July 2008 Family Letter

July 2008 Family Letter

Dear Family,
It seems like I start each family letter with the same thing…I can’t believe how fast the month has flown.
We began the month with a fun little get-away to San Diego. Paul knows how much I love fireworks, so he tries really hard to make sure I have the opportunity to see good ones. We are fortunate that we “park” our boat at the Sea World Marina because they have fireworks every night during the summer months. Just a little 5-10 minute show, but always wonderful. We were told that they were going to have a big display on the 3rd this year, as well as the 4th of July, so we took the pontoon boat out to get a better view. They were fabulous, and I wondered if they could get any better the next night. They actually were better, but maybe only because they were ten minutes longer. Our friends from Simi Valley came over to meet their kids at Sea World. Their kids were flying in from Salt Lake. Parry and Linda drove over, of course, but their kids’ flight got delayed, so we were able to have them go to lunch with us. Bonus. We invited all of them to come for fireworks but the kids wanted to stay at Sea World, plus they were concerned about the rocking of the boat because a couple of them get seasick. So Parry and Linda came back after their afternoon at Sea World. Linda said she had never had such a good seat for fireworks before and thought these were the best she had ever seen. I’m so glad it all worked out. Good friends are such a blessing.
Jane had a couple of little scares. She had buckled all the kids in the car but then realized she needed to go back in the house to get something. She hopped out of the car and began walking. Heidi started shouting, “Mom! Mom!” Jane turned around to see the car rolling backwards. She ran to get the car stopped and a small branch punctured her leg. Her bad leg, wouldn’t you know…the one where the lymph nodes had been removed. And she got all scratched up and bruised. The door to the car got bent all the way back, but thankfully the kids did not get hurt. She limped around here for days, but is now back to her usual running up the stairs. At some point during the whole ordeal her doctor felt the need to have her get an MRI. He scared us all by saying he was worried that there might be cancer on the brain. She had the MRI…there was nothing. Whew! The moral of the story is…even though we have all been praying for her, and her melanoma no longer exists, and she is off chemo, prayer is still needed…always needed. So please keep her name on your prayer list.

June 2008 Family Letter

For years now my mother's side of the family has written a monthly letter. There were ten children in the family, plus my grandparents Benjamin Franklin Sampson and Mary Francetta Cook Sampson. Originally the youngest would write a letter, send it on to the next older, and he in turn would add a letter and send them on to the next one. And so on. When the letters made their way back to the first one, she would take out the old letter and write a new one. With twelve families writing, it often took over a year for the letters to make the rounds. And by then, the news was very old. Somewhere along the line someone figured that if they each would write a letter and send it on to the one in charge, they could hear from each other once a month instead of once a year, because the letters would then be copied and sent out to everyone in that same month. And now, with the help of e-mail, the letters can just zip and fly at unbelievable speed. Aunt LouEtta, my mother's youngest sister, is in charge now; and I am very proud of her for learning how to e-mail at age 80 plus. I have decided that this is a good place to store my letters because it ends up being a fairly decent monthly summary of the goings on here and with our children and grand children. Rather than save all the letters from other family members, I will simply copy the parts that I think might be of interest.

From now on when I am adding the family letter to my blog I will put parentheses around parts that I add for clarification. I may use bold face if I think that helps.


June 2008 Family Letter
Dear Family,
This month zoomed. I didn’t even have time to talk to myself and say, “You better hurry up and get a letter sent off to Aunt LouEtta before she has to call you.” I can’t believe today is July 1st. (Though I wrote on July 1st, I actually sent the letter to be included in the June letters. Aunt LouEtta is very forgiving for tardiness.)
Tomorrow is Sadie’s first birthday (July 2nd). She is Jane’s youngest and just such a good baby and so adorable. She’s going through the cute stage of learning so many things…patty cake, how to wave bye-bye, signing “more”, spinning on command, kicking her arms and legs when we say “swim”, standing up to furniture, putting her thumb in her mouth when you ask her if she wants “to go night-night.” I’m going to miss her when they leave. Well, actually I will miss all of them, but they will only be about ten minutes away, though in a different ward. The remodeling on their house is going very slowly, though some good progress was made last weekend.
Speaking of Jane…she just found out today that she can stop her chemo treatments, six months early. Great news, huh?!
We are headed off to the boat tomorrow after my hospital duty. Instead of coming back on Sunday we will be leaving early Saturday morning because Ben’s son, Harrison, will be getting baptized that afternoon (July 5th). I have started to crochet an afghan for him to remind him that the Holy Ghost can be a comfort to him, just like the afghan. I likely won’t have it finished, but that will be OK. I just wish I had thought of it before this last weekend. Heidi will be getting baptized in January (or February, as her birthday is on the 14th of January), so I need to get going on hers as well. I can’t leave Hannah out, though she is 11; so hers will be very late. I finished a baby afghan for Annie…in advance of a baby shower, so that is good.
Speaking of “good”…I have some good news…fabulous news actually…Katy and Jim are expecting my ninth grand child. They are the ones who have been married for ten years, so we are all just thrilled. She is due in March, five months after Annie’s baby is born. It will be fun to have little cousins close in age. Believe me…I know how important cousins are.
I’m still walking every morning and clogging some almost every day. Can’t leave square dancing out…still go…still love it. The only real change to my normal life is that we don’t go to garage sales regularly any more. Since I recently gave away so much stuff that I had been accumulating, I realized that most of what I buy is for the kids, and they don’t have room for it. Every time I do go I love it and always find some little treasure, but I don’t go through withdrawals any more if I don’t go.
Paul was gone three weeks in June…Montana…shooting prairie dogs for the ranchers. He loves that little hobby of his. He suggested that I go someplace while he was gone. So, after some consideration, I decided to go to California. On a Thursday I flew to Burbank and stayed with Katy and Jim through Saturday. Then she took me to my friend, Linda’s, until the following Thursday. It was a great time. Linda said I should make it an annual trip, so that made me feel like a very welcomed guest.
Out of room and news.