Grammys smiles and a prayer for Johnny

I do love February…. I love pink… and hearts ...and lace …and flowers and telling dear ones how special they are to me….I just love it all.  I celebrate Valentine’s day all month long. I am sorry this is the last week of our month of love.

I especially love setting beautiful tables….. so…. when I saw these pretty pink chair covers, table clothe and napkins at Bed Bath and Beyond last week I just had to buy them.  Actually I was going to make the chair covers like I did before but when I went to look at fabric, I found that it was just as cheap to buy them…. so I did.

I intended to alter the backs of the chair covers to fit my chairs but when I showed them to Kris she thought they would look cute just gathered up  in the back……. and since I am very lazy these days   like to take my friend’s advice, that it what I did.  I added a rose, a heart and a lace bow as accents. Do you like the way they look???? …..or… should I go ahead and alter them to fit the backs of the chairs? Getting new table linens makes me smile.

Speaking of Kris…. she had a group of us “Cruising Buddies” over for a lovely dinner last week. Everything that Kris does is beautiful. She is the Queen of Valentine’s Day…. and… like me…..celebrates it all month long too. (Look at my last post to see the lovely Valentine Lunch she made for Jan and me.)

We had a wonderful evening filled with good food and good friends. What a blessing it is to have such dear friends that enrich my life. Smile… Smile.

I got totally spoiled. They knew I wasn’t feeling too good so they insisted that I just sit and rest while they all helped with the clean up. Their thoughtfulness made me smile. We are not all of the same faith but we all love the Lord and each other. I treasure their friendships.

From time to time you’ve read about my dear grandson, Johnny’s gymnastic events. I’m always bragging about him…. especially since he made the 2012 National team.

I can’t even begin to describe how hard he has worked for the past decade on the road to his Olympic dream…. but…. he needs some prayers for healing now.

His back had been hurting even before he went to Russia to compete in December. He didn’t say much about it because everyone had worked so hard helping him earn the money for the trip and he was really excited to go and compete at that big event with gymnasts from 22 countries.

However, when he got home from Russia, the pain was so bad that he finally told his mom and she took him to the doctor. It turns out that he has teardrop fracture on his 3rd lumbar in his back which has put him out of practice for the past few weeks. He is so sad to be missing some of the big meets like Winter’s Cup etc.  The good part is he should mend up fine and be able to keep competing if he lets the fracture rest and heal. He is still hoping to make State, Regional and National competitions later this year.  Please say a little prayer for this dear boy. I am praying that his back will completely heal…. but also that he will use wisdom and not try to go  back to training too soon. After all of his years of hard work and sacrifice I would hate to see him hurt himself permanently by trying to compete again too soon.

Well, these are my thoughts and smiles for this week. I hope that you are well and happy. As always, I am sending you all hugs.

Valentine Smiles

This has been a delightful week full of love. I feel so blessed to be in a loving family and have sweet friends. How they enrich my life and bring me many smiles.

My Valentine week started last Sunday when I invited my daughter’s family and the senior missionaries to dinner. I made a 4 course Chinese food meal. It took me two days to cut up and make all of the dishes. We had Asian salad, soup, sweet and sour pork, fried rice, chicken chow mien, shrimp with rice noodles and chicken chop suey. We had fortune cookies, almond cookies and chocolate cake for dessert.  It was a good meal but I have retired from Chinese cooking. It is way too much work to make it when I can go our local restaurant and buy a meal  for $6.50.

Austin spend the night with us after our Sunday dinner. Monday morning we headed off to the store to buy Valentines for him to give his classmates at school. He worked on writing all the names on the Valentine’s while I decorated a mail box for him to collect his Valentine’s. It was a fun day with Austin. Being with this sweet boy always makes me smile.

I also finished making all of the goodie bags to take to our visiting teaching and home teaching families. In our church each lady is visited once a month by a visiting teacher and each family is visited by a home teacher. The bishop can not visit each church member individually, but through visiting teaching and home teaching each member is contacted and helped if needed. John visits 3 families and I have 5 ladies I see each month. I love this program. No one is left out.

Wednesday I finished making my Valentine’s.

I had already mailed off my Valentine box to Utah and the cards that were going out of town but I still had to finish the ones needed here locally. I enjoyed making each one a little different and writing a note to each special friend. Having dear friends is such a blessing.

Wednesday eve I had Kris and Craig over for Valentine’s dinner.

John gave me these beautiful flowers which made a lovely centerpiece for our table. Wasn’t that sweet of him. He makes me smile.

Thursday I went to Kris’s Valentine’s lunch before John and I had to leave to work in the temple.

Kris sets a beautiful table. It was so much fun being there with her and Jan.

Our elegant lunch ended with a tea party. It was all so beautiful. I felt very special… like a fairytale princess. Thank you Kris and Jan for a wonderful time.

 

I hope that you had fun doing special things for those you love this past week…. and I hope that your loved ones made you feel special too….. but if they didn’t… know that God loves you and you will always be special to Him.

….

