Grammy's News

It has not been a really great week for me. My tummy was misbehaving for several days and I hate to admit it but I felt quite grumpy. I guess the stress of John in the hospital last week and Erin's grief and disappointment over not getting to adopt their baby got to me. I seem to be calm and collected during times of stress but my tummy acts up afterwards. I spent several days feeling rotten with my stomach telling me who was boss....

On top of that we had terrible Santa Ana winds this week in southern California. they are not hurricanes or tornadoes but they are awful. They are very hot winds that blow for days making messes everywhere. Leaves, limbs from trees and garbage were blown all over. Fires raged around our area. We were not close to the fires but many lost their homes and I felt sad for them.

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Our patio furniture was blown over. From our front lawn to the back of our property our place was a mess. Our patios and pool were full of dirt , leaves and garbage.... but worst of all for us... hundreds of pieces of fruit was blown off of our trees.

I took pictures of it all to show you.... but I will only post these four. I thought that if I showed you the extent of the mess and told you how rotten I felt while I was trying to clean it up ,you would excuse me from doing my Sunday Six this week.

Then one morning after the first day of winds John brought me a note and this precious magnet that had been left amid the mess at our front door.

It was from my friend, Kris. You can tell from her picture that she is a sweetheart.

Kris and I had talked at church last Sunday. She knew that I was feeling sad for Erin.... and I admitted to her that I felt a little let down that we had prayed with all the faith we could muster but without the results we had hoped for.

In her kindness, Kris did not condemn me, but told me when she has been disappointed that her prayers were not answered the way she hoped they would be, she found it helpful to get on her knees and thank our Heavenly Father that He has everything in His hands. Instead of desperately begging the Lord, she gives her burdens to Him and rejoices that she knows He is in charge. I already knew that....but how nice to have my friend remind me.

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That leads me to my Sunday Six

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#1. I am thankful for "glass half full" type of people.

Kris is definitely a positive person. Her kind words, note and magnet lifted my spirits....and it made me stop and think about how negative I was being... I don't want to be a "glass half empty" person. I want to be like Kris. She makes me smile.

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#2. Having supportive friends makes me smile.

What would I do without my friends? So many of both my real friends and blog friends (actually you blog friends are "real" friends too) have expressed concern and love. Your comments and emails mean a lot to me and certainly make me smile.

#3. Working in the temple makes me smile

This is not a good picture of our Redlands temple but it is a lovely little temple. Both this week and last John and I substituted for some friends and worked in the temple 2 days instead of our usual one. It is wonderful to leave the cares of the world outside as we enter the temple and serve there. This is a great blessing in our lives and we are grateful to have this opportunity. I am thankful and smiling that we have a temple near us and have been called to serve in it.

#4. Finding hidden treasure makes me smile.

While cleaning up the mess in our yard, John found this beautiful flower in a remote corner of our yard. We did not know it was there. He would not have found it if he'd not been cleaning up in that area. He called me over from where I was working, made me close my eyes, and then lead me to this amazing flower. What a treasure! Isn't that a lot like life? In the middle of our messes and trials we can find little treasures that bless our lives.

#5. Through my family and friend's examples I can see the glass half full too.

As I mentioned, the wind blew a lot of our fruit off of our trees. Every variety of tree lost much of its fruit. For example,we counted almost a hundred beautiful avocados blown off. Austin helped Grampy pick them up.

The "glass half empty" part is having so much fruit blow off our trees.

The "glass half full" part is I don't have to wonder what is for dinner this week.... we are having stuffed avocados, avocado sandwiches, avocado salad, avocado burgers and guacamole dip with everything......uhh... Marie and Gloria, can I make avocado soup???

#6 We had a wonderful time with the kids at Knotts

The winds let up....John was feeling better....my tummy was behaving pretty well... so we took EJ, Claire and Austin to Knotts. Our season passes will expire soon so we took advantage of a fun day at Knott's Berry Farm. I think most of these pictures speak for themselves.... and you can see why I was smiling...

Grampy got held up by the train robbers...
Claire got picked to go up on stage during the Charlie Brown show. She was smiling and so was I
EJ and I braved a roller coaster ride. After Claire saw how much fun we had she joined us for the next ride...actually next two rides. Whee...we had fun!
Austin got brave enough to ride on the "scary fast" cars with EJ

How is this for a pirate face? The kids enjoyed going on the Pirate treasure hunt.

We met our friends there and had a great day. Claire met Lauren there several months ago. The two girls became good friends instantly. Lauren's mother Sheri, her grandmother, Holly and her little sister, Jenna have met us at Knotts on several occasions since then and we have a good time with them. Isn't it nice when you can make new friends just while standing in line for a ride. We surely think that is worth smiling about.

All too soon our day was over and it was time to say goodbye. We were all tired but went home with memories to save of our wonderful time together. We all had smiles.

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Well it turns out that I've had lots to smile about this week as always. I know that I am blessed and I am thankful.

I'm in a rush so I am going to post this without proof reading it. If you find errors please ignore them.

Please let me know about your week. I hope you had lots to smile about too.

Love, Grammy Lura