested, and went out to the pasture to collect some stuff there, and then came back to our cabin. In the meantime, I worked on folding napkin bandannas and tying them with raffia in preparation for the Back Country Horseman Christmas dinner while listening to Jude the Obscure.

Then we headed off to Rexburg to attend the 2:00 dress rehearsal of Erika’s Christmas Concert. It was the same program as was going to be performed in the evening and we watched the technical part of the performance get ironed out. We hadn’t really decided what to do in the evening, not having decided whether to stay and attend the real concert in the evening, but after watching the dress rehearsal we decided that we would stay for the evening concert as well. We took Erika to an early dinner at Arby’s and dropped her off at home. Then Paul and I went to C-A-L Ranch and then went to visit Ralph and Connie. At about 6:50 we picked up Erika and went back to the Hart building for the evening concert. It was much better than the rehearsal and we were glad that we got to see both versions. Erika’s Women’s Choir was just one of the performing groups, and it was a nice Christmas-y concert. Afterwards, we headed by to Island Park and then went to bed.

Sunday morning we attended meetings in the Island Park Ward at Mack’s Inn and then checked out of the cabin and drove to Idaho Falls where we stopped to visit Lee Jacobson. He is now living in an Assisted Living situation and is 98 years old. He doesn’t see very well and is hard of hearing, but still knew us and we had a nice visit. He probably had been told of Grandpa’s passing, but when Paul talked to him it was as if he was hearing it for the first time. He teared up when we told him that Grandpa had passed away in a very sweet and tender moment, and remembered him as a wonderful friend and one who he had been on many trail rides with. We were glad that we had a chance to visit with him for a few minutes. And then we were back on our way home.

All weekend I had been experiencing some discomfort with one of my wisdom teeth. And by the time that we got on the road home I was quite uncomfortable. Monday morning I called the dentist and got in to see him at 9:30 a.m. He took a look at it and said, “This tooth has got to go.” And so within fifteen minutes it was gone. It came out really easily and the bone had receded, so now it is just waiting for the hole to heal up.