A Great Trip To Yosemite

This past June, I took a great trip to Yosemite National Park with my sister. It's a place we often went on family vacations when we were growing up, and I always loved my time there. The park was very busy, so we had to stay abt an hour away, but the drive in and out was beautiful! We hit right around the peak as far as water pouring into valley over the many large waterfalls and smaller, seasonal cascades that spill over the rim in unexpected places. My sister has a convertible VW bug, so we were able to enjoy a panoramic view of nature as we drove around Yosemite Valley and up to Tuolomne Meadows, which unfortunately was not yet in its summer season.
All in all, though, it was just wonderful and I'm so glad I got to go 'back in time' for a couple of days!

Graduation Coming Soon!

This next week, we celebrate the graduation milestones of two of our sons from BYU. Nathan with a master's degree and Jared with his bachelor's. Nathan reminded me he has already graduated once. :-)
And Annette will leave on her mission in May. So many wonderful things happening this spring!

February 2, 2010

Wow, can it be six months since I last wrote in my blog here? Bad Nina! We've had so many fun things in our family since then. A new grandbaby born last September to Jared and Margaret, the return of David from his mission in Thailand and the publishing of his book Mrs. McFig and The Very Big Wig, a great Christmas vacation at home with six of our seven kids, and so much more.
One highlight was the temple trip in December to complete the temple work for my Mother and Father. What a special day! I had long looked forward to the time when that would happen. Now, it is a treasured memory.
2010 has many more milestones ahead, as we look forward to the graduation of Nathan and Jared from BYU in April, Jared entering the Army Band program this summer, Richard and I celebrating our 30th anniversary in August and so much more.
Life has been good, and whatever it brings in 2010, I am grateful for my husband and kids and all that I have been blessed with.

A LOVELY MORNING AT THE SACRED GROVE

Last Sunday we had the opportunity to spend time at the Sacred Grove in Palmyra New York. Sometimes when we've been there, the place has been very busy with many visitors walking the paths through the grove of trees. But this past visit was quite different. We saw one car in the parking lot, but in the grove we were all alone.

We walked together along the path through the trees, deep into the grove, and found a lovely spot with two benches where we could sit quietly for a time. The sunlight filtered from above; an occasional bird could be heard, and a squirrel flitted back and forth near a log on the forest floor. Over all was a sense of peace, a quiet, a feeling of fulfillment and distant memory of an event that had occurred 189 years ago in that spot. I felt such joy in the knowledge that here, God had appeared.

I'm so glad we had that quiet time in one of the sacred places of the earth. My testimony of Joseph Smith the boy Prophet was strengthened; I know he was and is a prophet of God, who restored the fullness of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

In Sunday school today I had the chance to bear my testimony of Joseph, as we studied the martyrdom and the contributions of the man who gave even his very life as a witness for what he knew to be true. I pray that I may be as strong and faithful in my own testimony as he was in his.

SMILING FACES ON THE TRAIL

Richard and I went walking on the York Heritage Rail Trail Saturday morning. Well, Richard went running and I went walking, and we met back at the car to come home. That's how it usually is; I don't run, and he won't walk! But we both get our exercise in.
I really enjoyed the smell of the fresh morning air, and the sunlight filtering through the trees. It's the first day I've been on the trail for awhile. But one thing that really stood out to me were all the friendly greetings as walkers, runners and cyclists passed me up or came from the other direction on the trail. Everyone was smiling; everyone was happy. Why? Maybe it was all the endorphins from the exercise, or maybe it was just being outside on a nice day. Maybe it was just being a friendly Pennsylvanian, or all of the above. Whatever it was, I'm heading back to the trail on Monday for another dose of the same.

GOING HOME

Gideon and Richard traveled to SLO this week to visit Grandma. There is something very therapeutic in 'going home'. I wish I could have gone with them. I love that feeling of seeing the San Luis Obispo next 8 exits sign, coming off the freeway, and driving down familiar streets. Even the smell in the air is familiar, and the landmarks take me back in time to being a little girl and then a teen and young mom there.

Even though I'm not there myself this week, Gideon has kept me well informed about what they are doing, including:
Swimming in Grandma's Pool
Having lunch at A & W Rootbeer, which he thinks would do well in our town in PA
Going to the Morro Bay State Park museum
Playing on the beach
Visiting Atascadero Lake
Having a night swim with family
Playing Clue, an old summer favorite
Going to Madonna Inn for Black Forest Cake

My favorite summer memories of growing up in SLO include:
Climbing the hill across from our house and carrying a picnic lunch to eat while looking out over the city
Endless hours of swimming and more swimming in our pool
Weenie roasts at Cayucos with a big driftwood bonfire
Poking sea anenomes in the tide pools there, and looking for sand dollars and angel-wing or abalone shells
Visiting the library and reading many wonderful novels for the first time
Taking a picnic lunch down to San Luis Creek and playing in the water
Walking on Avila Pier and watching the fishermen
Going to Montana De Oro beach and Hazard Canyon, and running down the sand to the bottom
Eating at Ed's Takeout and Arctic Circle restaurant
Going to summer movies once a week at Fremont Theatre
Riding bikes wherever we wanted to go, with little parent supervision
And generally just having a wonderful childhood in a wonderful place

Thank you, San Luis Obispo!

LYME DISEASE

Gideon went to Scout Camp in June and came back with a deer tick as a little extra on his leg. We removed it and watched the site to see if any kind of rash developed. Over the next several weeks, we saw nothing at all, kind of forgot about it, except for the fact that Gideon complained of joint pain off and on all of July. That's unusual for him, but he's in a big growth spurt right now so we chalked it up to that.
Fast forward to this past Wednesday, when Gideon came into the office after his shower to show me his other leg, which had a big 5 inch circular rash ring! And another one on his right ankle. Neither of them were at the site of the tick bite, but I made a dr appt right away and took him in.
Yep, he has Lyme Disease. The dr said it wouldn't have been from the Scout Camp tick bite as that was too far back to have left these particular rash circles, so we guessed he got bit again when he was at a campfire program at his scoutmaster's house a couple of weeks ago. But the internet and a different dr said no, the rings can appear up to 30 days after the bite took place. Now the joint pain is explained, and also the throwing up/flu symptoms he had one day a couple of weeks back.
Gideon will be fine; he is on antibiotics for 30 days and that's that. Luckily we caught it early! Only about 1/2 - 2/3 of Lyme Disease sufferers get the ring rash symptom, so for the rest, diagnosis can be harder from what I've heard.
So it pays to know the symptoms and signs of Lyme Disease, especially if you live in Pennsylvania.
For those who don't know, here is a list of some of them:
Joint Pain
Red Circular Rash
Fatigue
Headache

And for a fuller list (and to read more about Lyme Disease), CLICK HERE to visit the CDC's info page.