Without purse and scrip

Here's a picture for you: Two old grey-haired retirees in a Church bookstore. He has a brand new cell phone. She has to call youngest daughter to get information for putting name on a set of scriptures. The clerk is hovering waiting for the information. Long story short: it takes ten minutes to figure out the @##phone. Clerk is tapping her foot. Finally get the call through and Jennie isn't there. It was a little embarrassing! I reminded Garth that early missionaries went without purse or scrip (is that right?) and he's going with a top of the line cell phone, no less. A friend recently commented in a conversation about cell phones, etc. "If men can come up with that kind of technology by using less than 10% of their finite minds, think what God can do with his totally infinite mind!" Something to think about.

Elvis the Pelvis

According to KHQ, today is some kind of anniversary for Elvis so they mentioned his appearance on the Ed Sullivan show. That brought back a flood of memories! One of my fondest. Although my mom and dad never gave us much trouble about listening to rock and roll, they didn't like it very much personally. Daddy teased us about Elvis' gyrations all the time and Mother said that her mother was upset when she listened to Frank Sinatra as a teenager. Daddy bought two ironing boards and two irons so Julia and I could iron (Can you imagine having to iron every piece of clothing these days?), talk, and listen to the radio thus killing two birds with one stone. I remember those hot summer days with a big basket of clothes (hardest on top) and a Coke bottle with a sprayer to keep them damp and sang and danced to the good stuff. We hardly knew we were working. Ahhhhh! Anyway, back to Elvis.

Daddy was pretty strict about the TV schedule when he was home and, pretty much, we watched what he watched. He loved boxing which dominated Friday nights so we gladly accepted babysitting jobs so we could watch 77 Sunset Strip. The kids in our ward were devastated when we knew that Elvis was to appear on the Ed Sullivan Show because we had a youth fireside that night and the bishop wouldn't relent. Mother and Daddy wouldn't have cared whether Julia and I went to fireside or not, but we were torn between the fireside and Elvis and we knew there was no way Daddy would watch Elvis. However, the bishop, smart man that he was, did relent by and let us watch only the segment about Elvis (most of the show he was only shown from the waist up because his movements were considered "sinful" and outrageous, but there was one full shot of him.). We all swooned and talked about it for weeks.

In case you're wondering about our mission--so are we! Garth got a clean bill of health before Christmas so we turned everything to the bishop. We waited and waited. Finally, he interviewed us and said he was sending everything to the next person--the stake president. On Monday we got a call that our local clerk was still putting the medical information on the computer. So we're still twiddling our thumbs waiting. Hopefully, President Leavitt will call this week. Otherwise, all is well.

Winter BLAHS

I was a little shocked to realize that January is half over and not help but wonder where the days have gone? The shock deepened when I also realized to my chagrin that I haven't accomplished much in those 16 days! Most of the time our weather kept us in--sort of. We just climb into the pickup most of the time and away we go! You're looking through the office window down onto our neighbor's property. I didn't think about the screen showing in the picture.

Nips has been the source of some entertainment for us:

Here she's caught up high on the garage door. Garth had backed the pickup in to load some dressers and she'd crawled from there and couldn't get down.

This is her favorite past time--hair pretties. The little girls must lose them and she bats these around everywhere. Most of the time we find them in her food dish and, often, she brings them upstairs.
We've had birthdays--Garth, Janeen, Samantha, Ty, Angelynah. Did I forget someone? Here we're enjoying pizza at Chico's for Dad's birthday. Those of you who are familiar with Chico's--it's still the same. The Hochstatter's is still greasy, cheesy and delicious and the decor and menu haven't changed in 20 years. Grandpa provided quarters.



I went to the Pinewood Derby to watch Andrew. It's a lot of work watching Cub Scouts run all over the cultural hall and all those dads wince when the car didn't win!

We also went to Spokane to visit with old friends with whom Garth had worked for years--Charlie, Keith and Betsy and their spouses. Karen & Jim and Marilyn & Eric weren't able to make it, but we'll be getting together a couple of times each year. We had a lot of fun visiting and commiserating. We also got to visit with Jennie and family. They certainly have had their fill of winter weather!
And, sadly, we lost an old friend--Gladys Morley, Carol's mom.

Gladys and her husband Otis were neighbors of the Gunters in Block 11. I always appreciated Gladys' friendliness and goodness. We loved Gladys because we love and appreciate her daughter so very much. We send our sympathy to Jay and Carol and family.
We're still awaiting movement on our mission call. We learned to our chagrin that our papers only reached our Stake President's office on Wednesday. I think much of winter blahs have come from waiting and waiting. It's a little disconcerting. Hope you've found ways to beat the blahs.