Melting Snow and Coconuts

Hello, Family--

Just looking outside at the 'almost-melted' snow! We had a week of above-freezing temperatures, and it rained a little in there, too. I can see most of the yard now, and only patches of snow.

boat shot

SPRING IS COMING. In 3 more days, in fact! Friday was one of those "teaser" days, where it actually got up to 61, or something wonderful like that! I went outside after school and took a long walk. Beautiful, beautiful.

TEACHING IN PARADISE. Kara just finished her first week of teaching the local kindergarten kids in Fiji. She was going to go with a friend, then the friend backed out at the last minute.

Speaking of beautiful, it is Just. Gorgeous. There! Here are some pictures she has sent.

She landed, and then took her big suitcase on the bus to a resort for a couple of days. At that resort, there were 'coincidentally' some people -- about 10 -- from the same volunteer program she is with, there to take a vacation weekend.

bus stop

(People start and finish their volunteer experiences different weeks. These people had already been volunteering for a little while.) So she met them all and hung out with them, then they all went back to the volunteer "bunk-house" together.

view from inside the bus

VOLLEYBALL WINS. Otherwise, we've been watching the BYU Men's Volleyball team play this week. As usual, they are really good. Gymnastics was televised on Friday too. Always fun to watch them, but they don't get televised too often.

OH--speaking of gymnastics! It's crazy what these girls can do at the college level. Avery has been following Shannon Evans, a junior on the BYU gymnastics team. Avery recreated Shannon's floor routine on youtube -- it's really fun! Here's the link for Avery's routine.

Kara with some new
5-year-old friends :)

UCLA also has an amazing athlete on the team right now: Katelyn Ohashi. She has earned five scores of  "10" this year, 3 of them on floor and 2 on beam, or something like that. She's this little tiny girl, only 4 foot 10 inches, and she has so much fun doing the routine it can only make you smile. Here is Katelyn's floor routine on youtube.

CLEANING OUT. I'm still doing the Marie Kondo thing, chipping away at our bins in the garage and other places in the house.

I went to the dentist this week, too. Happily, it was uneventful :)

Have a great week, and especially this Wednesday...that day will be SPRING!

Kari

Snow, Splint and Survival Kit

beautiful snowy mountain range

Hello, All--

The weeks have slipped by a little, it seems!

Let's see if I can give a summary of the last couple of weeks...well, 3 maybe?

Kris, Mom, Me, Avery

LOOKING FOR SUN. I went to Arizona to visit the sun and warmth. Turns out they were both coincidentally out of town for a couple of days! Ugh!

So I left 40 degree weather in Boston to get to Tucson and get...40 degree weather and SNOW! Ha, can you believe it!

Trent is getting so tall :)

Mom's backyard

then a couple of days after the
snow: all gone! At 61 degrees
I could take a walk outside

It's okay though. I got over it. I still got to visit with Mom.

One day we drove to Kris's house, and we got to see Avery, Trent and Jessica :) :) :)

dice game: Tenzi

We went to Red Robin and of course I had to order Onion Rings. The perfect combination of salt and grease. And they delivered it in a tall, tall tower that reached above Avery's head.

AND, extra treat: the last day I was there, was an "overlap day" with Kim and Duane. Nice to visit with so many over the 4 days I was there.

at least her nails were painted :)

UNEXPECTED MISHAP. Of course, it was a rude awakening on Sunday morning when I was there, as Mom called me into her room because she had broken her foot. Ugh! She had dozed off in her recliner chair in her room, as she sometimes does. She did not realize her foot had fallen asleep. She woke up, and stood up, ready to go to the next place...her foot turned and she broke the outside bone, the one connected to her pinky toe. Blah.

