Playing Catch-up

Probably everyone has quit checking my blog since it has been so long since I added anything. My personal journal-keeping is almost as bad. I can't seem to get into the mood to write.
We had a nice Thanksgiving with all the family here except Kendall's bunch. The main attraction was the three sweet little babies, which the older girls enjoyed packing around. It was a joy for Val and me to see so many of our family members together, and was a great reminder of how much we have to be thankful for. We truly are blessed to have such a wonderful family. Each person is a precious treasure to us. There are thirty-three of us now.

The days between Thanksgiving and Christmas seemed to race by, and now Christmas is almost over for 2008 (it is after 6:00 p.m. Christmas evening). It was a very quiet day at our house, being just the two of us here most of the time. We were invited to Chad and Laura's and were looking forward to being with them, but the weather forecast and the looks of the weather this morning caused us to back out. When Andria found out that we were spending the day alone, she invited us to join them at her parents' home for dinner. Because of my mobility problems I had to say no, so she and her mother fixed up a nice meal, and Travis's family brought it when they came to visit this afternoon. It was so thoughtful of them, and the food was delicious.

We are hoping to have most everyone here for a few hours New Year's Day. Kendall's family is in Utah and will be here that day, so we have a little get-together in the making. Randy says they won't be able to come, though, so again we will be missing some. It's getting increasingly hard to all get together any more. It has been suggested that we change our family "do's" from alternating Christmas and Thanksgiving to having an activity during the summer. That seems like something we should consider. It would open up other options besides just gathering here at the house for a few hours and having a meal together.

It has been quite a while since I added an entry to my blog, but we had a nice event last Sunday that needs to be recorded. Aaron blessed their little Mathew Sherman. Most of the Williams and Crown families were there for the occasion. Val was manning the camera during the lunch, and he got a few good pictures but only one of the back of little Mathew. This picture was taken Halloween night when Aaron and Janele brought the kids to Summit to show us their costumes. He is a darling little guy.

In an earlier blog I wrote about Val spraying the paint off the top of his old Buick. He priced around to see about having someone repaint the car, or at least the top of it, and it was more
than he wanted to pay. So he prepared and spray-painted it himself. He's pretty proud of the results.

Marathon Success

Congratulations to Laura and Chad for completing the St. George Marathon last Saturday! Chad ran it last year, and Laura set a goal to do it with him this year. I think running and walking for 26 miles is quite an accomplishment.



Val took Aubree, Raina, and Brand to
St. George so they could watch their
mom and dad cross the finish line.









Here are some silly cousins having a good time together. Chad's kids, Aubree, Raina, and Brandt. Travis's kids, Lindsey, Brooke, and Cameron.





























The cousins ate pizza here and played a game. I knew something was up when they formed a line and started singing me a song. They had hatched up a sleep-over at Grandma's house and were singing for permission. Of course it was granted. It turned out, though, that instead of sleeping here, Chad's girls spent the night at Travis and Andria's. It's so neat that they have such fun together. Aubree and Lindsey are just two weeks apart in age, and Brooke and Raina are about three months apart. They are great friends with each other. Cameron and Brandt are only about six weeks apart, but they don't seem to have quite the connection that the girls do.

Precious New Baby!

We are so thrilled to welcome new little Mathew Sherman into the Williams family. He is the son of Aaron and Janele and joins his brother Aaron Solomon and sisters Valerie Ann and Mary Esther. He arrived October 1, 2008, weighing 8 lbs. 12 oz. and measuring 20 1/2 inches tall.

Here are some pictures of him with his

proud father and grandma.

Not Just Flakes

Val's poor old car! The white paint on 1994 Buicks was generally not good, so our's was just one of many that the paint started peeling off of when it was a few years old. Each year it has gotten a little worse, and a few months ago rust started growing on the bare spots on the roof. He thought about having a moderately cheap paint job done on it, but with the economic situation like it is, he decided to hold off for a while. But the roof definitely needed attention before it rusted clear through, so he thought he would clean up the spots and primer and paint them himself. Later he would probably have the entire car painted.

Someone suggested that he take it to a car wash and spray around the edges of the bare spots to remove any paint that might be loose. So, yesterday he did. To his amazement when the water hit it, the paint on the entire roof went flying away in big strips. This is what it looks like now. Pretty sad. Actually, we had a good laugh over it.

