A new Great-Grandson & a visit from the Jernon and David Kelly family

March 19, 2010

We have a new great-grandson. Easton Porter Adams was born at 10:15 PM on Tuesday March 16^th in the Utah Valley Medical Center, which is the same hospital where his grandfather Will was born almost forty-three years ago. Easton is six-and-a-half pounds and nineteen inches long

We had a wonderfully exciting weekend with Jernon and David Kelly visiting with their children from Utah. Since their son Steven had part is The Music Man production at his high school they couldn’t leave their home till Saturday morning. They arrived at my sister’s house late that night. They and Will, and David and his girls joined us at our home after church Sunday. Adryann and Brynneé had a grand time playing with Steven, Grace, and Dorian. Kaden is still too young to play very well with the others but he had a dandy time with our outdoor toys and the indoor toy box and leading his mom down to the lake.

We all got together again Monday evening for family home evening. There were marshmallows for roasting and hot dogs and cookies and yogurt pie. We enjoyed compliments and then a small memory lesson to help remember the order of the prophets for the verses of the children’s song “Follow the Prophet”.

My children will remember years ago dog-sitting for John and Ruth Copeland’s dogs while they vacationed. Sunday evening John baptized their daughter Porsha. We have been friends for over two decades and it was a thrill for them to reach that benchmark in their family’s growth in the gospel.

My sister and I saw two of our sisters on our visiting teaching route Thursday and Sis packed up a dinner for the third sister to. Sister Lorri Hamilton fell on a neighbor’s driveway and cracked a couple of ribs and wasn’t up to a regular visit but appreciated Sis’ generosity.

That evening I picked up the first counselor and secretary for our ward primary and we attended our stake primary leadership meeting. I visited Sister Bresch earlier in the week. Though she is making consistent slow progress it will still be some time before she is strong enough to return to her duties as our ward primary president. As the tempoary 3^rd counselorI am doing what I can to take up the slack.

Wednesday Daddy B.J. picked up Michael Pierson and he is joining our household for an indefinite period of time. He had become a hermit in his own home. I have taken him to seminary for two mornings and he is at least getting outside to ride his bike around a bit. Actually Daddy B.J. just came in and said he had taken him on a small hike to the top of the woods up the hill from Camp McKean. Hs mother has made arrangements for him to start with an Internet school next August. He has his scout handbook here and is a Life scout now with about ten months left to work toward Eagle, so that’s the plan.

When we go to Utah in May to pick up Benjamin we have been invited to stay at Jernon and David’s home. We are delighted and we know Benjamin will be also since he has learned to love their children through their visits to him in prison.

Will just showed me how to get to a video on the Internet. It was about our son David’s Kitsap Foot and Ankle Clinic and the stars were David, Adryann and Brynneé, Will and office staff. David provided all the dialog describing the care they can provide. It was just another way to advertise but it sort of made me feel like they were movie stars.

I have enjoyed phone calls from several of our children within the last week and it was a thrill to chat for a bit. Michael says that Jenna is doing well in her pregnancy and Anna Kate talks to the baby inside her mommy. Joseph likewise reports that Kathryn is doing well. The only bad part about planning the trip to Nathan’s graduation is that our grandsons won’t have arrived yet - both being about a month short of their delivery dates. So, I don’t know when we will get to see Joseph and Kathryn’s baby in person. Of course, Jenna won’t be up to traveling that far so she and Mike won’t be at Nathan’s Graduation. On the bright side, Michael and Jenna at least live close enough that we can drive up when their new little one is blessed.

Ruth has redecorated her piano room and bathroom with a paint job that involves a couple of colors and a stain that is rubbed off after being applied and highlights the color combinations. I look forward to seeing it.

Debbie spent a night chaperoning young lady participants from T.J.’s group at a theater festival. Three of her girls were up later than hoped as they first bleached their black hair and then dyed it the school mascot’s brightest color.

Adam has been welcomed as a guest in Sis and Cliff’s Salt Lake City condominium “hotel”. He moved up Wednesday. Sis and Cliff will be driving down from here Friday to help him settle in. When they return in a week they will be headed for a stand-by military flight from Fairchild air-force base in Spokane to England to visit Korb and Camera and their boys.

Nathan is moving closer to campus so we will get to visit yet another apartment when we meet him in May. He helped Adam with him move. surely he is gettin plenty of practice.

We love you!