We spent a couple of hours in the Emergency room, where they rolled in the x-ray machine and took pictures, and determined that it was a "nondisplaced fracture." They wrapped it with a splint, so she couldn't move the foot. She went to another appointment later in the week, and they said it was positioned well so they could leave the bone in the place it was, and wrap it better. 4 weeks with a heavy-duty brace. Not a very pleasant surprise!

our Games Night group

FRANK'S GAME NIGHT TURNING 50!! Frank has now 'caught up' to my decade :) He turned 50 last Sunday. We of course celebrated with a Games Night, and a good time was had by all. We pulled out Outburst -- we've had that one since we were married, believe that or not! Very comical, as the answers were so dated...referring to TV shows like Dukes of Hazard...

Kara holds the phone up for David and Teresa
to watch Frank open his gifts
(they facetimed in for gift opening)

OLD GUY'S SURVIVAL KIT. The kids pooled together to get Frank a "survival kit," now that he's 50...you know, prune juice, fiber crackers, preparation H. Kara and Angela wrapped the gifts, then Kara came back here to the house. She facetimed with both David and Teresa simultaneously, so they could see him open things.

(Their REAL gift was movie tickets for us, and a restaurant gift card. They do know how to celebrate a birthday for their pop!)

Birthday Pie before she left:
her 19th bday is actually
next week but we had
a mini-celebration
before she left

KARA'S NEXT ADVENTURE. Then last week, we sent Kara off to Fiji. She will be there for about 5 weeks, teaching English to the local kindergarteners like she did in Bali last fall. She had a friend she was going to go with, then at the last minute her friend could not go. So, she's winging it on her own. We're using WhatsApp to text and send pictures back and forth, and she texted to say that she made it to the right places and had her orientation Monday. Tuesday she started work in the schools.

hug before she left -- okay I woke her
up! I was leaving for school and
Frank would take her to the airport
a little later :)

Well that sums up the past couple of weeks! Meanwhile Massachusetts temperatures are c-r-e-e-p-i-n-g upwards. In the 40's this week, and Friday it should hit 61! Yep.

Empty-Nesting it for a few weeks

SIX MORE DAYS until spring, you know :) :) :)

Have a good week!
Kari

all her clothes laid out for the suitcase

Shoveling, Days Off and Furry Friends

Hello, All!

Just sitting at the computer, at the end of a lovely day. It LOOKED lovely, from the inside, at least, ha. The sun was shining and it was so bright all around. Probably still right around 30 degrees.

We're supposed to get just a little bit of snow tonight. Little bits are okay :)

This is the beginning of our "February Break," in the public schools. I think it's mostly for people to get away if they want to, AND it's a time to let all those cold and flu germs in the school buildings die. There are LOTS of them! Bleh.

COUNTING DOWN. What did I do this week? Well I made it through another week of winter. And THAT is HUGE. No, really. We're down to 31 days until spring! No matter the weather on that day (March 20), I will be calling it Spring.

This week: Merlin

FLUFFY ENTERTAINMENT. This week Kara has another dog-sitting gig, and we have Merlin here. He's a little fluffy dog; I think Kara said he's 9 lbs. Very cute! I don't know what kind he is, but he likes to play indoor fetch with a little squeaky bone toy. And, if you're just sitting on the couch not petting him, he will move his nose over to your hand and remind you that you need to do that.

I just snapped this pic of Merlin with my phone.

Last week: Chrissy

BOATLOADS OF SNOW. Oh I just remembered that Wednesday's exercise was shoveling. Wow. A LOT of shoveling, like 2 1/2 hours worth, since the storm coincided exactly with Frank's trip to New York and he missed it :0 Kara did do the driveway. I tackled the porch, sidewalk to the mailbox, clearing off 2 cars, and the deck. (Thinking our next abode may be an apartment where somebody ELSE does the outside cleanup!)

this is us!

Then, the temperatures stayed in the 40s and even (gasp) 50s a couple of days, and it's almost all melted now. Kind of weird for February.

FAB CHRISTMAS GIFT. I don't think I mentioned our Christmas present from the kids, either. Waaaay cool! They know I don't want to get more "stuff," to fill our already overflowing house. I am constantly donating things, and asking them to go through their stuff whenever they are home. So they went in together, and got Frank and I tickets to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory musical! I didn't even know it was a musical, so that was a great surprise. It was so much fun. We went about 4 weeks ago, to a theater in downtown Boston. Fantastic date night :)

the stage before it started

I hope your week has gone well. David and Teresa have very few 'breaks' at BYU. This weekend happens to be one of their few 3-day weekends, getting off for President's Day tomorrow.

