March Madness

Just reading through blogs and realized how much I love them.  Thank you so much...all of you who take the time to post and share pictures.  It is so fun to see all the cute families and what they are doing.  It is sad for me to not be able to post pictures .....but maybe things will work out that I can do better.
March always reminds me of basketball and the way my brother Berne and his sweet wife Jan have always had the tradition of going to the games.  I follow them a little...mostly because basketball was always such a big part of our lives when we were growing up.  My brothers were stars of the teams they played on in high school, and college was also fun for us all to follow as a family.  I remember falling asleep while watching Coby play in the state play offs in SLC back in 1975 when I was expecting Kydon. Cedar took their first state championship that year and my brother helped to make it happen!  Those were fun and exciting days.
 All those years ago don't seem so awfully long ago now...and I'm still falling asleep during important events so it's just part of who I am!   (Play hard, work hard, sleep whenever you are settled down to rest!)
Hope everyone enjoys the games.  My son in law Scott is probably the best sports fan in the family now.  Keep us on track Scott.  Sports matter!

Fall is here

It's so nice to have cooler weather finally here!  We got out to visit Auburn ward yesterday and enjoyed meeting new people and greeting old friends.  Later that evening we visited some less active friends here in our ward.  I love the gospel and the example of good people around us.  We are all very blessed and I love the Fall season that reminds us of our many blessings.
I got to have a long talk with Dane on the phone and hear his thoughts about becoming a parent and all the new responsibility he will have.  I felt so good to hear his insights and realize what a special young man he is and what  great parents he and Laura are going to be.  Having a family is such a joy....as well as a challenging learning experience everyday.  This life is a time to prepare for eternity.  How great it is to know about the plan of salvation!!
We are planning a shower for Laura when they come to visit Atlanta the end of October.  Of course everyone who knows them is invited.  Write me if you want more details.
Lots to do this week.  I better get busy....

Labor Day Weekend

We've had fun these past three days enjoying end of the summer and looking forward to Fall.  Kydon, Shanna and kids met us at Callaway Friday evening for the hot air balloon festival.  They were a beautiful and amazing sight as they glowed all around the lake.  We swam, saw a dog show, ate a  lot and enjoyed just playing and being together at beautiful Callaway Gardens.  Sure wish we had pictures to post!
Sunday was spent visiting three wards to catch up on my RS work.  Today we went to the "Altrusa Used Books Sale" and went for Chinese Food to celebrate a friends birthday.  Tonight was a yummy dinner and FHE at the Lenhard's with the missionaries and our new friend Connie who just moved here from Utah to work at AFLAC.  Tomorrow I start piano and helping at our new preschool.  Lots to do and I'm glad to be busy doing new things.

new computer

We have a new Apple computer!  The graphics are great and everything is quick and easy to use.  Now to start posting things and putting pictures up.  I have a bad feeling whenever I sit down to the computer...It always takes a while and much trial and error to make things work.  I want to try and do more....hopefully I can be more successful.
Terry had surgery on his shoulder on Tuesday.  Pretty rough few days as he deals with the pain of healing. I keep ice in a portable machine that helps with the swelling.  Meds are such a blessing.  Hopefully he will soon be up and about and riding his bike again.  We are so happy to have Brian and Charlotte Reed here with us until time for them to go back to school.  Their family moved to Singapore this week.  They will be missed here in the ward.

Terry and the tornado relief trip

We left early Saturday morning at 5:00 am for Birmingham Alabama.

We met at a baptist church and got a work order to go to Pleasant Grove AL.

This is the first house we worked. I you have been in Columbus, or Atlanta then you know how thick and tall the trees are in the area. Pleasant Grove was no different. This picture is on the edge of the tornado damage area. Some of the houses and trees are still standing. We drove pick up trucks down into the back yard and loaded all kinds of wood and limbs and debris. Then we piled it at the curb in front of the houses for the city to dispose of.

This is the second house which was right next to the first house.

The rest of the pictures are from the more devastated area. There are miles of this area where there is nothing left. You can see where one house was moved about 30 feet off of its foundation and on to the drive way.

