The Light Between Oceans

A powerful, poignant and memorable movie.  A couple struggling to have a baby find a crying baby in a boat that washes ashore.  The baby's father is in the boat as well, but has died. What they do and it's repercussions make a very powerful story.  This one makes you remember and think for a long time afterward.  

 We watched it on Netflix DVD.

Pavarotti

 This movie is a documentary on the life of Luciano Pavarotti.  It is really interesting.  It has many clips of his singing, which alone makes it worth the watch.  Ah, that voice!  It is directed by Ron Howard.

We watched it on Netflix DVD.

Live in Thanksgiving Daily

 A wonderful mantra to live by comes from scripture:

Alma 34:38  . . . "And that ye live in thanksgiving daily, for the many 

mercies and blessings He doth bestow upon you."

"Live in thanksgiving daily."  Is there a more appropriate mantra for

the month of November?  Or really every day all year?

I had this post all written and ready to post when our prophet, President Nelson asked us to post something each day that we are thankful for.  I am so grateful for his advice and direction.  

May we all live in thanksgiving daily.  

A Visit to the Camerons

Shonna's husband, Blake is our dentist.  We wanted to get up to Logan for our cleanings and check-ups before it got too cold.  I had a couple of teeth bothering me.  So we scheduled our appointments for this week, but, in the meantime, two of my teeth went seriously south on me.  So Blake worked us in for Monday, the 2nd of November.  We left after I taught gospel doctrine on the 1st and got up there Sunday evening.  The kids were already in bed when we got there.

We saw them the next morning, though.  My, how we miss those kids.  Our appointments were for noon, starting with cleanings.  I got in a dental chair at noon and didn't finish until 5:00pm.  I had a cleaning, a root canal and two crowns!  It was okay, though.  Most of it, I was relaxed and did fine.  We are grateful for Blake and his team.  That evening, we had dinner (pasta salad) and then enjoyed smores around their backyard fire pit.

Hannah had a loose tooth ready to come out.  She worked and worked on it.

Gabe had a stellar day.  He has been working on potty training for quite some time.  He often calls us with reports.  If he could go a whole day and stay dry, he had rewards waiting:  He could wear the underwear his other grandma bought him and he got this Paw Patrol water bottle.  He did it on Tuesday!  A whole day dry!  He was so proud and happy.  And man, did that water taste good out of that bottle!

During Covid, my hair has grown and grown.  I asked Shonna to cut it.  She watched a Youtube video I had found and did a marvelous job!  I was so pleased.

You can see my swollen mouth and face in this picture from yesterday's dental work.

Shonna then cut Ken's hair.  She does Blake's and her boys' all the time, so that wasn't a challenge.  Ken asked her to cut his eyebrows.  She knew Blake had an eyebrow trimmer, so she tried that on his left eye.  It shaved off his brow completely.  Oh how I wished I had taken a picture of the look on her face when she realized what she had done.  She felt so bad.  Ken was such a good sport and reassured her it was fine.  It's still growing back!  We laughed and laughed.

We always read a lot of books to the Cameron kids.  They love to be read to. None of them are really into screens.  They love books.

And Lily is craft queen.  She isn't home from school for more than a minute before she's working on some craft.  Here she is making a puzzle.  She colored a picture, then cut it up to be a puzzle.  She is a creative child.

In the afternoon, we went to put flowers on my parents' grave.  Shonna takes her kids there frequently and tells them great grandpa and grandma stories.

There was a huge wind storm that took down many of the old trees in that beautiful cemetery.  This is the remains of one near my parents' grave.  But it isn't "their" tree.

That evening, Shonna planned a Japanese meal for us.  She made onigiri, sushi, and miso soup.  We got mochi ice cream for dessert.  It was so fun to eat the foods we learned to love.

Yummy mochi

Every time we go their home or they come to ours, Lily treats us to a foot rub.  She is such a precious little girl.

That evening, after her daddy got home, he pulled Hannah's loose tooth.  She was so happy.

We had a spontaneous dance party before bed.  It was so much fun!

Lily in the kimono we sent her when we were on our mission.  It's getting a little small.

This little guy is a puzzle doer.  No puzzle stumps him.  

We had such a nice visit with this precious family.  We love them so much!

On the way home, we stopped at Patty and Hal's and had a nice visit.  Patty made us a delicious lunch.  We picked up the books Patty has been working on- a history of our Peterson ancestors.