Teresa is camping, so hopefully we'll hear about that later. I have heard that southern Utah has had some beautiful weather, and the hiking and camping has been good :)

This Wednesday I head for Tucson for a few days. Looking forward to seeing some family members :) :) :)

Time for bed! Have a wonderful week.
Kari

Snow, a Dog and Good Music

The best kind of snowflakes: by a toasty fire!
These snowflakes decorated the big fireplace
in the lodge, at Mandy's wedding

Hello, and Happy Sunday!
I'm very happy to look outside and see grass on the front lawn. We have had some balmy days in the 50's this week, so almost all of the snow is gone!

Blast from the Past:
Kara, Dec 2013

I see that this Tuesday night, we are supposed to get 5-8 inches of snow. Of course, that is when Frank will be in NYC. So Kara and I will get to shovel Wednesday morning. Here is a "Kara shoveling" photo from 5 years ago.

DOGGY HOTEL. Kara has signed up to be a 'pet-sitter' on rover.com. It's an app that matches up pet owners with dog-walkers, or people who will otherwise take care of their pets. We have "Chrissy" here this week, a Jack Russell Terrier. She's a foster dog, in between owners since her elderly owner has moved, and can't take care of her anymore. The foster lady left for a week, and Kara is taking care of Chrissy for those 7 days. She focuses on food 24/7, and has to be blocked from trash cans. She is agile.

7-day guest: this is an
Internet photo, but I COULD have taken this
picture. Chrissy looks exactly like this.

We left dinner leftovers on the table, then turned our backs to view a 1-minute video on youtube. When we turned back around, she was ON the dining table, helping herself to our leftovers.

(Frank thought that would be his lunch on Monday, but suddenly he decided he'd have something else...)

The lady left us with a caged enclosure that Chrissy can stay in when nobody is home. And surprisingly, she does not shed. (I thought all dogs shed.)

GREAT SOUNDTRACK. I've been listening to music from The Greatest Showman on youtube. What a fun collection of songs! I found out that Hugh Jackman, whose passion is theater, singing and dancing, is going on a one-man tour this year, performing songs from The Greatest Showman and other musicals he's been in. (He was in Les Mis; THAT has an awesome soundtrack, too :))

WARMER TEMPERATURES. I am refreshing my Spanish skills in the car, with the Pimsleur language system, available in MP3 format from the library. I checked it out on my phone.

In April/May, at the end of the BYU semester, we'll take the fam on a cruise that is all in Spanish. It starts in Panama, goes to Colombia, then 3 islands but I can't remember all 3 islands. Aruba and Curacao are the ones I remember.

But before that, I get to spend some warmer days in Tucson, visiting Arizona family! A week from Wednesday I'll go visit Mom for about 5 days. I know, it's not balmy Hawaii, but definitely a nice change of scenery from the New England Arctic North. I'll be there Feb 20-25th.

Here is a hummingbird I photographed last time I was in Tucson. Hope these guys are still around! :)

NEW FRIENDS TO SUPPORT. Frank has been asked to work with the Spanish-speaking members of the church in our area. The group is small, so they overlap with our congregation for classes like Sunday School and youth classes. Then they have their own Sacrament Meeting afterwards. Both Frank and I will go to their Sacrament Meeting, to support and provide some more consistent numbers. (I still co-teach my Primary class, 8- and 9-year olds.)

David got to go to Texas for a friend's wedding this weekend...and it was cold in Texas! Insulting, yes, but I'm sure the ceremony was beautiful.

Hope your weekend has been refreshing, and you are ready for Monday!

Love, Kari

Artwork, Apples, Autism

Hello, Family!

Hoping you have had a productive week. It's a relative term, mind you :) :)

(Oh btw, if you click on any of these pictures, they'll get bigger.)