 

The rusty hinge

This is just a little about my life lately. I have been working on three new (to me) wood working tools. You might ask, " why work on a new tool?" Answer: They are very old. First one is a sears jointer. I didn't really want it, but it came as one piece of a set. He wouldn't sell them separately. These tools need restoration. This jointer predates the craftsman series of Sears tools and was probably made around the late 1930's. The tool line is called companion. One of the things I have been working on is the decals. Maybe someone out there can help me with them.

This is a picture of one decal I got from another owner of one of these tools

This is what I have been able to make out of the original by editing with paint.net free internet software. It is kind of like micorsoft paint I think. I have some directions off of the net as to how to turn this into a decal that can be applied. I like to think of it as an old looking decal in perfect condition. I think that is better than the next picture I found that someone made to look like a new decal. I don't like it. What do  you think? new looking or old looking?

This is just too new looking for an old tool.

Why is it that this thing puts pictures in the reverse order, #2 above #1 and #3 above #2 I hate it. Can you tell me how to post these pictures better? As it is I go into edit html and cut and past the photo where I want it. It would be less painful to do it right the first time.

This picture is how I received it. Very dirty and dusty and rusty after 3 years in a barn.

This is after the restoration, but before the decals. The decal goes right in the center on that shinny spot.

I found the bushing/bearings are bad now that I have it all together and running. I can get new bushings for under $10 dollars. This was an exercise to see if I could do this without destroying the machine. All the rust was removed by electrolysis. Basically putting parts in a bucket of water and connecting the battery charger to it for 24 hrs. one piece at a time (not the whole machine). The blue paint is very near the original color. I found it in spray cans at Walmart for under $2.

By the way the rusty hinge is really my achillies tendon. It is really strange you can hear it creak.  If you want to you can feel it creak while I move my foot. I rode 70 miles yesterday and the rusty hinge just showed up.

It's spring in Georgia and the blossoms are so beautiful this year!  This picture was actually taken in St. Louis last year, but it reminded me of the lovely trees and shrubs that are popping out right now so thought I would post something about them.  We've had a lot of rain so far so everything is growing great.  Terry and I even have a tomato plant with blossoms on it by the driveway!  Hope the 70 degree plus weather keeps on, so we can have an early harvest.
We are looking forward to the month of April since the Atlanta Temple is reopening.  We are involved with the open house tours and invite everyone to come and see the newly renovated Atlanta Temple.   We have so much to be grateful for and want you all to know we love and miss you and look forward to our next time together. 

Happy New Year!

  Preston took this picture for us.  We are enjoying pancakes each morning for breakfast

Enjoying time in Arizona with Erik and family.  They have an amazing tree with bright oranges and dark green leaves on most of it, and a few branches of perfect grapefruit on the other side.  We made  fresh orange juice for breakfast and it was delicious!

Christmas 2010

Kydon and Shanna came to see us a day or two before Christmas so we could enjoy the anticipation together for a day.  We had a fish fry, went to a live nativity and spent Christmas Eve Day doing a hike at Pine Mtn.  It was just right for getting out....cool and crisp but cold enough to feel like Christmas.   We went to Fox's for pizza and stromboli after.  Then home to get ready for the big day.

This year was the first time Terry and I have spent Christmas without any of our kids around us.  We decided to go to dinner at Outback with our friends the Bowen's.    Then home to watch Mr. Krueger's Christmas before time for bed.  We enjoyed opening gifts on Christmas morning.   What a happy time, and we loved talking to all of you  on the phone to hear how your special morning went! It really was a Merry Christmas!

Thanksgiving

We had a really nice Thanksgiving with some of our family at our house for the big feast.  It was warm enough for shorts and we got to spend some time at the park just playing around.  Scott brined the turkey which made it so moist and tasty.  Celebrating Peyton's first birthday was also fun for all of us.  He is a cutie!

Dane and Laura came from Texas and we all enjoyed them so much....especially the kids.  Laura is good to play outside with them and Dane is always fun to talk to.  We went to the UGA/Ga Tech game too.  Cold as could be and Granny got sick the next day....but was worth it to be together.

