The Davises of Newbury Park, The Barkers of Salt
Lake City, The Kenningtons of Ontario, Oregon,
The Robinsons of Roseville,
The Pimentels of Bakersfield, The Feddocks of San Carlos,
and the Kurts of
Canyon Country, CA
The Davis Family Letter
Dearest Family,
We had extra fun at Christmas time with Mark and Janean's little Christian (13 days old), Kathy's little Rachel (4 months) and Dianne's little Nicole (5 months) with us, along with many more of our posterity! Since we talked on the phone to our parents, Tim's family, and Christine's, our happiness was overflowing. Even Stephanie's "friend," Ryan, spent some time here. Christmas Eve was as special as it always is, with all of us gathered around the fire, singing Christmas carols, listening to Blair reading the Christmas story from Luke, and telling our highlights of the year. For me, the highlights were the fabulous Hawaiian cruise with Mom, LaMar, and my dear sisters and their husbands, and also the births of three more grandchildren.
During the days following Christmas, all that were here went out to dinner with us to celebrate our 38th wedding anniverary. We also tried to visit the wildly popular Griffith Park Observatory, an attempt that turned instead into a very happy picnic at some nearby picnic tables and children's swings. Even little Christian and his parents joined us.
Blair drove Natalie back up to school after New Year's Day and took the opportunity to visit Mom and LaMar as well as his dad, Walt, and Gerrie. He came back with some wonderful books from the BYU bookstore, including a couple to help me teach Gospel Doctrine.
I recently had the chance to visit Dianne's family after I took Stephanie to LAX (to visit Ryan, of course). I took the clever ice cream ball that Sarah and Ron gave us one Christmas, and the Wurtz boys and I had great fun making some banana ice cream. I told them that it has no battery or electric plug because it runs on Kid Power. If you haven't seen such a thing, it works this way: you open one end, put the cream recipe in the cylindrical container inside, and close it up. Then you open the other end, put ice cubes and salt all around the cylinder, and close it up. That's where the Wurtz boys (ages 7, 5, and 4) donated their Kid Power to turning and shaking the ball. It was a hit! Each boy was eager to take his turn after the brother before him. After about a half hour, we all had some soft and delicious ice cream.
We are delighted that Patty and Clint will be visiting us soon! A road trip to visit all six sisters, as well as Mom and LaMar? What fun that will be!
Mark will be blessing his little son, Christian, in two weeks, and we will be there. The baby will wear the beautiful little outfit Mom made, naturally. Dianne's family will be there, too, for the special day.
We're looking forward to seeing Natalie graduate from BYU in April. She's hoping to get a job and be out on her own, rather than coming home to live, and although we'd rather have her here, we hope she can make things happen the way she'd like. A professional in the field of graphic design is coming to talk to graduating design majors at BYU; she will give them tips on entering the job market and perhaps even some contacts, so we hope she can help Natalie.
We are thrilled that Christine's family will be able to come to our family reunion this summer after all! They had thought they wouldn't be able to join us, but circumstances have changed to allow it. We plan to be together on July 29, 30, and 31, and we hope that Mom and LaMar and Walt and Gerrie will be able to join us. What's better than spending time with people you love?
I'm knitting a sweater in a beautiful style for Jayma in a lovely autumn-leaf-orange heathered alpaca. I love knitting for people I love. Janean is next, and she has a dazzling style she'd like me to copy from a store. I'm game for the challenge, once I've finished Jayma's!
I'm amazed at how much stronger I am these days. Things I couldn't do before but can do now include: walking while holding a baby, climbing on a chair to reach something up high, not running out of energy while I'm shopping, and loading my own groceries into the car. It's wonderful to be able to participate in more activities these days, and I'm very grateful for such a blessing.
Our school is undergoing the dreaded WASC visit again; that is, representatives from the Western Association of Schools and Colleges will be coming to see if Simi High can continue being an accredited school. I'm to be one of the writers of our weighty WASC report and also the editor, jobs I rather enjoy. The principal appreciates it.
Speaking of school, teachers in California are really feeling the pinch of having no state budget yet. Stephanie has received her letter saying that she could be let go. Now in her second year of teaching, she has no real seniority, nor does she have the California-required CLADD credential, which allows teachers to have English language learners in their classrooms. However, she is thinking that she may wish to teach in Utah, anyway. When she finished student teaching in Salt Lake, the high school offered her a job. She didn't take it because she wanted to teach in California, but she's heard that the position may open up again. During spring break she will interview there and at other schools in the Salt Lake / Provo area. She has another reason to want to be in Utah, too; her friend Ryan, a young returned missionary whose family lives in Valencia, is a student at BYU. Things are starting to look very interesting. Stay turned.
My future at school looks a little longer and a little more loaded down. I don't have Stephanie's luxury of leaving! Our class sizes are likely to go up to 38 or more, including the small freshman classes of 20, which I have enjoyed teaching because of their size. And since Blair's plant will be closing before he intended to retire, I may teach longer than we originally intended. What a blessing it is that I'm stronger!
We continue to enjoy having the sister missionaries here. They are such hard workers and so pleasant to be with that it's almost like having two of our grown children live with us.
We hope that all is well with every dear family member.