PATS DO IT AGAIN. Even if we're not huge football fans. The blog wouldn't be complete without saying that somehow, the Patriots pulled off another Superbowl win yesterday!

I have discovered the best way to watch football: YouTube highlights after the game is over! Never mind those 4-hour yawners. Watch the highlights only, on youtube after it's done! Action-packed, and you get the whole story in 10-15 minutes.

FEBRUARY NOW. The best news of the week is that we made it through January! Yes, we are now in February. January 31 is always a big milestone for me. As of today, there are 44 days until spring! 'Spring' is a relative term, too. But I still call it 'spring' on March 20, even if New England ignores that date.

Frank spent most of the week in London, going to meetings and also sightseeing a little. It was cold, and even snowed a little on him, and it never snows in London. But it was sunny other times.

A highlight was going to

UNIVERSITY of CAMBRIDGE. He toured some of the many college buildings that make up the University today. It's so amazing that Cambridge the town was started around 1086 (??!!) and the University of Cambridge was founded in 1209. They have many famous alumni:

Stephen Hawking
Charles Darwin
A.A. Milne (Winnie the Pooh author)
Robert Frost
Isaac Newton


Fun Fact on Isaac Newton: the apple-falling-on-his-head story did not happen at college. One semester in 1665, all the students were sent home because of bubonic plague. (They did not all HAVE the disease. There was a serious regional threat, and large numbers of people living together dramatically increased the chance of disease spread.) He went home to his parents' farm, and watched as an apple fell from one of their trees. Did it fall on his head? That part is questionable... The falling apple, though, made him ponder the force of gravity, leading to his study of the earth's pull on objects.

 BEST ARTWORK of the week: this is located in a Christian church in Jerusalem. One of our friends went there in January for his grandson's baptism (I talk about that in the next paragraph), and this beautiful mural was on the wall. This is by Daniel Cariola, a Chilean artist. It depicts the woman in the New Testament who touched the hem of Christ's robes, and was healed of her illness.

BAPTISM in the JORDAN RIVER. Funny, I hadn't thought of that possibility: actually getting baptized in the Jordan River. Yes, it's the river where Christ was baptized! But it's an actual thing people can do, and many people get baptized there, of various Christian faiths. People make the request, and you can sign up for a time and they assign you a spot on the river, with a sidewalk leading up to the river bank and railings to help you go down into the river.

MOVIE RECOMMENDATION. I read a children's book at school about Temple Grandin, a woman who grew up in the 50's and 60's with Autism. Then I found out they made a movie about her, so Friday night we pulled it up on Amazon Prime. (trailer on YouTube.)

She has a photographic memory, and a passion for cows. And it's really hard for her to be around unpredictable people (autism). She lived on her aunt's ranch when she was a teen, and just loved these docile creatures and studied them and learned TONS about them, on her own. When her high school science teacher said she had an amazing brain and she should go to college, he said "pick a topic! you can study anything in college" She said "cows? Are there colleges with cows?"

She studied animal husbandry, specifically the methods used to dip (sanitize) and slaughter cows (beef cattle), and found the flaws in the system. She designed a more humane, calming, natural method of herding them and going through the process. "We raise them for US to eat," she says. "We owe them respect."

Anyway. The movie is very well-done, plus great acting. The woman who plays Temple is pretty amazing...you can see the wheels turning in her mind as she goes through each challenge.

Today the REAL Temple is a professor at Colorado State University, and an expert advocate for autism.

Well, time's up! Hope your week ahead has some sunshine, literally and figuratively. We get a reprieve today and tomorrow, with temps in the 50's. YESSS!

KID JOBS AND SCHOOL. We skyped with David and Teresa yesterday, and their classes are rolling right along. They are also juggling 10-12 hours a week with part-time jobs. Provo seems to have milder temperatures than Massachusetts! Teresa, however, would like snow. Life can be so unfair sometimes. Really.

Kara has started taking care of dogs, as another part-time job to fill in her money-making time. This is in addition to her shifts at The Local (a restaurant closeby), and being an after-school chauffeur for a middle-school student.

