A Family Gathering in Honor of Zeke

Ezekiel (Zeke) Villarreal, my nephew, will soon be leaving to serve in the Tulsa, Oklahoma, Spanish speaking mission. Today he spoke in Sacrament meeting and did a beautiful job. He will be a great missionary! After the church services, family and friends gathered at Villarreal's for a luncheon and visiting.

Zeke and Alyna

We told Zeke he ought to take this picture and let his companions see if they could guess which one of these girls is hes girlfriend. To bad half of these are cousins and the girl he really likes isn't even in the picture.

After dinner, there seemed to be an epidemic of sleepiness. I loved the picture of Kimmy and Annie because it reminds me of the many times when my girls slept in exactly the same position.

This certainly can't be comfortable for all the girls.

Bonnie was able to sit down after dinner and enjoy a few minutes with Kara.

It was really nice to be able to spend a relaxed afternoon together. Everyone that wanted to, got to hold Mandy and Dan's new baby, Kara. Annie entertained us with her amazing kindergarten knowledge. Then she went in and put on her Halloween zebra costume and danced the dance of the sugar plum fairies. Very Darling!

Mostly family!

Andrew and Lindsay are becoming friends with all the kids Alyna's age. Alyna is amazed that they would want to hang out with them but really loves having them all be able to enjoy doing things together.

The Chairs

I have been pondering why I have been feeling so nostalgic about the old metal chairs that are sitting out in the backyard surrounded by fallen leaves. I bought them this summer at a local antique store. I've wanted some for a while now and was so excited when I found them at a reasonable price. They are similar to some chairs my grandpa and grandma Merrill had.

All through my growing up years, I spent parts of many summers with my grandparents on their farm in Idaho. They had a yard and garden much like ours, only much, much bigger. I remember planting flowers in the early summer, picking peas, and using the riding lawn mower. I also remember trying to find places to hide when it was time to weed the garden, pick the raspberries, and other less desirable tasks. There was never a lack of work that needed to be done, but, there were many evenings spent sitting in the yard, enjoying the cooler weather and visiting with the many relatives that lived in the area. My grandparents had some old metal yard chairs and although they are not nearly as comfortable as some of the yard furniture we now enjoy, it always felt so good to be able sit and relax after the work of the day was done.

I had only seen the chairs in their summer setting so to now see them in the fall, it has made me a bit nostalgic. They belong only to summer, green grass and times when people can sit and relax and enjoy their little bounce. Not to the cold and dreariness of winter.

I put them away today. I'm feeling sad - I'm not really sure why. Is it because summer it truly over and we will have to endure months of cold and dreary weather before spring arrives? Or, is it the yearning for days gone by, loved ones that are gone and a time in life that was much simpler?

Forlorn

FORLORN: sad and lonely because of isolation or desertion

I was looking out the kitchen window this morning and my eyes kept being drawn to the chairs that have sat sedately under our big maple tree this summer. They now look forlorn; the flowers and shrubs that stood nearby have been frostbitten, the tree has lost most of it's golden leaves and the sky is gray. All the other patio and yard furniture has been stored away for the winter and maybe these old guys should take cover also.

It's nice to know that eventually the flowers will return, the skies will be blue and there will be leaves on the trees and people ready to sit in the shade and enjoy the beautiful surroundings.

Here's a better entry written by Mindy:

It has really started to look like fall around here. All of our big trees are dropping their leaves faster than you can say, "Why are there two old chairs sitting way out under these trees?" Yesiree, fall is upon us which means the holidays are almost here. This is a time of retrospection and reflection, a time to look back at what we have done and where we are going. Who sat in these chairs? What would the sitter have seen from this perspective? Perhaps, whoever it was, saw a young man working hard at maintaining a large yard, a dutiful daughter washing dishes and staring out the kitchen window, or some silly kids going door to door asking the neighbors if they could rake up and take their leaves so they could make a bigger leaf pile in their own yard.

Mandy and Dan Welcome Their Sweet Baby

Mandy and Dan are now the proud parents of a beautiful baby girl. Kara Ann Gordon weighed in at 5 lbs. 11 oz. and 18 inches long. She is absolutely perfect. She looks a lot like her mom or Annie. Mandy is very relieved to not be pregnant and able to make plans for Thanksgiving and the holidays without worrying about the baby's arrival. Alyna and I went over to visit for a little bit this afternoon but we didn't get a lot of time to hold her because there were so many people who were in and out to visit. I'm sure I'll find another time to get a chance to spend time with her in the coming weeks and months.

Piles!

I've been trying to work at getting some things cleaned up and organized while Dennis has been gone. There are some piles I love to look at and work on and some that make me want to throw up my hands in despair.

I love piles of fabric and the projects that are waiting patiently to be done. Right now, at the top of that pile, I have some cute girly fabrics ready to make an infant car seat tent for Mandy's new baby. I have some table runners and wall hangings to possibly get sewn for Christmas, some bags to make for camping gear and outdoor games..... My fabric piles are extensive and so are the projects I would like to make when I have the time.