Missionary Dinner

Tonight we went to Shiloh, Georgia for a pool side dinner with the sister missionaries.  They stay at a friend's home that has a beautiful view of the mountains and trees on Pine Mtn. We got to enjoy being outside on a hot, humid, July afternoon and it really wasn't bad because we had good food and good company.  The sister missionaries are so sweet and fun to talk to.  What hard workers too, and how organized and diligent they are in bringing the gospel message to investigators and members in this area.  They had appointments today and were setting things up for tomorrow while we were with them.  It was really fun to get to know them a little better.

Sunday evening

:I Love to see the Temple."    This picture is actually at the Seattle temple and was taken when we were there before the cruise.  The sculpture is the same as is found in Nauvoo.  I am grateful for temple ordinances that bind us together as eternal families. 
Today was a wonderful day at church as I was able to visit a Primary and feel the spirit that comes with children who are so sweet and innocent and ready to learn and grow.  I love everyone who serves children by teaching and loving them and taking the time to help them down the paths that will help them return to their Father in Heaven again.  Yesterday at the Birmingham Temple I was reminded of the plan of salvation and the great blessing it is to all of us here in mortality.  As we knelt across the altar to do some sealings for husbands and wives, and also for families, the spirit was strong and confirmed that family life is the greatest happiness we can experience.  I love my family and want to be with them forever one day. 

Friday night again!  It has been a good week and I'm glad the good old summertime is here.  We are getting tomatoes off our own vines now and the flowers I have in pots by the driveway are looking good.  Terry is off with the missionaries tonight.  He has been putting new windows in our house and doing a great job.  We will blog about this soon, and put in some pictures.
Tomorrow we are going to the Birmingham Temple and taking three ladies who have soem family names to work with.  We are looking forward to a great day together.

July 1, 2010

Today is the start of a new month so I'm thinking about missionary work and wanting to do more about sharing the gospel.  I met Lee while on the plane to Seattle and turned out he knew a lot about the church and loved talking about it to me, so it was a marvelous missionary moment for me!  He had good memories of working with members years ago when he worked at a steel plant.   He had made friends and had actually had the missionaries teach him at one point.  He remembered the kindness of the members to his family.  One man had played Santa to his kids for several years.  He had been to the temple open house for the Seattle temple, and was anxious to take us there so he offered to give us a tour of Seattle and we went there before we went on our cruise.  The man in the middle is a bus driver and an old friend of Lee's.   (Lee is a retired bus driver).  We met him quite by chance while touring a neighborhood in Seattle.  Lee has now been contacted by the missionaries again and has expressed interest in visiting the church..    Today I want to drop him a note and ask how he is doing.   

Trip to Alaska

Here we are in Seattle on the first day of our adventure.  We had a tour through the neighborhood where my sister in law,  Martha Leavitt used to live.  The Queen's area overlooks the water and there's an excellent view of the skyline from here.  The houses were small and quaint (and big and nice) in this area.  Most had beautifully landscaped yards and lots of bright flowers.   Seattle had a unique feel about it.  Lots going on all over town.

This picture is the Tracey Arm Fjord.  The glacier spills into the ocean and ice chucks are floating all around in the water .  We got up early this morning to see the scenery as the ship passed through a narrow inlet to get us close to the blue ice of the glacier.  Very beautiful!  We met new friends on board too.  That was one of the best parts of the cruise for me.

This amazing waterfall was right by the Mendenhall Glacier in Juneau.  (above this picture) We hiked about a mile from the visitors center to get to it.  A really nice day and some people were even swimming in a warm water pool along the path.  The weather was perfect on our trip.  May is the best time to visit Alaska.

Here's the seven of us who took the trip for Granny's 80th birthday.   My wonderful sister in law Martha Leavitt .  My brother Berne and his son Cade, Terry and me, Mom, and my sister Bonnie.  It was great to have just the seven of us.  So nice for visiitng and getting places together. These gardens in Victoria Canada were absolutely beautiful!

Celebrating Granny's birthday at dinner.  We actually did it twice since we forgot to take pictures the first time.  Some of the waitors gathered around with us to sing.  We all ate a lot of dessert every night.  Everything was so good and we all came home much fatter!