Until next time,
Kari

Tidying Up and Rain

Hola!

Sunday night again.

I found a token "snowy picture: of the kids just before we moved here. We drove 2 hours to get to snow, in California! We don't have to drive that far to find it now :)

Jan 2008, CA

I had a very quiet weekend since 2 things...

1) Frank went on a business trip to London on Saturday morning. I love that place! I may have pushed harder to tag along this time, if it wasn't a 30-degrees- and-rainy-in-January trip. (I can get that here.) I did find an old photo of when we went, though:

London Bridge, April 2006--no beard for Frank!

2) Kara overnight-babysat at our friends' house for 2 nights while they took in a couples weekend. Kara was exhausted at the end (4 kids), but the kids thought it was the COOLest thing to have her there so long.

I had unlimited focus-time, for my projects, preparing lessons, listening to books-on-cd...whatever I wanted! Wow.

DE-CLUTTERING FAD. One of my weekend projects goes along with a Christmas gift...my kids know I try desperately to keep things organized and de-clutter whenever I can. Frank, on the other hand, gets rid of nothing. Here we have conflict! Aaaaauugghh!

Kara gave me a book by Marie Kondo, "The Life-changing Magic of Tidying Up." The idea behind her method (KonMari -- the 1st syllable of both of her names) is that you keep things that you need and use, and that you touch each item you have. When you touch the item, if it "sparks joy," then it enriches your life. You keep it. When you have decided what you will keep, you organize that into your space.

Meet Marie! And yes, my drawers look that
good and my closet pretty close :)

Come to find out, she also has a series on Netflix. She goes into people's homes and helps them organize their lives. Marie is this soft-spoken, petite Japanese woman with 2 little girls. Always very sweet with her clients and an expert in organizing. Turns out her de-cluttering method is a "new wave" of obsession, here in the U.S., and there are some very dramatic stories out there! Ha. Of course I cannot focus on it for an entire week straight, so I'm doing it in snippets.


Frank has NO time or interest for this kind of stuff, so okay, I'm just focusing on my own sanity, tidying up my own stuff and some communal spaces.

very little green right now

Saturday night I focused on my chest of drawers and my closet...I had discarded some items previously, put others in a donate pile. "Why don't I ever choose that shirt? Because I don't like it for some reason..." Then bzzzzt! It's gone.

My drawers and closet are tidy now. I walk in there and just stare at how good they look. It makes me happy. Tomorrow maybe I'll get to the linen closet.

rainy day pic, but this was not taken in January

RAINY DAY. We had a break in our ultra-frigid temperatures, on Thursday. It it rained and rained and rained that day! It got up to almost 60, so lots of snow melted. It was such a nice refresher, like a 're-set' button on winter. Now it's back.

I found some favorite raindrops photos, from a rainy day during a spring or summer past. January is not a green month for us! But the pics do show raindrops.

BROCCOLI-CHEESE SOUP. I'm trying to work "soup" in to the menu more often. I like soup; I just don't think of it much so we don't eat it.

Here's a good recipe that is super-easy.
2 TBSP butter
1 med onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
6 cups chopped broccoli florets
2 med potatoes, chopped into 1/2-inch pieces
1 lg carrot, grated
4 cups vegetable broth
1 1/2 cups cheddar cheese, grated
salt n pepper to taste

Directions:
1. Melt butter in lg pot over med heat. Add onion, cook 3-5 min until soft. Add garlic n cook 1 min. Add broccoli, potatoes, carrot and broth.
2. bring to a boil and reduce heat to low simmer. Cover n cook 10-15 min til vegetables are tender.
3. Remove from heat and stir in cheese until melted. Transfer soup in batches to blender to puree about 1/2 of it (good to keep some of the broccoli and potatoes as chunks, so you don't feel like you're eating baby food).
4. salt n pepper to taste. Good in fridge for 3-5 days, Freezes well for 2 mos.

Have a great last week of January!
Kari

P.S. 51 days until spring :) :)