Memorial Day Weekend Letter May 29 2011 - pictures

May 29, 2011
Dear Rosalynde, Gabrielle, Naomi, Brigham, Rachel, Benjamin, Abraham and Christian!

Rosalynde, why is John climbing Mt. McKinley in May and June, with snow pack the highest an run-off the highest? Why not August and September? Good luck to John. Keep us posted!

I hope you all saw the big game yesterday! Barcelona outclassed Manchester United and won 3-1. I have been a Man U fan, primarily because of the success of the manager, Sir Alex Ferguson, a Scot who nevertheless was knighted for the success of his team. This year, Man U by winning the Premier League surpassed Liverpool as the all-time winningest English Soccer team. But Barcelona were magnificent. Messi is the greatest player in the world. He is only 23 years old. He will end up surpassing Pele as the greatest player ever. And Messi seems like a genuinely nice guy – no tattoos and no scandals. I hope he continues that way. So now I will have to have two favorites – Man U and Barcelona. The demonstration of ball control and skill were simply amazing. While on the subject of soccer, my club team won 3-0 on Wednesday. We started with 10 players, but our 11th arrived shortly after we started. I played left midfield, but often dropped deep almost as a left back. I am in pretty good shape – I played the entire 90 minutes without a problem, and still had a lot in the tank at the end. Saturday afternoon, we played at the high school. We started with 8 to a side, on a short field. But soon others arrived, and we had full teams, and they boys pushed the goals to a full field – 120 yards long. Some how, all the young guys ended up on the other team. That meant that I was running, running running the entire time. But I help my own. I only got beat badly once, by the other teams best player, who had played on an Academy Club Team. But I was dead tired Saturday evening and I went to bed about 10:00 PM. But unless our Wednesday evening red-eye is significantly delayed, I will miss my club team’s game on Wednesday, and the Saturday afternoon game. Brigham, do you have a game on Saturday and do you need an extra player?

Eva is now spending 12-14 hours at school straight. She goes over about 7:30 AM, then she stays right through after school for Beauty and the Beast rehearsals that go to 9:00 pm or a touch later. She spent about 12 hours yesterday, and today she has rehearsal from 1:00 PM to 9:00 PM. She is trying to study when she is not on stage or rehearsing music. Unfortunately, mama and I will not be here this week for the performance, since we will be in Cambridge. I hope to watch a bit of the dress rehearsal on Wednesday before we leave for the airport.

We are making a dent in the extra cookies from the wedding reception, but we still have a few to go. We also have some ice cream bars in the freezer that I need to start on. Gifts have continued to arrive for Benjamin and Shayla. It looks like I will need my truck to bring everything to Provo for the end of June when we come for the Hansen Family reunion.

Mama has continued to be very busy since the wedding. She painted the walls on the landing this week. She has worked in the flower gardens. She has followed up on Girl Scout matters. She is working on the baccalaureate for the high school on June 14. I hope she will tell you all about everything she is doing.

I just worked a lot of hours this week, so I have nothing much to report. I hope the flooding in Utah will not be too severe. If Utah gets some 90 degree weather, the rivers will really overflow. Would someone like to plan a Yampa River Trip with me in the next two or three weeks?

In our Fast and Testimony meeting today (since we have Stake Conference next week), Mick Wetzel told of advice that John Welch gave to him one Sunday. He told Mick to treat his wife every day as if he had just asked her to marry him and she had not yet replied. Mama, I am sure, was wondering why Br. Welch did not give me that advice when we first moved into the ward in 1987.

I have put this letter and a lot more pictures on our blog at http://christie-russ.blogspot.com/.
That’s all for now.
Love Daddy

