Aloha everyone. The title of this post refers to last night’s BYU football game’s final score. I was worried about this one, but they actually played pretty good most of the game, there were just too many dumb mistakes here and there that led to their loss, plus a fluky mishap on the quick-kick punt that doomed them. Ugh. We shall see how they play next week against another team that is starting to play well at the end of the season. Enough of that, let’s go back to the beginning of the week and see what we learned.
Monday, very in early in the morning, Franklin was having bad dreams. He woke up crying and Mom went in with him and told him he was ok then came back out. A few minutes later he was crying again, so she went back. The third time she said it was my turn. So I went in and laid on the floor next to his bed and patted his back until he calmed down. Then I tried to sneak out. Nothing doin’. Every time I tried to leave he would sit up and start to whimper. So I just laid there for awhile and learned that even though I am 64 I can still sleep on the floor. I fell asleep for about a hour and then woke up because my arm was falling asleep. But I was able to finally sneak out of the room, even though the door squeaked and woke him up the first time I tried. I finally just pulled it open really fast and made it out and back to my bed on the couch. We woke up a little later than usual due to our interrupted sleep, but had a relaxing morning. Then we went to a local park to take a short walk out to the bay. It was a nice area where we learned they allow dogs to be off leash. So it was fun to
see some dogs running free and having a couple of them come up to us to say “hi” as we walked past them. The walk was a short one, less than 1/2 a mile, but it was a nice trail and the little “beach” area had some rocks to skip on the water. I’m not going to try to put all of my photos in this post, but here is a link that you can see the photos of our time there in Bellingham.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/XrtCpsoesLa6nHtSAWe got to see a fairly large ship get pulled out by tugboats to begin its journey to somewhere and we also had a very short train pass over the top of us on the train trestle that we walked under. Franklin was unimpressed with both of those events, he just wanted to throw rocks. The rest of the day was mostly relaxing at the apartment. We did take a quick trip to Costco to get a couple of items and Mom bought a tri-tip for Burley to smoke. So I took that over to him as well as picked up the van to take into Discount Tire to get the slow leak in our tire fixed. I walked from the tire place to
the apartment, a little over half a mile, and then headed back at the time they said it should be fixed. I walked all the way there only to learn that they had sent me an “update text” letting me know it wasn’t ready yet and wouldn’t be for another hour and a half. Ugh. So I walked back to the apartment and had a little snack while I was waiting. Then it was finally time to pick it up, so I walked back to the shop. I learned that they had found a very small screw in the tire, which had been causing a slow leak since the first day we bought it. What was nice was even though I had to wait quite awhile for hem to get it fixed they did it for nothing. Freeeeeeee! Wahoo. I drove it back to the Burleys and then used their Subaru to drive back to Zoë and Aaron’s apartment. That night we read and watched TV and then played mahjong. Aaron was the big winner with two wins out of four and Mom didn’t get any wins.
Tuesday I woke up pretty refreshed, since I didn’t have to spend any of the night on Franklin’s floor. Wahoo. I spent the morning getting our van reregistered, and then Mom and I went to meet Dan Meeker, who is going to build our house, and his son at the
Starbucks just across from the apartments so that he could discuss the placement of our house on the property. He had drawn up a map which showed where the house would sit on the property, as well as where all of the trees were, and we needed to decide what
trees needed to be taken out. We also learned we would need to put in a new tree for each one removed, so we needed to show on the map where we wanted those planted. We also learned that we needed to move the house forward towards the road, eastward, a bit because there is a setback to the buffer for the wetland that we were encroaching on. Wetlands. Silliness! In the afternoon we drove over to the property to actually look at the trees and where the house would sit to determine if we were ok with the proposed location. We were. We decided we would have to take out 11 trees and would plant 11 new trees along our westward fence line. We spent some time playing games and chatting with the Burley kids and then Zoë and Aaron came and we all had a marvelous tri-tip dinner with cornbread and beans. Yum! That night I finished reading
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. Wednesday morning I woke up early and took a re-look at where we were putting the house. We decided we wanted to change it. I also realized that we had left the map at the Burleys and I was meeting Dan at the
Starbucks again to give the map back. So I ran over to the Burleys and grabbed the map and walked out to the spot to verify where we wanted to put the house. I felt good about our change and noted that on the map and then drove back to the apartment. I met Dan and showed him our ideas and he was good with that. We then decided to get out and go for a walk. There is a short trail not far from the apartments and that is where we walked. It was fun going ahead and hiding and popping out to scare Franklin and then have him try doing it to me. We spent most of the rest of the day resting and chatting. Then I ran to
DQ to get Blizzards for everyone. I got an Reese’s Pieces Cookie Dough Blizzard and learned that they put more stuff in it than ice cream. If I do that again I’ll ask if they can put half the normal amount of “stuff” in it. After we finished our ice cream and Franklin went to bed we played more mahjong. Mom was the big winner this time, and I was the big loser.
