The Thing About Luck

 

The Thing About Luck by Cynthia Kadohata
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I really love this author. I have loved every book I have read of hers. This is a sweet story of a Japanese/American family who work as wheat harvesters in the 1960s. It is from the viewpoint of the young girl in the story, making it very relatable for a young adult. Two children and their grandparents try to do the job their parents usually do as cook and harvesters on a harvesting crew, as the parents were called away, but they run into many difficulties. They seem to have no luck at all. It is a coming-of-age story, full of interesting characters and relationships.

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My All American

 This was a really good movie depicting the true story of a very fine young man who faced a very difficult trial with courage and integrity.  He was fair dinkum.  You should watch it.

Woodlawn

 This is a true and inspiring story.  It is a football story, but it is much more than that.  We give it 5 stars.

Family Reunions

 One of the things that is the very most fun for us both are our annual family reunions.  We love being with our family.  We really do have a lot of fun together.  It is so fun to watch the cousins love each other and have so much fun together.  We are so grateful that they are fully committed and willing to sacrifice a week each year to gather as a family.

This is one great group of people.  Being with them is truly fun for us!

Post-Surgery Trips to the Temple

 We scheduled two trips to the temple about a month after Ken's surgery, but he just plain wasn't ready to go, so we had to cancel both of them.

I got online and found that all ordinances in Cedar City were booked through December.  But I kept checking back and I found a cancellation for an endowment for Friday, October 29th, so we signed up.  It was wonderful to be back in the temple, post-surgery.

Tradition has it that we eat at Chili's after attending the Cedar City temple.  We were both starved and had a delicious lunch/ dinner before heading back home.

As soon as we got home, I got online and found another opening a week later on November 5th for sealings.  I signed up.  We made the hour-long drive again.  We were able to finish up all of our sealings.  That is such a glorious feeling to do all the work for an ancestor.  There are few greater joys.  Other family members help us in this work and we are most grateful for them.  

We are so grateful, that despite the pandemic and limited temple opportunities, we are able to still do this marvelous work.  (I can't believe I am publishing this awful picture.  It was windy and sunny and I look just awful!)

Yes! Again!

 I have posted on two previous occasions about our sprinklers leaking in a certain spot in front of our house.  Ken dug down and fixed it both times before.  But shortly after his surgery, he saw they were leaking again.  He called a man that does lawn maintenance who lives in our ward and eventually he came and hopefully fixed it for good this time.  We were at our family reunion when he finally came, so there is no picture of the hole this time- just the final result.  Ken has reseeded the lawn and hopefully it can just grow in peace now.  

Hinton Sibling Reunion

October 21st-24th was our Hinton sibling reunion. It was held here in southern Utah.  The plan was for three of the five of us who live here to host the three families coming from Arizona.  But the night before it was to start, things started falling apart:  Sherrie, Rick's wife, had a kidney stone and surgery was scheduled for the next day.  Clark and Nan both came down with COVID-19.  Lorene, who lives here got very sick with an upper respiratory infection.  Though she tested negative for COVID, she was not able to participate.

Mark, who was in charge of the reunion decided it was best for us to go forward with it, though we would be missing three of the eight couples.

Kathy painted this picture of the Hinton family home.  At the end of the reunion, she presented each of us with a framed copy of her painting.  We will treasure it.

We gathered at the club house of the condos where Mark and Kathy live on Thursday evening.  Ada and Don provided a nice dinner of lasagna soup (I will be posting the recipe on hungryhintons.blogspot.com soon.  It was delicious!), bread, and salads.  After dinner, Jim introduced the theme of the reunion- our ancestors.  Much of what he said was so profound.  

Jim was then slated to be the first presenter.  Each family member was assigned a specific ancestor line to do a presentation on.  We had freedom to present it any way we wanted.  Jim did his that evening.  After the presentation, Ada served delicious peach dessert and we watched the movie, "Legacy."

Because Dave and Gerri are not vaccinated and there was concern as Leslie was headed up to visit her 97- year- old mother after the reunion, we stayed masked and socially distanced throughout the reunion.  It was a pain.

On Friday, while the men reminisced, the women made these crafts with all of the necessary supplies, prepared and sent up by Sherrie.  Rick had to drive a couple of hours to meet up with Jim and Leslie for them to bring all of  the things they had prepared for the reunion.  Clark and Nan also sent up everything they had prepared.

Preparing for a socially-distanced meal at the church in Washington.

Each of us holding our craft:  Kathy, Leslie, Gerri, Ada, Me.

Getting ready for one of the presentations in Hurricane on Saturday.

We spent Saturday in a Hurricane chapel.

Ken presenting on Nathan and Sarah Tolman.  It was really interesting.  All of the presentations gave us such an appreciation for our heritage.

Though she couldn't attend, Lorene sent her presentation which was puzzles and games about the ancestors.

On Saturday, we visited the graves of ancestors in the Hurricane cemetery.

Jim, Dave, Don, Ken, and Mark.  Missing:  Rick, Lorene, and Clark.

Leslie, Gerri, Ada, Kay, Kathy  Missing: Sherrie, Mark G., Nan

Don gave a very interesting presentation on some of our ancestors there.  They were stories we had not heard before.

After visiting the cemetery, we had permission to go through the family home.  The man who bought it is completely renovating it into two apartments.  He changed the roofline, making vaulted ceilings upstairs.

Inside the upstairs.  The most common comment was how small it all seemed.  But everyone loved the vaulted ceilings.

The second bedroom upstairs.  I always loved this bedroom with the windows.  We lived in this house for a few months when Ken's parents were on a mission, right after graduating from college.  This was baby Kristen's bedroom.

The bathroom upstairs.  It will be so nice.

View of the upstairs from the other side.

One of the bedrooms downstairs (Lorene's room.)

Many gathered in what seemed the tiny master bedroom.  Was it really this small?  Ken's parents had a king-sized bed.  We were wondering how it fit.

The stairs seemed just the same.  They were about the only thing that did.

This will be the kitchen area in the downstairs apartment.

The storage room downstairs used to be much bigger.  They took out the L-shaped part, making more room in the living room.

Gathered in a downstairs bedroom telling stories of things that happened there.  This was Ken's bedroom that he shared with Rick as a teenager.

The downstairs bathroom will be particularly nice.  I loved the shiny tile and flooring.

Don set up his tripod with his camera and we tried to get pictures of the whole group, but the remote control was not working, so this is the only one we got of everyone there.  It was ironic that it was the one in which we wore masks!  I guess that time stamps it.

We then had a nice lunch back at the Hurricane church.

Some more of the ancestor games.

Studying for the final test!  Yes, there really was a final exam.  We all passed.

In the afternoon, we all watched the BYU game together.  It is fun to watch BYU with the Hintons.  Most are true blue fans, and the rest were good sports to let us watch.

This was the activity that Rick and Sherrie had prepared and sent for us to do.  We had two teams and we had to get the pictures of our ancestors in the right place.  We were the "young" team.  The "old" team creamed us.  But we got it right!  I say "we" but it was really Mark and Ken.

I didn't get pictures after that.  But after more visiting, we cleaned up the church and went home.  Because we meet at 9:00 am, everyone came to our sacrament meeting the next morning.  Leslie and Jim stayed for the second hour with us, then came to our home for lunch and visiting.  It was so nice to get some two on two time with these heroes of ours.

Though we certainly missed those not in attendance, it was still a nice reunion.  We hope all of those who were ill are recovering well.  We are grateful to be part of this fine family.