I love piles of books that are waiting to be read. At the top of this pile is The Help by Katheryn Stockett that I need to read before book club at the end of the month. Some of the others are: Saving CeeCee Honeycutt, Dewey (we bought this one for Mindy and she liked it), Magnolia Wednesday, The Weight of Silence, The Search, Saving Max, and A Thread so Thin.

I have a pile of hoodies and lightweight jackets sitting on the end of my bed. I really like them but don't have a space to hang them and I know where to put them all. It is that changing of seasons when the lightweight jackets are still good most of the time but it will start snowing and getting cold any day. I need to figure out what to do with them today since Dennis will be home in the morning and he probably doesn't want to share his half of the bed with a pile of clothes that aren't his.

I have piles of shoes. Actually, I just got my 20 pair of summer shoes packed away so the pile is looking a little better. Luckily the boots are still in their boot boxes so for at least a little while the pile is very manageable.

I have a pile, well actually buckets, of carrots that we dug up from the garden yesterday. They have mostly been washed but they need to be processed and frozen.

And then there are the piles of paper. I hate those piles!!! They are never ending and frustrating. I try to be sure that the bills never end up in those piles and that they get paid but the rest of it............ Some is stuff that Dennis should probably look at, or something that needs to be acted upon when the appropriate time comes, or that is interesting, or not, but maybe it should be kept and filed...... We don't have a very good filing system set up right now - just a box that all "important " papers get thrown in. That may just have to be my winter project!

There are piles of things that I have a love/hate relationship with depending on the time and circumstances; piles of laundry, piles of toys, piles of pictures to be organized and scrap-booked, piles of quilts, pillows and blankets, piles of pill bottles, a pile of food stuffs on the pantry floor, piles of stuff waiting to be put away or thrown away or given away, piles of shoes inside the front door, piles of dirty dishes....

Maybe piles are a sign that we are alive, busy and looking forward with hope. Maybe they are reminders of how blessed we are. And, just maybe, someday in the future we may look back to this time and wish we had some of those piles again, or not.

A Few New Things

Last week, my niece and nephew came over for the evening while their parents were at meetings. Todd asked if we always decorated for every holiday. Alyna told him that we decorate for every holiday and every season. Yep. I guess I'm kind of crazy that way.

For many years, this has been the main table decoration for Halloween. It consists of a wooden napkin holder I made about 22 years ago and a table runner I made when I was first learning to quilt, about 10 years ago.

This year I found this darling witches hat and loved it but didn't know what to do with it so I set it out on the table in place of the napkin holder.

Well, I didn't think the satin and feathers and such of the hat looked very good with the

cotton table runner so I went to my miscellaneous shiny fabric stash and bought a few more Halloween ones and - Wha-La! A whole new look. The boo candy plate is just waiting

to be filled but since we all have serious sweet tooths around here and some people

choose to eat candy for breakfast, lunch or dinner - well the plate

will just have to stay empty till closer to the big day.

Several weeks ago, we gave our big aquarium to a nephew that needed a low maintenance

pet. After having an aquarium for 18 years and having it sitting in the corner of our

kitchen ever since we moved into this house, it feels a little strange not having anything

there. I wasn't sad about not having to remember to feed the fish everyday as I was

running out the door, but I sure missed the cabinet that the aquarium sat on. It had stored

all our games that we play at the kitchen table as well as cookbooks and a few baby toys.

I thought it would be easy to find a new cabinet that would fit in the same spot but after perusing all the furniture stores in town, I was beginning to think I shouldn't have been so hasty in giving our old particle board one away. I decided to try the antique stores in town and finally found just what I was looking for. It was an old radio cabinet that the radio had been stripped out of. The seller was willing to fix up the inside and get it all ready for me so all I had to do was paint it. I am really happy about the way it turned out and it fits perfectly into the space. I'm even more happy not to have boxes of games and such sitting on my bedroom floor to stubble around!

I figure when grandbabies come, we can replace the plant under the shelf

with a basket of toys and books.

So, who wants to come play?

The Rest of the Vacation

Here are a few more pictures that I got before my camera was dropped in the water. That's one of the hazards of being someplace where one of the main attractions is water.

We hiked up the Diamond Head crater. It was a fairly strenous hike

but for old folks we did pretty good.

The last part was about a hundred steps - that was the hard

but the view from the top was spectacular.

We drove up around the coast, stopping at the blow hole and

various beautiful scenic beaches along the way.

We got to this bay at low tide but it was very different from the places we had explored in California at low tide. Dennis came equipped with the appropriate shoes and was able to get out on the far side of the bay and saw more than the little fish that I was able to spot from shore.

We went to the Waimea Arboretum & Botanical Garden.

Dennis swam out to the little waterfall. It hadn't rained much on the island

for a while so all the waterfalls were a bit anemic.

We stopped and got a plate of fresh shrimp at Giovaoni's shrimp truck.

The next day we took the bus in and walked around the old town part of Hololulu, seeing the palace, and other historic sites. We walked around China town and got some lunch there.

Other things we did included going to the Polynesian Cultural Center, and the Dole Pineapple Plantation. We shopped and ate and just enjoyed being in such a beautiful part of the world.