 

The Circle

 This movie starring Emma Watson and Tom Hanks is not what I would call enjoyable, but it is thought-provoking.  Are we sharing too much on our social media?  Could this lead to the loss of our freedom?  The movie poignantly addresses these issues.  We watched it on Netflix DVD.

Teaching Gospel Doctrine Virtually

 I think many wards throughout the church have been teaching via zoom for many months during the pandemic, but our ward just started doing so with the new directives given in October.  My first turn to teach gospel doctrine was on November 1st, teaching Mormon 1-6.  I have an aversion to using technology in teaching at church.  It seems that every time I've tried, every time anyone tries, something goes wrong.  The class sits and waits while they try to fix it and it seems the spirit flees in those tense moments.  Before the pandemic, I tried it once in the real classroom in gospel doctrine.  I tried using an audio clip- not even video.  I had it all cued and ready to go and had practiced it many times.  But when I tried it during the lesson, the sound was inadequate and even with me putting the microphone in front of the speaker, it was ineffective.  I decided then and there that I would not be using technology again.  Ha!  Ha!  The joke is on me.  I am now teaching via technology!

Previous to this, I had been on zoom calls with my family, but really had no real experience with using zoom. But I was determined to learn all I could and to do the best job I could. I sent out a plea to my family for help.  My sister, Joan, suggested I make google slides (She has taught Sunday school and Relief Society via Zoom for months.)  I had never heard of google slides, but I got on Youtube.  I watched several YouTube videos on how to make slides and made quite a nice slide presentation that went with the lesson.  Here are a few pictures of some of my google slides?

My granddaughter, Brielle offered to help me, too. She has had virtual school for months, and has taught Young Women via Zoom several times. On the Wednesday before I was to teach, we set up a zoom practice and worked through some issues.  The next day, our technical specialist in the ward, did the same thing with me. He invited me to a zoom meeting and I practiced the slides with him and asked him questions.  I felt I was prepared.  I prayed and prayed and prayed that it would all work.  

Sunday at 12:00 noon was our Sunday school time.  The technical specialist was the host, and was late in letting me and everyone else on.  Then I tried to practice the screen share and got an error message that the host was not allowing me to screen share.  Class members were coming into the zoom quickly.  It was time to start.  He tried to fix it, but didn't know how.  He frantically tried to fix it while I, what I hope appeared calmly, went on with the lesson.  Previously, fearing that the technology would not work, because it never does, had printed my slide show- just in case. As the lesson developed, I just held up the papers with my google slides printed on them.  Ken told me after that I wasn't holding them quite high enough, so they weren't really effective.  Oh. well.  After everyone else signed off, the technology specialist had me stay on and figured out what he needed to do to let me show my slides. At least I hope he has figured it out. Since, I've talked to others who told me what he needed to do as well.

But, other than that, I think the lesson went pretty well.  We had had three previous 2nd hour lessons in our ward.  The precedence had been established for the class members to leave their cameras off during these lessons.  I started the lesson by asking them to please turn on their cameras.  Many did.  So now we had faces instead of just names. My lesson plan had us start by me asking questions and continued to do so throughout.  Many responded by using the chat box and some by unmuting their mikes and talking.  Excellent comments were made.  I learned so much.  And I felt the spirit, despite the technology. The comments were inspired and the spirit strong. That was my main goal.  For if the spirit isn't present, no one learns anything.  It wasn't perfect, but I think our first try was a good start.  I  teach again on December 20th and am already working on that lesson.  Preparation and prayer, lots of prayer, are the keys to success, I feel. I will give it my all! 

The Scholar's Charm

 

Our granddaughter, Brielle, age 14, wrote a novel.  She worked on it a lot while she stayed with us for a couple of weeks this summer.  She asked me to be a beta reader and sent it to me by email after she got it mostly done.  It is a fantasy.  It is imaginative and creative, and, especially at the end, very intense.  I am so very proud of Brielle.  I was blown away by her writing abilities at such a young age.  I’m sure it comes from all of the reading she does/has done in her life.  She is still working on the ending, but, when complete, I feel like this is a publishable book.  Well done, precious girl!

On the Horizon

 

On the Horizon by Lois Lowry
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This sweet book written in verse is a powerful, personal story of Pearl Harbor and Hiroshima. The illustrations were beautiful. I loved the feeling I had after reading this precious book about a very difficult subject.

