HEADING TO SUNNY FLORIDA

After being home for a couple of months for Thanksgiving, Rachel's wedding and Christmas, we visited each of our kids to say goodbye, as follows:

Melinda's car broke down after Christmas, so we enjoyed their family for an extra week in Utah while they got a new engine in their Sienna.









Jill lives in Orem, but is leaving in August for a year in Jerusalem..... for their third time.   Frank, Megan and Carrie are missing from the picture.












Katie is in Provo, but plans to come to Florida to see us with her family.  I asked her to take care of my Christmas cactus and it LOVES it at her home.  It has bloomed twice since living with her.  Abbie and Ken are missing from picture.

Grandma is playing along with the Craig kids on her mother's 100+ year old violin.








We visited Jan's family in Twin Falls, ID before making the long trek.  By-the-way, bear sausage tastes yummy for breakfast!  Evan is missing in the picture.

We made a trip to St. George, Utah to visit Rachel & Trent and to watch her perform in a variety show.

Rachel playing nose flute in show

Before reaching our eastern kids we stopped in Independence, MO and enjoyed the visitors center and Liberty Jail

Next stop was Bloomington, Indiana to visit Marcie and her family.  We were just in time for a big snowstorm. Our car was stuck in the driveway, so Grandma shoveled it out.







Heading east, we ran into Stephanie and her family in Kentucky.  The kids kept us entertained.

Grandpa and Verity

Going farther east we visited Shellie and her family.  We got to hear Weston give a talk at a baptism, watch Karly play basketball, and help Weston with a family project for a merit badge.  Busy day!

We scrubbed mold off the siding.  

Our last visit was in Goose Creek where Mark, Cadence and kids live.  Mark's training is nearly finished, then he will be on a nuclear submarine for real, serving his country.

Father and Son

 















Leaving South Carolina, we headed south to Florida, stopping along the way to replace our dying battery.  Stay tuned for the next episode where we will talk about a Rodeo, driving a bus, working in the hot sun and bed bugs.....yes, you read that right.

Leaving Sunny California for Wintery Utah

So we have completed phase 1 of our mission, which was serving on the Nut Farm in California.   We are headed back to Utah until the next phase, which will begin March 1st in Florida for 12 months.

The past 3 weeks were pretty crazy, as we had many projects to complete.  On my end, Sister Smith and I were given $200 and asked to plant flowers in several flower beds around the main office.  Where I come from, when November hits we are usually pulling OUT flowers before the snow falls, not planting them,  but oh well, we do what we're told.  I have no trouble spending someone else's money!

 I just hope they all flourish, fill in and look fabulous.  Unfortunately I won't be here to see the end results.

Another project I was involved in was scanning very large maps and building plans onto the computer so the original mouse-eaten copies could be pitched.  Some of the maps were pretty fragile and dirty, so they were a little challenging to feed through the scanner.  Although we got around 200 maps scanned while I was here, we only scratched the surface of the work that could be done.  

A third project came about when a company in Japan found 2 aspirins in their order of almonds, which meant that all production workers had to have the pockets taken off their work smocks so that nothing gets carried into the production areas.  So Sister Smith and I began the tedious task of unpicking the pockets.  The problem was that there were 150+ smocks, and the pockets are all sewn into the side seams.  It takes about 45 minutes to unpick each smock, so between volunteering at the elementary school, helping teach English classes to Spanish workers, scanning documents and planting flowers, we were unpicking smocks in every free moment we had.

But wait....that isn't all.  With Christmas just around the corner, the company puts together about 250 gift boxes for employees, vendors and some people in high places in Salt Lake.  Each large gift box holds a bag of walnuts, a bag of raw almonds and a bag of roasted almonds.  The nuts come loose in big boxes, so guess who got to scoop the almonds and walnuts into the bags and seal them up...yup, me and Sister Smith.  We had 2 of the production workers come in to help us which made the task go faster, and we had it done in a few days.  

In the meantime, Bruce and Elder Smith were working on the two garages.  The trusses arrived and the men were able to get them installed with the help of an extended fork lift.

With the end gables in place, they were prepared to put the roof on each garage.  For this project they were able to get help from two strapping farm workers who had experience walking on rafters while carrying 4X8 sheets of plywood.  

On his last two days on the job Bruce, Elder Smith and Elder Garner (who just arrived from Idaho) were able to get the paper on the roof and begin putting on the shingles.

Although Bruce will not be able to see the project through to completion, he feels good about the service and work he was able to perform while he was here.


We bid farewell to the many friends and co-workers that we have enjoyed the past four months, and are looking forward to new adventures in Florida.
Until then, we won't be creating any more blog posts.  We will be busy in Utah preparing for our daughter Rachel's wedding in December, and doing some clerical work at the Farmland Reserve office in Salt Lake.  Join us again in March!

We're Raising the Roof Here on the Farm

The men are making great progress on the garages.  Here are a few pictures which are self explanatory.

 Walls went up first.  Bruce is still pretty agile for a Senior Missionary!

When the trusses first arrived they were 8 feet too short due to a manufacturing error.  It was fixed later that same day.