Thursday morning we were up at 5:30 to have Aaron drive us to the airport. We met the Mumfords in the airport. We learned that they had just returned, about a week ago, from being FamilySearch missionaries in Nauvoo. We also learned that they are the parents of Tom Mumford, who Burley has talked about possibly joining in the future in his law practice. Small world. Our flight was on time and smooth and when we landed in Las Vegas I texted Keith to let him know we had arrived. I had texted him earlier and he said he could meet us for lunch, since we had a 9 hour layover. He let us know he had a meeting at noon, so we took a
Lyft ride to the strip and went to the Bellagio because I have never seen the fountains there. Well, we learned that they are getting set up for the
Las Vegas Grand Prix, which is happening next weekend, so they had shut down the fountains and put up control headquarters boxes for the directors of the race right in front of the fountains. Sadness. We did get to see some of the other sites, including the Las Vegas version of the Eiffel Tower. We went into the Bellagio and got some yummy pastries from their Patisserie and saw their very cool oversized Christmas carnival getting set up. We ended up down the strip at
the M&Ms store where I learned that my M&Ms that I bought at Costco was a great deal compared to the prices in their store. They were charging $9.49/half pound and my jar that I got at Costco worked out to be about $3.60/pound. Quite a difference. I love peanut M&Ms. We then met Keith at the Excelsior Hotel entrance and drove down to the
Five Guys hamburger joint for burgers and fries and a milkshake for lunch. Yum! We got caught up on the latest with him and his kids as well as bringing him up to date on our plans when we are finished here and then he took us back to the airport. Did I get a picture with him to share on here? Nope. Fail! Our wait in the airport went by pretty quickly and then we boarded and flew back to Provo. Bruce met us there with our car and we took him home. As we were driving there the low pressure light came on for the car. We stopped and checked the tires and they all seemed fine. But we drove to a gas station to put air in them, but their air machine wasn’t working. I bought a tire gauge and checked the tires and they all seemed fine, so we drove home with no problems.
Friday morning we had our T/R day in the morning, so we went and worked out at the COB gym. We learned that they have taken down more of the scaffolding around the temple, pretty cool. It is nice to be able to see at least one side of the temple with no scaffolding on it. When we were finished I ran to Costco to grab some things and put some air in the tires. Even after airing them all up the low pressure light stayed on. Weird. What was also weird was their
airing station. They don’t have the typical hose with a little lever you push. Instead you set the desired pressure you want for your tires on the machine and then hook the nozzle, which latches onto your valve
using a locking type mechanism, to your tire and wait for it to get it to the desired air pressure. Things are always changing. I got home and we watched a
Hallmark Christmas movie with Mom which was like some others I have seen as far as the plot goes. Rich girl sent to quaint “real” town to do nice things for them or she loses her trust fund. She falls for the handsome lawyer guy in town and learns to be
real. It was called
A Reason for the Season. We were assigned to the 2-6 shift and when we got to the library we learned that it was very quiet there. They had less than 50 people all day from our floor and US/Canada that we officially helped using our
Get Help system. I did help Ambika, a guest that comes in every day and works on different FamilySearch projects, about 8 times. I think she missed me being there and decided to use me more than the other missionaries she usually asks to help as well. I did another “last”. I worked on and sent in my last extensions for our service missionaries that want to continue serving in the library. We closed down our floors and went home at 6pm. Mom went and played pickleball and I watched a couple of episodes of
Elementary.Saturday we got to sleep in a bit and then got ready to go into the library at 10am. I was immediately “accosted” by three different people asking questions and forgot to sign in. By the time there was actually someone to help, they had assigned the person to someone else because they didn’t have my name show up as available in the system. Ugh. Mom did sign in and was able to help two people with research in Italy. That has been a super smart move on Mom’s part, doing Italy. She has been called to help with that more than Netherlands. We ran home for lunch and I got to watch a little football. Then it was back to the library. I helped a guest who was trying to access a microfilm. He could see an index of the record he was looking for, but couldn’t access the record. So we
looked for it online and found it was blocked there. I asked the staff about why we couldn’t access it and I learned that sometimes deals were made with records depositories that we could have access to their records for a certain length of time and do indexing, but we never received the actual records. Good to know. Mark Day surprised us. He just came walking in. He was here for Brother Mahe!s funeral. It was fun to see him. Did I get a picture? Fail again! I worked on another Segerstedt line…Lars Larsson and Anna Larsdotter…and was able to find her parents, but not his…yet. We closed down at 6pm and when we went outside we learned that they were turning some of the Christmas lights on around the Tabernacle. It brought smiles to Mom’s face. Me too. We like the lights! We got home in time to watch the end to a couple of close games. Then I stayed up late and watched the BYU debacle. Sadness.
Today I got up and read then got ready for church. We walked as usual. It was 35° outside, but there was no wind or snow so it wasn’t a bad walk. They had two young women speak about their experiences in seminary and they were fun to listen to. It is good to know that good things are still happening there. I then taught the
Gospel Doctrine class. We were discussing Ether 1-5, but I started the class by having someone read Ether 6:1-11. I then asked how this story parallels our story of going on a journey here on this earth and what they can learn from the Jaredites’ experience that they can use their own lives? That turned into a good discussion and I think it went well. We walked home and I went to work on this post while Mom made an egg concoction that was very tasty. She is now working on putting up more Christmas decorations and putting together Mara’s blessing dress. She and Zoë started it in Bellingham. She is using material from Zoë’s wedding dress for the dress. Fun stuff.
So I hope you had a great Sunday and a great week. We did.
Love you all molto molto!
BE GOOD!
Sister and Elder Mom and Dad
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