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
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
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