Health note: I continue to suffer from these darn esophageal spasms. I had to sleep in my recliner 3 nights last week because it hurts too much to lie down. I had an endoscopy Friday which didn’t show anything so they are scheduling more tests which I dread… but ….since I can’t live with this I guess I’ll do them.

I hope you are doing well.  Have a great week.  Hugs, Grammy Lura

 

February Smiles

I just love February…. don’t you??? I’ve been working all week making Valentines. I got my Utah family’s goodies all mailed off yesterday. I hope my little gifts of love make them smile.

Here are some of the other things that have made me smile.

Our EJ auditioned and got first chair trumpet in the So. Cal Honor band. He even got to play a solo part.

We attended his concert Sat. We were so proud of him. EJ makes me smile.

Claire continues to make great strides with her singing. However, she has really has blown me away this time. LA Opera is putting on a community opera and had a part for a young girl between 11 and 17. Claire just turned 11. She auditioned against 200 or so other girls…. who were nearly all in the 17 year old range. A SHE GOT THE PART!!!

Our little Claire will be singing in this LA Opera production in April. We are all amazed.  I smile from ear to ear when I hear Claire sing.

My new favorite game to play on my iPad is Gems with Friends. … and I love it when I’m at the top of the leaderboard. I’m not always the best for the week but I was last week….. so that made me smile.

This picture makes me smile for 2 reasons.  #1… Austin is spending the night with us tonight. That always makes me smile. In this picture he is texting me. He was sitting right across from me but he wanted to text. We have been texting back and forth all night. It is good writing practice for him but, isn’t that funny??

#2 Look into the kitchen and you will see John doing dinner dishes. I made a really big dinner today for the family and the missionaries. I was tired so my sweet hubby pitched in and did the dishes for me. Wasn’t that sweet!! Getting help in the kitchen always makes me smile.

John and I are both finally feeling better. I still have a cough but other than that I’m doing pretty well.  I hope that you are too.

Have a good week. Let me know what you are smiling about.

Hugs, Grammy Lura

 

Final Cruising to Mexico Smiles

John and I are both feeling better at last. I still have a cough but I felt like going to church today and out to Sunday dinner at Mindy and Ernie’s.  Life is definitely looking up considering that I was almost flat down all week.

We were suppose to go to the Grand Canyon with some friends of our this weekend and then we planned to visit my 90 year old Aunt who lives about 100 miles farther away. I could not go to visit  her while I was sick so we cancelled the whole trip. I was really disappointed to miss this trip but now that I am better we will reschedule it for another time.

These are the last of our Mexico trip smiles that I want to share with you.

As our Ship rounded “Land’s End” from the Pacific Ocean into the Sea of Cortez we were greeted by the famous Arch of Cabo San Lucas.

The city is nestled on the shore line.

The water is too shallow for our big ship to go into the dock so little boats called tenders took us to the land.

These are views of our ship from the tender.

After Loni and Claire got surprised by a living statue and bought Cabo hats….

We boarded our glass bottom water taxi and took off to see the sights.

We went by the arch again and then “Sea Lion rock” on our way out to go whale watching.

There were lots of whales and they put on quite a show for us.

Back on land Loni and Claire ran into a couple of Iguana friends before

We finished off our day by listening to marimba music and then headed back to the ship.

The next day Erin and Patrick wanted to spend the day at the beach with their little ones. They actually wanted to play at the beach the day before but by the time we waited for them to get a bite to eat and then we went whale watching, it was too late and too cold. I was so excited about taking the older girls out to the Arch and whale watching that I didn’t realized Erin and Patrick just wanted to stay at the beach. I felt bad about that but they got lots of good beach time the next day.

I woke up our 2nd day in Cabo with the Mexican runs  not feeling well. However, the day before we had made arrangements for Loni and Claire to go snorkeling. I didn’t want to disappoint them so I took medicine and off we went.

Over they went into the water…..

And had a great time. They saw lots and lots of beautiful fish.

Claire said it was the most exciting thing that she had ever done. I was glad that we’d gone to the effort to take them even though I was not feeling well.

We dropped the girls off at the beach with Erin and Patrick and we headed back to the ship so I could rest. It turned out to be a very eventful day. There is more to the story which I will not take the time to tell.  I will just say that a situation came up that could have not ended well….. but through the tender mercies of the Lord our girls were blessed and all end well.

We left Mexico with  a heart full of thankfulness. This is truly a trip that we will never forget…. that is for sure!

We then spent one more day on the ship as we headed back to LA. We even got to go to high tea on the way home. We love herbal tea parties and on a cruise it is even more fun since I didn’t have to go to any work to make it. Of course, I never have a tea party without thinking of my friend Marie in England, and Jan and Kris.  Wouldn’t it be fun if we could all go to a cruise tea party together!!!

Speaking of cruises….. I have an Alaskan land tour/cruise trip planned for May. It is 4 days  inland to Denali and a 7 day cruise of the glaciers. It is the best price I’ve ever seen for this trip for this 11 day trip. Please contact me at jandltravel@charter.net   if you are interested  The sale is on until 2/15/13 and I have 4 cabins left.

Have a great week…. and thanks for the get well wishes that you sent me.

Hugs, Lura