Val's Yard Work

The first cutting of the new back lawn happened last Saturday. We thought the occasion called for some picture-taking, so here is one of Val doing the job. Early this summer we bought a small table and set of chairs for the deck, and recently Val bought a picnic table for the patio. We're ready to party! It's getting pretty late in the season to do anything this year, but hopefully we will be able to take good advantage of it next summer.

Our front lawn has done well this summer. We finally bought a few shrubs to put between the front sidewalk and the house, and Val planted them this past Saturday. They can barely be seen from the road, but if the deer don't eat them this winter, they should start growing next spring. I want him to dig up the irises that are at the old house and plant them in with the shrubs. They aren't getting enough water and need to be moved from where they are.

The biggest problem with making the yard look nice is the space between the road and the ditch that is owned by the county. Val keeps the weeds mowed down most of the time, but as you can see from the picture, it is quite an eyesore. It's exciting, though, to see our home starting to look more established.

Turning Gray?

I wonder if there are "silver threads among the gold yet?" My hair color is about the only part of me that isn't looking OLD, but some days it surprises me that it isn't all gray! Today is one of those days. Really, mostly everything in the family is good, but there are some concerns right now.

It was confirmed a couple of days ago that Valerie does have PLE. No one knows what it is going to mean for her, as its course is unpredictable and different for each person. We just pray that she will stay healthy for a very long time. She is such a cute, sweet little girl. Janele was here with her and Mary a little while ago.

Kendall called a few minutes ago, talking about their preparations for Hurricane Ike that is heading their way. Their area has not been told to evacuate, but they are to expect exceedingly high winds and much rain beginning Friday evening. They are to be hit with the part of the storm that includes tornadoes, and that is what he fears most. Again, we are praying...

Randy just bought a bullet bike - and that's enough to turn any mother's hair snow white.

But we had a wonderful day, Sunday, when David blessed their beautiful little twins. All of our family was there except Kendall's family and Andria. Natasha's mother was so gracious to invite all of us to have lunch at their house. We made quite a crowd. Here are pictures of Dave and Jack, and Natasha and Aniston.

Valerie

This is our sweet little Valerie Ann. It is not confirmed yet, but she apparently has a condition called Protein Losing Enteropathy (PLE), a complication resulting from a surgery she had in April 2005. It was the Fontan Procedure, the final surgery in the series of three, that children born with Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome must have if they are to live. Five to ten percent of the children who undergo the Fontan Procedure develop PLE at some point. It is not a good thing to have. The cause is not known, and there is no cure nor definite treatment for it yet.

We are hopeful that the progress of PLE will be slow for Valerie, that she will respond to the recommended medications and treatments and will yet have many years of good life ahead of her. Being grandparents is wonderful, and we love all our grandchildren so very much. It's hard, though, when one of them has serious health conditions like our little redhead. Our hearts ache for her and all she has to go through, and we ache for her parents who face it all so bravely while it must be tearing them apart inside. Aaron and Janele, we love you, and our hopes and prayers are with you and your family.

I am very grateful for the understanding the Gospel gives us about the necessity of trials. We know that we are here to be tested, and that there is Divine purpose in our challenges. But knowing it doesn't make it easy when things happen that make us feel like we are being dumped on. My challenge with MS provides ongoing "tutorials" for me that I never knew I needed, and I've been unhappily surprised at times to have personal weaknesses and vulnerabilities exposed by it.

Without being specific, I will say that when trials come there are many challenges beyond what is obvious. It is easy to see that I have great difficulty with mobility now, and that it is continually getting worse. Also obvious is the hearing loss that I (and my family) have had to put up with for many years. Although such physical disabilities are hard to deal with, they may only be "instruments" through which the real tests come - tests to prove who we really are as our emotional and spiritual foundations are tried. I didn't know that I needed such "internal" testing, but the Lord did.

I believe little Valerie knew what she would face, physically, before she came here, and that she understood her problems would accomplish Divine purposes. I say that because as soon as I was diagnosed with MS, it was like, "Of course!" I didn't like the diagnosis, but there was a calm realization that I'd already known this disease would be mine - and I believe that knowledge came with me through the veil. The Lord may try us in ways we think we can't bear, but if we will be submissive to His will, He will provide the comfort and strength we need to either get through the trials or live with them. The most important thing is to not let them pull us away from Him. . .and sometimes that is the true test. We must have faith that somehow things are the way they are supposed to be, and that if we are obedient and faithful to Him, He will wipe away our tears and make everything right in the end. Thank the Lord (literally) for the Gospel which helps us to see the "big picture."

