An attitude of Gratitude

My beloved daughter,

     I am so happy for the Salimeda Family!  what  a memorable Thanksgiving for all!  How great of the ward for being so supportive.  Bishop Lung sent us an e-mail on Thanksgiving.  Dad thought at first it was from you.   He read "Aloha thanksgiving" and  thought maybe they let you send an e-mail on thanksgiving.  He expressed how grateful he was for you and Sis. Wright and for all your efforts in behalf of his ward.  He also thanked us for sending him such wonderfully prepared missionaries.  He sent it out to both us and Sis. Wright's family.  It was a nice thing to add to our already wonderful weekend of Blessing Acknowlegement.  We went over to Utah on Wed. about 11:30 am.  We will continue to go to Ut. as long as Grandma is still alive.  Cody had an impression taken for a retainer about a month ago and it never arrived in the mail.  The ortho. said he would have to come to the office to take another impression, and the only time he would be in the office was on the Wed.  before Thanksgiving.  So, I had to approach Klekas, explain the situation and see if he would let him out of prac. that afternoon.  He was understanding.  But that was only half the battle, I had to get Erin out of her Prac. too.  Camille was actually OK about it and said she would just have to prac. with the JV (as well as varsity) on fri. to make up for it.  Chee Hoo!  Got over that hurdle, now I just had to get someone to do papers, Chica and cover the early out cross guard at Northside.  Got it covered and we were headed," over the river and through the woods to grandmother's house" . 

       I HAVE TO TAKE A BRIEF INTERMISSION AND TAKE CODY TO PRAC.  I AM GOING TO SEND YOU THIS MUCH JUST IN CASE YOU OPEN UP YOUR MAIL BEFORE I GET BACK. I will continue then.

love you,

mom

I'm  back!

Ok continuing story... We went straight to the ortho. and took care of that stuff.  then we went to Grandma's.  She was happy to see us.  We were going to have the dinner at a church, but Sharon offered her home since there was only going to be 13 of us this year.  Everyone was going to the other side of their families this time.  I invited Ken to come and he was very happy to come.

We had a great dinner, I made a chocolate pudding pie and a non-bake apple cider cheesecake, since we are still w/o an oven right now.   Cameron ate outside on the patio table with the little girls.  (it was a nice day, a bit chilly though)We played the game Outburst, after dinner.  We had a lot of fun.  Grandma was getting tired and someone asked her, "Are you getting tired, do you want us to take you home?"  She replied in typical grandma funniness without trying to be funny, "yeah, that's where I live".  Black Friday sales started on Thanksgiving day.  I swore I would not go out into that madness again this year, but there was a Cannon Rebel camera on sale at Target, and that's the one that Erin has wanted for awhile, so she and I went over there-- stood in line outside for about 15 min.  It was a long line but once it started moving it went pretty fast.  We went straight to the electronics, nabbed the 2nd to the last camera, paid for it right there, then we had to bob and weave around carts and people to get out of there, but we did it in under an hour from the time we left to when we got back.  Chee Hoo!  What exactly does that mean?     Great story... I was in Seagull Book over there wed. night waiting to pay and I heard some lady say that her daughter was on a mission in Hawaii.  I immediately said "Who's daughter is on a mission in HI?" because I wasn't sure who had said that.  Well, this lady was Sis. Duke's mom (from So. Jordan)  She said her daughter had been out 9 mos.--had just hit her half way mark, and she was serving on Kauai--her third island so far.

I told her about you and you were comps. with Sis. Wright, she thought that that name sounded familiar.  She said her daughter "loves" it, I said the same.  It was so fun! I felt like hugging her because we had this connection.  Maybe you guys will be comps. someday (?)  Who knows with so many newbies on their way.

     Our family spoke on sunday in Sac. mtg. on "gratitude".  Carly and Summer, then Cody and Erin, they actually did really well. I was alittle worried when they were prepping sunday morn.  I actually prepared all week.  Every time I thought of something I wanted to say , I put it in a notebook.  I looked up every scripture on Thankfulness in the BOM, it was a great experience.  the talk went OK, but I got so much more out of it than anyone else.  I spoke on "an attitude of gratitude", how things that don't always seem like the most fortunate thing will always have an underlying blessing.  One example:  When we went on the trek, we weren't fortunate enough to secure a spot in one of the private vehicles going over, we got to ride on the yellow school bus for 9hrs!  But, on the way we sat by the Bishop of the 1st ward and his wife.  They're a young family, he manages Home Depot.  They were so cool, we became good friends.  What a blessing tucked inside a wild ride on a school bus.

      Erin played awesome in the Alumni game on Sat. night.  She came out shooting-- made 11 pts, high scorer.  She looked fit, confident and very relaxed.  She was smiling and laughing, and having a good time,  WE hope Camille took notice.  Cody didn't play in his game.  His knee was feeling sore and was swelling with all the practices, so we took him to the Doc. and he said the meniscus is fine; that's healed, but that bone bruise to the femur tuberosity was still not fully healed and when he practiced and pounded on it, it reacted by swelling.  He took out more fluid and gave him a cortisone shot to speed up the healing.  He's on crutches for 2 weeks to try and take all pressure of it, then we'll see.  He's been so diligent in crutching around, I really hope and pray he won't lose out on this season too.

     I'm sending you a box for Christmas, make any request now for any mainland delicacies.  They asked about your plaqued picture sunday, so send one soon.

I'm praying for High water, a surging miracle!

Love You, 

..mom      

 P.S. Addie story... I was going to the bathroom and Adelaide walks in and she says,"You going potty mom?", I said, yes, I was going potty, and she smiled and said, "That makes Daddy happy!"   (Dad always tells her how happy it makes him when when she goes potty.)