View all my reviews

Upgrading Our Doors

 We waited for the summer heat to pass because we knew the house would be open as we upgraded three of our doors.  Our house is 35 years old and needs some upkeep and repairs.  Two of the doors were starting to rust, and our bedroom door needed to be replaced.  We got new carpet in 2004 and haven't been able to open it since.  The new carpet is much thicker than the old.  So, installers came and took a full day to install them, then Ken spent four days painting them.

Bedroom Door (opens onto our back deck.)

Door out of the garage.

Finished bedroom door

This is such a big change.  Our old door was dark and had dark shades.  This new door lets in so much more light.

Finished garage door

Finished work room door

Bedroom door and work room door

Our light and bright bedroom

Day Trip to a Ghost Town

On October 23rd, we went on a day adventure to a ghost town near us- Grafton, Utah.

 When Ken was at Dixie College, he wrote a research paper for his English class on Grafton- a ghost town up near Zion National Park.  He ran across that paper as he went through his things preparing to do his personal history (which he is working on diligently) recently. He got an A+ on it with very positive comments from his tough-grading teacher.  In fact, she thought it was so good she put it in the Dixie College library- with his permission.  Since he wrote it, he found that his great, great, great grandfather Samuel Stanworth (the father of Nancy Alice Nutter Stanworth Hinton Eager) lived up there and is buried up there.  It is a rough dirt road to get there, but, sure enough, there is a ghost town out there.  There is a church (which also served as the school and community center) and several old homes.  It is the site of where they filmed a part of “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.”  For that movie, a log cabin was built that fits the time period.  Anyway, it was all so interesting to see.  There is an old cemetery and we found Samuel’s headstone.  His 19-year-old son is buried next to him.  We were surprised at how many other visitors were there on a Friday morning.  There were probably 20 kids running around, having a blast playing house in the little cabins and running on the powdery dirt.  It looked like several families had joined together for an outing.  There were others, too.  It was difficult to stay socially distant.  Here are some pictures from our fun and interesting day:

In front of the church/school/ community center.

We are on the porch of one of the old homes.  Behind Ken is the property that his great great great grandfather owned.  The home is gone.

Inside one of the old homes.

Ken in front of that home

This is the cabin built for the movie "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid."  Much of that movie was filmed in this area.

A Mrs. Tenney lived in Grafton.  She went into labor during one of the times that the Virgin River was flooding.  She was in a wagon bed similar to the one here while she was in labor.  The water rose so high that the wagon was floating.  The men in the community risked their lives and entered the water and roped and pulled the wagon to safety.  The baby was born soon thereafter.  Mrs. Tenney named her baby son Marvelous Flood Tenney.  He went by Marv his whole life.
It was these floods that eventually drove everyone from Grafton, making it a ghost town.

 

The view from Grafton.  You can see how dusty the road is.

The old Grafton Cemetery

Have you ever seen a more ghost town-looking cemetery?  I was thrilled to get to see it.  What a treasure.

The grave of Ken's great, great, great grandfather, Samuel Stanworth and his son, John.

I thought this picture was the perfect mix of ancient and modern.  As Ken stood on his grandfather's grave, he went to familysearch and looked up his great, great, great grandfather and his son.

I thought this was an interesting name.

Most of the graves had coins on them.

This is an interesting and sad story.  The fenced area of the cemetery contains the graves of the Berry family.  The family was coming to Grafton when they were attacked by and murdered by Indians.  The parents were tied to their wagon and executed.  This changed things in Grafton and surrounding small communities.  They all moved their families to Rockville, living in tents, hastily built cabins, and lean-tos.  They felt they would be safer from Indian attacks if they were together.  They lived this way for a couple of years until they felt it would be safe to return to their homes.  During this difficult time, the men traveled together the several miles back to Grafton to tend their crops and later, harvest them.  Eventually, they felt it was safe and returned to their homes.

Berry family graves within the fenced area.

We then drove up to Springdale park and ate our picnic.  It was a perfect, lovely day.  We found a table right by the river.  It was just so nice and relaxing.  We decided not to even try to drive through the park as it was packed with people.  Americans are taking their vacations to national parks and they had record numbers at Zion this fall. 

 It was just such a nice outing.  I can’t believe I have lived near Grafton most of my life and have never gone up there.  So glad we did this day.