Explanation

I'm sure you who know me understand why I chose Onwheels as my blogger name, although using my own name would probably have been more appropriate. I am mostly on wheels now, using my two electric carts and sometimes a wheelchair. My blog title, in connection with my blogger name was "inspired" by a woman who used to write frequent letters to the editor in our local newspaper. She was a cricital, very outspoken old woman (which I hope NOT to be), and I always imagined her sitting in her rocking chair, drawing conclusions and passing judgment on everyone and everything she wrote about. Being quite confined to home, as was she, limits my perspective somewhat, so the title "As I See It" is a little joking reminder to not live too much "inside my own head."

Green Grass!

It is so nice to see something other than dirt in the back yard! We had the patio poured this past spring, but it took until August before Val had the lawn area ready to seed. He had it plowed, then he worked for days digging out rocks and hauling them off. He tilled and raked it out several times, and each time there were more rocks unearthed that he had to get rid of. Some low spots had to be leveled out, so he had a bunch of dirt hauled in - over $200 worth, which he spread out (one shovel-full at a time) and raked as evenly as he could. He was planning to do the sprinkling system himself, but when he got to that point he was ready to hire it done. That went along fine until he and the guy he'd hired both punched holes in our sewer pipe while digging up the water line to connect to. After the sprinkling system was in, he had to rake and smooth the lawn area all over again before the hydro-seeding guy could come in and spray the seed mixture on it. It is 20% perennial rye grass and 80% Kentucky blue grass. The rye grass started showing about six days after it was seeded, and the blue grass came up about a week later. Right now it looks like about 50% cheese weeds, but we had the same thing with the front lawn, and after several mowings the weeds died out.

Hopefully, next spring we will get some shrubs and flowers planted to make the yard look more attractive. I know Val feels the burden of having to do everything by himself. Wish I could help. I used to love planting things in Bloomington, but it was hard to keep anything green and growing with the salty irrigation water that sprayed everything and the high alkali content in the soil. We don't have those problems here, but we do have pesky deer that nibble plants down to stubble every winter if you don't fence everything in.

Sunsets and Tetons

I mentioned yesterday about enjoying the pretty sunsets in the fall. This one was taken last fall (2007), and is one of the more colorful that I've seen here. I like to use the sunset pictures I take for the desktop background on my computer.

Besides sunsets I'm intrigued by pictures of the Teton Mountain Range. Several years ago Val and I were on our way to Yellowstone, and we stopped at a rest area on a small rise, and it provided an overview of the surrounding area and had the little stands that tell about what you are seeing. It was a rather hazy day, but off in the far distance I could see some very tall mountain peaks. Not knowing anything about the geography of Wyoming, I was surprised to see that I was looking at the Tetons. As we drove on up the road I was so in hopes that we would get near enough so that I could get a good look at those beautiful peaks, but the road turned north too soon. To meet our "tight schedule," we had to keep going, so I didn't get to see what I was hoping for. The next summer we went to Wyoming again, this time to spend a couple of days were I could get my fill at looking at those mountains.

These are some pictures that were posted on the internet.

The top picture is Mt. Moran. The bottom shows the Teton Peaks. They all have names, but the only one I know is the large one, which is the Grand Teton. They really are magnificient to look at.

Trying Something New

I so much enjoy reading the blogs my daughters-in-law have going that I decided to try one myself. I haven't any children at home to write about or to post cute pictures of, so my blog will probably be mostly random thoughts about this and that and a little about what is going on in my quiet world.

Today is the 29th of August. Usually by now I have felt a touch of Autumn in the air, but so far it hasn't happened this year. I love the coming season with its still-warm days and crispy evenings and nights. Since we moved into our new house I have a fairly open view to the west and really enjoy watching the sunsets. The fall season seems to produce some very spectacular ones, and I enjoy taking pictures when I see one that is especially colorful. I hope we can take a drive up the mountains in a few weeks to see the beautiful fall colors.