Beneath the Wraps

           Every third Wednesday the Roseburg cinema reserves a theatre for the senior members of the community to see a recent feature.   The theatre doors open at noon during school but at 9:00 am during summer.   Roland decided we would head to the theatre, return to the house after the movie ended, collect Jenna and go and see Crater Lake.   Before the movie started there was the education and ticket drawing.   My ticket (or Roland’s ticket – I had them both) won a coupon for Lighthouse Bakery and Café which neither of us had been to or had even heard of for that matter.   Crater Lake got cancelled as it was pouring.   I was more excited about the rain than my disappointment in seeing the lake again (neither Jenna nor Roland have ever seen it in person).   Roland had heard that admission to the park would be free on Sunday.   By the time church had ended, Roland just didn’t feel like making the trip. ...

Field Day is a way for the elementary schools to transit from the last week of school to beginning the summer vacation.   The idea is for children to have fun playing games and friendly competition. I remember volunteering for Field Day at South Kearns Elementary.   I believe I had signed up three different years.   I know we got rained out at least two years, but there may have been one room in which we were able to complete the competitions. There were a parachute and relays, water games, racing with a spoon and keeping contents from spilling over.   I don’t remember being involved in another field day until yesterday as I had agreed to sub this week.   It felt weird going back after having been off for a month.   I felt awake when I left the house but somehow grew tired after having entered the building.   I don’t know why.   Every time I entered a classroom I seemed to go deaf. I was constantly asking students to repeat themselves...

from last year               Friends of Myrtle Creek Library did not have a booth this year.   Jenna was bummed as she desired to lure others to the booth as she had last year.             While at my swim class, one of the women stated that she would be manning the booth for the Riddle Library.   How awesome.   When I returned home, I let Jenna know about it.             Turns out that it wasn't a booth for the library after all, but rather the sawdust jubilee which is held the Saturday before July 4.   They had actually held it on the 4th every year until this year. It just wasn't conducive for many volunteers to put in the hours and try to work the next day.   There is a disappointment among many, but I for one understand the dilemma.       ...

            Mom and I had played "Scrabble" on occasion, but I preferred playing "Upwords".   We used to play several times a week. We had a dictionary on our kitchen table at all times - or that is how it felt anyway.             Our dictionary eventually got torn up a bit, but it was nothing compared to the tiles of disappearing letters.                 They would scratch off and we attempted to go over each with a marker until finally we just broke down and purchased a brand new game               Eventually those tiles wore out as well.   After I married mom purchased another upward game with a more spacious board and smaller tiles.   After she had gone into assisted living, I took the game to live in my household. ...

                I don't remember having met Shelly's mother before, but   she seemed to recognize me.   Many of our town's citizens had gathered downtown for the lighting of the tree on December 2nd.   I was making my up 2nd Ave. to the library annex when she spotted me and waved as though we had been buddies for quite some time but seemed to have lost touch.   She asked about Jenna and mentioned the desire for getting Shelly and Jenna together.           Shelly and her mom had moved to Myrtle Creek last year.   I don't know what time of the year Jenna had been invited to her birthday party, but I know we were already living in Tri City at the time.   It was the first time I had dropped Jenna off at a friend's house without meeting a parent first.   Shelly was attending the same middle school as Jenna but did not return. She has decided to do her schooling online in...

Two of our boys had said they’d come for a visit this week.  Roland took the days off so he could spend time with them. They both cancelled, but Roland still has the time off. Neither Jenna nor I have classes and so are on vacation as well.  Let us vacation – do something we don’t normally do.  We’d like to have Roland eliminate the TV.  We wouldn’t seriously be watching TV if the boys came?  Roland said we’d probably go to a movie? Are you kidding me?  I’m not spending 13 hours of driving so that I can go see a movie.  I want to visit.  I want to play games. After Jenna and I returned home from our jaunt downtown yesterday, we made a gingerbread house.  Roland and I held the house part together and Jenna did the majority of decorating. Roland added to it a bit when she was through.  I think we played three different games before Roland announced he was getting tired and would watch TV.  Jenna then fired quest...

I don’t know how old I was when I was introduced to the parallels between the ancient prophets and Jesus – and how there have been so many symbolisms throughout their life.   For example:   Pharaoh's orders to slay the male children (Moses) and Herod’s orders to slay male children (Jesus) Noah and his family in the ark for 40 days and nights as Jesus fasted for 40 days and nights   Joseph’s brothers (Judah in particular) selling him to the Ismaelites for twenty pieces of silver as Judas Iscariot had betrayed “selling” Jesus for silver pieces. Or Jonah having been inside a whale’s belly for 3 days before he was spit out or Jesus having been inside a tomb before the stone rolled away As well as countless others.   As I searched for scriptural references, I found these three links ( Moses , Joseph , Joseph Smith ) that go into a lot more detail than what I have here.   As the last speaker in our sacrament meeting yesterday related the account of...

          In these two posts ( here and here ) I mentioned how much Jenna loves learning about her family members. Until we had played Chatter Matters, she hadn't known that Roland used to play the trombone - or anything about his childhood really.   Usually it's just her and I, but she did manage to rope Roland into playing with us between conference.   After she won the game, we continued to go through the "family room" and "my room" cards so that Jenna could know Roland a little better. It reminded me of when my sibs and I would force the Ungame questions upon my dad.           My parents actually did three listed on the card - hiking was more of a seasonal activity   or annual thing - and it was usually a part of either a daytip or full vacation so the specific places we hiked were Yellowstone National Park or Timpanogos Cave in American Fork, Utah.  ...

It seems like there is always something to do on the 4 th of July.   Salt Lake has their big parade on the 24 th , but Provo (not incredibly far from Salt Lake City) offers a parade.   As mentioned in this post , one can find a parade somewhere during the summer.   I think there is one going on every week.    Fireworks are also shot in the sky throughout the summer.   Neighbors have their personal fireworks and there are shows throughout the valley on different nights and different locations.   Probably the most impressive are in Sugarhouse (offered on the 4 th ) Rice Stadium (University of Utah also on the 4 th ) Fire, Water and Ice celebration in Kearns (1 st week in August, I believe) and baseball stadiums as well as others.  I have a problem breathing around the fireworks.   Over the years I’ve tapered off from watching outdoors to peering behind a window – should I happen to be up (usually I’m in bed) Last year J...

Jenna and I have played “Crazy Countries” a game much like Crazy 8  Of course the Africa continent deck has a lot more cards than say Oceania or South America deck and so we of course don’t play with all of the cards.  We’re not learning countries so much as continents – for I have told Jenna that whenever we use a wild card to change suit, we have to say by continent rather than color. I took Spanish in 9 th and 10 th grade.  In my first year, part of our lessons included studying  the countries in South America .  We were also assigned pen pals to correspond with in hopes that it would help us learn our Spanish and assist our pen pal with his or her English. The map of South America looks the same way I remember it looking in 1975.  It looks the same way today.  And I am impressed by the stableness of the boundaries.  It makes geography so much easier to learn (and share).   After playing “Crazy Countri...