Mother's Day in La Canada Flintridge

May 8, 2011
Dear Rosalynde, Gabrielle, Naomi, Brigham, Rachel, Benjamin, Abraham and Christian!
Happy Mother’s Day to all the mothers in my family! First and foremost, happy Mother’s Day to your beautiful and wonderful mother. What would your lives and mine be like without her? I do not like to contemplate it. She has immeasurably enriched us all. I would be impoverished without her. I hope you all know I don’t just say this on Mother’s Day.
Mother’s Day started at 9:00 PM Saturday evening. We called Christian for our mother’s day conversation. I had called Eva in connection with the conference call feature on my Evo and it worked splendidly. However, when I tried it with Penny talk, Free conference call, and my Evo, it did not work smoothly. It took me 15 minutes to get it right. But then we spoke until about 11:00 pm. Most of you were able to join us on the call. Christian, we loved hearing from you and about your missionary work in France.
For Mother’s Day, I researched the 10 best performances at the Hollywood Bowl this summer, wrote it up, printed it out, and told Mama to choose five or more. She said she would. I included a mix of classical in the mid-week performances and the pops in the weekend performances. If any of you are planning on visiting us this summer, let me know the dates, and if your visit coincides with one of the dates, we’ll all go the Hollywood Bowl.
Actually, Mama said my gift to her started Saturday morning. I drove to home depot to get a couple of things, and I picked up four Guatemalan men. (When I drove my pick-up into Home Depot, many eyes looked at me expectantly. When I parked, a fellow came straight over and asked if I needed help. Yes, I said, I need four. He said he would get three others.) They were all very nice and worked steadily all day long. One of them scraped down the gate and got rid of the peeling paint. He also helped me repair and replace two rotting boards. Then he put two coats of paint on the gate. It looks much better now. Two of them worked on painting the pool fence. I thought it would take them all day. But despite the fact that the other two eventually joined them, they did not finish the job. I think they could have worked faster, but they did work thoroughly I think they did a good job. The other fellow helped me replace one of the shutters on the house, then he helped me clean out the garage. He did the heavy lifting, carrying everything out of the garage. In the meantime, I was measuring and cutting the wood to repair the gate, to replace some rotting wood just above the kitchen sink window, and re-taping the plastic on the screens into the family room. When the garage was emptied (except the metal shelves and big barrels, which we did not empty or move), we swept the floor, brushed off the walls, threw out some useless stuff, and moved the rest of the stuff back in. it looks so much better. Mama said this was her real mothers day present. The men working did not exhaust the paint before I left for soccer. When the paint was used up, with about a tenth of the fence left, Mama took them back to Home Depot. I had told them I would pay them $10 per hour. That was fine with them. (I suppose I could have offered half that amount.) But Mama ended up paying them $80 per person, for 6-7 hours.
In the evening, after the call with Christian, Mama and Eva went shopping and I finished working on the garage. But after reading, I was finally in bed by 1:00 AM.
Today I have a very sore jam and a sore shoulder. Last evening, I could not even eat a grilled cheese sandwich, so I made myself a banana/strawberry shake instead. Today I could eat with only moderate pain. The cause of these conditions was a fun soccer game yesterday. We had about 35 show up, and we divided into three teams. As a central defender, as I rushed out to follow the ball to the top of the penalty area, Agustin put his head in try to head the ball as it went by. My shoulder and his head collided. He said he was okay. Then, when I went up to head a ball away, the attack jumped up to had the ball. So he jumped as I was coming down, and I have a black and blue chin and sore jaw joints. But it was great fun and I ran a lot. While on the topic of soccer, I played again last Wednesday. I started as forward. I have said before that I am low on the depth chart. So rather than trusting me playing defense (which I actually think I play better than some of the defenders), I have been playing more outside midfielder and occasionally forward. Well, the other lowest person on the depth chart also started at forward. (He can only play that position, whereas I have enough speed to play the other positions.) Within two minutes we had scored a goal, the other forward putting it in. I received the ball up top, passed it to a midfielder, and made a run, drawing a defender with me, the midfielder passed it back to the other forward who scored. So I played a good portion of the game and enjoyed it. We played the top team in the league, who had beaten us 4-0 the first game. The other team tied it up. Then in the second half, we went ahead (I was playing forward again – I did not score), and the other team tied it. Then with 10 minutes left, we scored again, and I thought we would get our first win of the season, but in the closing minutes, the other team tided it again. But we were pleased even with the draw.
The evenings this week we spent getting ready for the new carpet to be installed on Friday. Of course Mama has been working extremely hard and all the credit goes to her. I have helped a few evenings. I helped with heavy stuff such as beds and mattresses. On Wednesday evening, I had the Owens and Blakes come to help us move the pianos, which went very nicely. Wednesday, I moved book from the library into the floor of the dinner room. Mama during the day actually moved more book than I did. Thursday evening, I took down the bookcases in the library, and we moved beds and mattresses. Thursday night, mama and I slept on the fold out couch in the library.
Friday morning, I received a call from Mama. She had called Home Depot a couple of times during the week, and on Friday morning, and the spokes persons kept assuring her that the carpet installers would soon be there. Finally, when they did not come, she called Home Depot again, who finally informed her that the carpet had not yet been shipped from South Carolina. Mama was about to despair. But a nice lady worked with her. Home Depot found a better grade carpet in So. Cal, and will install it at no extra cost on Monday downstairs. Then later the original carpet will be installed upstairs. So we suppose it will have worked out well in the end.
I am putting some pictures of our house with everything moved around, empty rooms ,and the books all piled up in the dining room on our blog at http://christie-russ.blogspot.com/.

That’s all for now.
Love Daddy