Beneath the Wraps

             When we first got together Richard was the most outgoing and quite social.   He seemed to have clammed up when we initially moved to Oregon – hermitizing behind his computer and not engage in social activities and I was the one out making friends along with Jaime.   We took an interest in our community while Richard seemed content to not be involved.  He has become more of social than when we first arrived.  We take turns, I guess – depending on the company I guess. The treasurer invited me to the get-together/party for the library volunteers.   I have been more actively involved with the library during these last four months than the four years prior – which really isn’t a lot.   I wasn’t even planning on attending except for Jaime wanted to go and ended up going to a gathering with her own friends. But Richard (who’d be driving me as I can’t see to drive myself) wanted to go and so we went last night. Th...

Yesterday was National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day.   I noticed the flags lined up and down the bridge as we made our way to the Ward Christmas party.    We had a brunch this year.   A 10:00 morning meal is great for so many reasons.   Breakfast.   Everything is catered.   No setting up of tables, decorations and so forth just to take it all down again (at least not by the ward members) no responsibilities of signing up to bring a dish in addition to reminder calls and a hodgepodge assortment of food.   I think the greatest plus is that it is light enough to see where we are driving.   The light invites.   Driving in the dark often seems so dismal. Roland had been asked to play Santa Claus who hasn’t been a part of any ward Christmas that we have been a part of in Oregon.   Roland had memorized a speech about how our focus needs to be on Christ rather than Santa – for Santa wants to worship Christmas in a righteous way an...

            Our class size varies at the pool.   We have had as many class members as 15 (our instructor had brought four members of her family to participate in our class on Tuesday) and as few as one or two (I did not attend on Wednesday but had heard that there were only two students to show) Yesterday there were seven students plus our instructor.             After our class ended, Jenna and I stopped by Millsite Park to look for the FMCL booth for the Myrtle Creek Festival as we had been assigned to man it during a shift yesterday.   It hadn't been set up yet.   We decided to return home for some breakfast and I texted Serena to see if she needed help with the booth.             R oland fixed French toast for Jenna and me before we returned to the park to help set up.   We were there for just over an hour before we left again.   Jenna ha...

                        Ever since Roland was called to the bishopric, he has asked our brother-in-law Bill to photographs various parties – namely Halloween and Christmas.   And every year there has been a line and a lot of names and email addresses and descriptions of those in the photo.   Roland has made it my responsibility to email each of those and every year I get frustrated with email addresses that don’t work or have been written down incorrectly and every year I have been stuck with pictures of people I don’t even know and have sent oodles over to our Relief Society president asking for assistance.   But she hasn’t always known either.             So this year I decided to make it the responsibly of those having their pictures – though I sensed a problem in the beginning as there were...

          The church was across the street from our first house.  The members used to do a Halloween party every year.  There would be a dinner, costumes and activities.           People would gather in the multipurpose room to begin with.  And there were 4-6 rooms off to the side where the children could go and participate in various crafts, games and stories.            One Halloween my family was asked to host a room.  We found one that did not have windows.  We set up a large cardboard box in the middle of the room.  Roland and the boys worked from inside the box.            On the outside we had painted pictures of tombstones, skeletons, ghosts and maybe leaned toward the scary icons of Halloween and not the cute pumpkins and such.   ...