In other news, last week we had our first Semi-annual Zone Conference with the Smith's and our Directors from Salt Lake.  We were well fed, enlightened by the Spirit, and enjoyed showing off our projects.  Our 5-minute presentations were centered around the Articles of Faith.  We each had to pick one and talk about how our life has been influenced by it.  Our focus of study for the next 6 months is on the Articles of Faith, which will be fun to study.    One funny part was that at the beginning and the end of the conference we sang all the verses of two hymns...acapella.  Well, with only 7 people there (our Farm Manager joined us but didn't sing), the songs sounded somewhat lame because the range was way too high for everyone, and none of us come near Tabernacle Choir quality.  At the end of the conference our Director was praising our efforts and giving us instruction but added, "I know I'm just preaching to the choir....".  After his third reference to this I piped up...."It's pretty obvious that we ain't no choir!"

Happy Missionaries standing in front of a Farm tractor.  Pretty scenic, huh?

Over the weekend we took a little overnight get-away to Monterey to visit the Aquarium and see the sights.  It was wonderful!  After spending hours in the aquarium we ate at Fisherman's Wharf, played at Dennis the Menace Playground, ate some fried artichokes, then spent the night at the Smith's son's house with his family.  Very fun!  The funny incident was that at night I was brushing my teeth so I stuck my hand in my travel bag, but pulled out the cortizone cream instead of the toothpaste.  It is REALLY NASTY.  Five days later I can still taste residue of the cortizone cream on my toothbrush.  The good part is that my teeth don't itch as a result. :)  

Aquarium pictures are below.

                                         This is a giant artichoke, but not the one we ate. The picture below is at Fisherman's Wharf where we ate clam chowder and garlic bread.

 We trust you will all have a Happy Halloween!  We'd like to thank our daughter Jill for sending us our Halloween decoration.  That's about as good as it gets out here.

Here At The Farm It's SUN DAY Every Day!

Did I happen to mention that we live in a gated community?  Did I also mention that we have a number of prisons in our immediate area, one of which houses Charles Manson.  (For those not familiar with Manson, he was a high-profile murderer in the 1970's.  He is now 80, and not going anywhere.)

This big guy lives near the farm at an eating place called The Idle Spur.  It's a folksy place but the food is good.

So we stopped at a thrift store so Bruce could buy a couple of work shirts, and he found a really nice Abercrombie and Fitch shirt that looked like new.  When he got it home he tried it on and found out it had long gorilla sleeves.  So during the week, I unpicked one cuff and shortened it 3 inches, but left the other one long.....I wanted to see if he would notice the difference.   He did.  I haven't fixed the other sleeve yet, but it is on my list of things to do.











This week our gleaning in the fields included walnuts, almonds, tomatoes, pears and grapes.  The grapes are REALLY BIG.  "How big are they", you ask?  They are soooo big that one fills your whole mouth.  They are sooo big a robin would mistake it for her egg.  They are sooo big you would choke if you swallowed it whole.  And they are crisp and explode with flavor in your mouth.

Here is Elder Fillmore and Elder Smith cracking walnuts on a crank walnut cracker that is amazingly easy, and you can crack many at the same time.  Unfortunately, they don't sell them anymore....at least we couldn't find any online or from any of the old hardware stores that used to carry them.

This is Bruce with the ditch witch making more trenches to bury water lines.  Yes, they did cut more existing pipes that had to be repaired.  The shop behind him was without water for about three days until they could locate where the line hooked into the system.








Other happenings:  Bruce did a variety of jobs including some concrete patching, a little welding and some woodworking.  The lumber was delivered yesterday for the two garages, so next time you will see the progress as it takes shape and form.
We hosted another birthday party for the October birthdays....remember the pies last month?  This month we made pumpkin rolls and it was another hit.

They don't call me "Miss-Understood" for nothing.  Here are some examples:

Ann:  The radio said the Pope was addressing congress and he arrived with his wife Rose.  I didn't know he had a wife.

Bruce:  The announcer said he arrived with his WHITE ROBES, and no, he isn't married.

Bruce has started feeding the cat that keeps our house mouse free, and asked me to look for some cat food. 

Ann: (to clerk)  Can you tell me where the cat food is?

Clerk: (points to trays of cantalope and watermelon)

Ann:  Is that cat food?

Clerk:  Oh, I thought you were asking for CUT FRUIT.

Ann: (chuckling...it must be my Utah accent)

Sister Smith called me while Bruce and I were cracking walnuts at a friends house. (There was a chain saw buzzing in the background)

Sister Smith:  When you stop by here, can you pick up some chairs for your neighbor boys?

Ann:  Sure.  (Why would the little boys need chairs from the Smith's?)

Later we stopped by the Smith's and found Elder Smith at home.

Ann:  Your wife asked me to pick up some chairs to take home.

Kay:  Chairs?  I don't know anything about any chairs.

Ann:  Well she said to take some chairs home for the neighbor boys.

Kay:  Oh, you are supposed to take them some PEARS!  Here is the bag.

On a more spiritual note, Conference was great and we were uplifted and edified by the talks.  We have also been enjoying our couple study time each evening where we are reading Jesus the Christ by James E. Talmage.  It is sometimes the highlight of our day.