Will and Mama Louise's trip to Utah

One week ago today Will and I visited Benjamin in Brigham City, Utah, He is within two months of being released. He told us that his being moved back to prison from Ogden last summer automatically dropped him from the program for rehabilitation training. He said he would need to reapply and that it could take six months to a year to get approved so that they would pay tutition for barber school for him. Sigh! So he now plans to come home to Bremerton with us right after Nathan’s graduation from Law School in May. Here he will settle whatever needs taking care of with possible past law infractions and apply for rehabilitation support and get on with education for a vocation as soon as possible. He praised Jernon and her family for their visits and letters and is excited that they are considering a move to Bremerton.
I visited with Jernon and David and their sons Steven and Kaden and daughter Dorian on Saturday. David has an interview next Monday in our corner of Washington in Shelton for a county administrative position. He will scout out any other job possibilities in the area also. If he gets hired they will gear up toward a move into the house just north of the one where my sister and I grew up and where Sis and Cliff now live. 628 Washington Ave. needs to be finished but major remodeling was completed a while ago. Steven is in his high school musical presentation Thursday and Friday evenings. Saturday the whole family including Grace will drive up. We are especially eager for Grace and Dorian to get to know our granddaughters Adryann and Brynneé.
After visiting Jernon’s I found Jan and Wayne Bales’ home which is within fifteen miles northeast of Sis and Cliff’s condominium in Salt Lake City. I do a lot of praying as I navigate by google maps or mapquest directions, which sometimes lack accuracy at least according to my interpretations. I found them and enjoyed my visit immensely. I shocked them a bit when they asked about Daddy B.J. and I said he was delivering the funeral sermon for Kristin Atkins Johnson as we spoke. I had forgotten that Kris assisted Jan and Wayne in caring for her father Tom Funk during his final months. Kris stayed with him nights so Jan and Wayne could get some rest. They loved her and had no idea she had passed away. We had known Kris and her family about a dozen years since I was assigned as her visiting teacher. We were at her youngest daughter’s baptism. Kris worked with Daddy B.J. as an office helper and he paid for her to take the test for an insurance license numerous times till she finally passed. Kris invited me to be her escort when she went to the temple for the first time. But, her mom contacted me ahead of time and surprised Kris by meeting us at the temple to escort her. Kris had type I diabetes since early childhood and had suffered greatly this past year. It truly was merciful for her to pass. Jan and Wayne told me about the passing of their daughter-in-law Joel’s wife at the end of December from cancer. Does it seem to you that as we get older we either talk more about death or at least are more aware of it?
Will's and my trip was two-fold in purpose: to celebrate Travis’s 12th birthday with him on the 4th and for Will to confer the Aaronic priesthood on him and ordain him to the office of Deacon on Sunday the 7th. Since Travis was staying home from school celebrating his birthday and Allyssa was home sick with a cold on Thursday, Mindie offered Ashton the chance to stay home too. Will took Travis away quite a while on a father-son date. During that time Ashton and Allyssa and I played four board games. Later I helped Allyssa make a batch of spritz butter cookies. Mindie bought two ice cream cakes and Will went to the China Wok restaurant and bought plenty of Chinese food for the birthday supper. Jordan is awaiting the start of a new job at a restaurant where the waiters deliver orders on roller-blades. He is working out weekdays with his mother at the gym and playing a lot of Internet computer games. Justin arrived home from school. Then Kevin joined the celebration after work. Because Tiffany’s baby is due in less than two weeks she decided her family would stay home away from Allyssa’s germs. I visited in Tiff and Chris’ home one evening and then Tiffany brought the children over to play on Saturday afternoon.
On the way down we took Ruth's four kitchen barstools and her nine volume set of The Work and the Glory series. I left them at Tim’s sister’s house. Ruth will be able to pick them up from there. We also took a baby afghan to Tiffany and dropped off one for Jorgen and Amy Goodman, who are also expecting.
Travis and Justin were given the responsibility of picking up fast offerings right after church. Their ward is so small geographically that they easily fulfilled their assignment on foot and since they started with apartments surrounding their own parking lot I was able to watch from Mindie’s doorway.
Will and I visited with the family the rest of the day Sunday and then headed home to Bremerton on Monday morning. We were privileged to stay in Sis and Cliff’s condo so I washed up our sheets and remade the beds and vacuumed and swept – not that that was needed – while Will dropped off copies of the book he recently put together to two publishers. We listened to Orson Scott Card’s “Ender’s Shadow” driving down and his “Empire” on the return trip. Will agreed that the books passed time well and he enjoyed the stories too.
The most interesting thing to happen since our return is that Dr. David Gent removed a piece of mechanical pencil lead about 8 mm long from the bottom of Daddy B.J.’s foot. None of us can imagine how that happened!