Love to all, the Davises
The Barker Family Letter
Dear Family,
Patty said it right -this OLD age thing just gets in the way. I forget things all the time. SOOO here is what i remember from the last little while. LOTS. Jenny, Greg, Jason and Sydnee are doing well. Jas on a really good big brother and reads to Sydnee often. It helps him with reading and Sydnee loves to hear the stories. Jenny doesn't know if being a boss is all it is cracked up tp be. She needs to oversee all shifts and the problems with each. That means she must be at work at all the hours, good and bad. I couldn't be at the night ones. NO for me. Andy was in Baghdad for about 5 months. He saw some amazing places and did a great job for the people there. He was known as the 'Premier Prosecutor. He even tried cases with young kids who thought it was OK to kill Americans. He is home now and everything is getting back to normal. Chrystie and the kids were in Salt Lake for several months, at her Moms,and that helped. Kevin had the hardest time without his Dad. That was fun fior us. JD is really enjoyinghis work and they think the workd of him. Tiffany works as a CNA at a local hospital. Madi is 7 and is getting quite tall. She is a great big sister to flint, who will not walk holding your hand. He must be vey crabby.
Mike has a big story -They sold their house in 2 days over Easter. Becky and the boys went to loive with her Mom in Idaho. Mike entered Quantico- FBI training March 31st. We saw the boys several times over the next 7 months. Becky went to Chicago with her brother to buy a home there. She found a beautiful one in Valparaiso, Indiana for them. We went to Mike's graduation with Becky. Mike flew home, picked up his family and off they went to Chicago. They drove for 5 days(with 3 little boys in car seats) and when they got there they still had 5 days in a hotel. The day they got the keys to the house, the boys ran and ran and ran. Furniture came the next day and they really like it there. Mike LOVEs his job. It is very cold there. The ward is nice, but Mike is the yougest High Priest(28). Mike mis on the Reactive squad -bank robberies, kidnapping, elc. They had 3 bank robberies in 4 days. While transporting a bank robber they almost hit the car Obama was in because Obama's car did not stop at a stop sign. That would have been good. Can you imagine the paper work? Exciting!! Jamen is in school even while they were in the hotel. The Fbi famly has been very helpful.
Wiley and Kate are doing well in Provo. Wiley comes on occassion to Novell, which is close by and has lunch in their fancy cafeteria with David. He is doing well at school. Kate enjoys teaching her Jr. High kids. She doesn't put up with any guff. Wiley helps grade papers, when he has time. There is a large Latino population at that school. We see them every so often.
Brigham, Kate, Audry and Mya are close enough that we do not see them very often. Brigham is still in school and working at Fidelity. They are swamped with calls concerning investments. He works lots of overtime and studies in between.
My hearts desire will finally happen at work after 2 1/2 yrs. A change of jobs, again, will make the day go by faster. One secretary will be in another country for 3 years and when her replacement moves, I will go to that squad and have STUFF to do. David is doing well at Novell. Busy as always. He has been the Bishop for almost 4 1/2 years.
It is Fall here. We have had some snow and rain. The holidays are almost here and we are so thankful for all we have been given. It doesn't get better than a wonderful family.
Love, David and Karen XXOO
The Kennington Family Letter
Dear Family,
December already, on a year that seems to be 10 years long and at the same time 10 days long! It seems we were Christmas shopping just a month ago and here we are doing it all again.
It's been crazy here, and it's great to hear from all my family members to know there is sanity in the world somewhere. Clint's father has been widowed almost 3 years and is having a difficult time of it. He doesn't like not being able to do what he once did, and he doesn't adapt to his new life very well, so we're thankful when Clint's sisters come help take care of him or invite him to visit them.
In late October we found out that Idaho Power wants to route 12-story 500 kV lines (the biggest transmission lines there are) right through the middle of our farm, which would devastate our ability to make a living. They have proposed 30 miles of this line through prime Malheur County farmland (mostly to avoid running it over Idaho farmland) and our fellow residents in neighboring towns have come together to try to get them to change the route to designated BLM utility corridors. It's been rather all-consuming, since I volunteered to keep up the website for our citizens' group and I'm the chairman of the Communications Committee, and Clint is on the Legal Committee that is hiring an attorney. It's democracy in action. The website is a blog at http://stopidahopower.blogspot.com, and there's a ton of stuff on it. I've been writing letters and researching information to put on the blog.
We also got a notice from the EPA that they want to put a carbon tax of $175 on each of our dairy cows each year, which would cost us $30,000 per year, the amount it costs us to keep our hired man Onorio. They want to tax beef cattle and pigs as well, but what about all the deer and elk and bison and antelope? And when are we going to be paid for the carbon offsets our 320 acres of irrigated fields are providing? You can imagine what my letters to my legislators were like. The last time the EPA did something like this was when they tried to get nine million animals ear-tagged with GPS chips, (so why couldn't they eartag all the illegal aliens?) but the Farm Bureau and all the Ag organizations helped end that. Why does everyone want to put us out of business? I don't understand it. I'm not going to even mention the newly elected president, who seems to me to be the most clueless man ever elected, but I could be way wrong on that (meaning I don't know how clueless other presidents have been).
On the bright side of things, we've had our third baby grandson since the Hawaii cruise! Carson Redd Kennington was born on Pearl Harbor Day, December 7th, and he weighed (after being a week late) a whopping 9 lbs 12 oz. He is half-grown already, and you should see the size of his hands and feet! He must be taking after Sarah's brothers, who are in the 6'2" range. She's just relieved it's all over, and Conrad is feeling pretty happy too.
I gave my class finals today so I have about 3 weeks off until next term.Now I can get a few things done, like crocheting scrubbies out of netting for our Relief Society sisters, and making small quilts for my grandchildren.
Clint and I will be going to Rexburg this weekend (if the weather holds out) to see Jeff graduate with his BS in Mechanical Engineering. Brielle doesn't graduate until April, but she will be walking with Jeff. We'll get to hold little Austin! They are coming to Ontario for Christmas so Jeff can remodel our tired 1970's fiberglass bathroom! Woohoo! He's going to tile it and make some arched overhangs with recessed lighting, and we'll have a big round mirror. I can hardly wait!
Love to all!
The Kenningtons
The Robinson Family Letter