This is our waitor that took such good care of us for a formal dinner each night.  He is Reagan from India.  Very cute with a smile we all loved!  Terry has these pictures labeled, but I can't preview them before they start loading.  I'll try one more and see if it's a good one to show....(picture is above)
Terry posing by an "inukchuk."  These are man made rock creations that we saw when we got off the white rail train on our way to the summit in Skagway.   Beautiful mountains and icy waters....Alaska is a rainforest and everything is very lush and green.
The captions aren't going with the pictures.   Sorry, I'll try one more.....

Here we are after dinner one night.  We dressed up sometimes which was really fun.  This is the internet place on the ship.   We were just looking for a quiet place to take a picture. The cruise was great and we liked it a lot more than we thought we would.  Hope we can all go together some time in the future!

Preparing for Alaska

This week is exciting and fun as we are thinking about our upcoming trip to Alaska.  I'm telling everyone that we are doing a cruise for my mother's 80th birthday.  So many have said what a great thing it is to be able to go with family, and now they want to do it too.    I really am glad that it is Granny's idea that we go, and as the time gets closer I am so glad that she has wanted to do this.  We started last summer with the planning, since this is my year to put something together for a family reunion.  We decided that after this trip, we won't have a big reunion every summer....I think we decided on every other year??  I'm not sure, I just know that getting together as often as possible is really important. We all need to know each other and remember that we are family!  I miss being close to all of you and hope that we can keep up family ties on blogs, email, phone and by going to reunions as often as possible.  (We did decide to have a family gathering at Cedar City on Grandpa's birthday July 17th , for whoever can come.)  I think it would be good to send pictures for those of us who can't make it, and hopefully we can still stay updated when we do come and see everyone's picture on Granny Leavitt's fridge or the wall in the library.    To my family:  I noticed there aren't as many updated pictures of us as there could be.  Please send something new to Granny soon.  The whole family will get to see you when they visit her....so please update!
Anyway, back to the cruise.  There are seven of us going.  Terry and me, Granny and Bonnie Cook in a cabin, Berne and Cade together, and Martha Leavitt has her own place, complete with a balcony because she has done cruises before and knows it is important to do it right!  We are looking forward to visiting her when we are cruising at sea between dockings.  I've heard the scenery is spectacular and that it can get cold on deck, so hope we can sip hot chocolate with Martha at her place.   Bonnie and I have gone round and round about what land excursions to do when the ship docks.  It has been fun to research what is available and try and decide what to do.  In the end we are only scheduling one ahead (Vancouver to see Butchart gardens).  We're deciding on the others after we get on board ship.  We have heard positive and negative about scheduling ahead or waiting, but since deciding now is so hard, we are waiting.  We may be disappointed if they are overbooked and we miss the train to the summit in Skagway, but like one travel lady said, "just do something else" so that is what we are doing.
I started packing today....warm scarf, gloves, headband, and swimsuit and towel for lounging at the pool, formal dress for dinner on ship a time or two, (my wedding dress that is seldom used does get another wearing) and just a few tops to go with jeans, which I expect will be my main thing to wear everyday.  Mom said to go light and I am trying....but it is nice to have a choice...oh well!
Anyway, Terry and I are super excited.  We will be taking pictures and we will try to send postcards.  Please let me know if you want one sent to you. 

Williamsburg Virginia

Kydon and Shanna invited me to go to Wiliamsburg with them for spring break.  We drove eight hours to get there and it was well worth it!  We stayed at the "Powhatan" which was a nice resort place with indoor and outdoor pools, a playground, and beautifully landscaped grounds for the kids to run and play on.  We visited the historic triangle:  Williamsburg, Yorktown and Jamestown.  Here's Kydon and Shanna onboard the "Susan Constant" the largest of the three ships to make the original 1607 voyage to America.  (It was surprisingly small,. just 116 ft. long!)
We all explored every ship, and heard about the voyages from costumed sailors.    There were forts, museums, trolley rides, and lots of fun places to eat out and explore on the trip.  We also went to North Carolina and had fun there.   Thanks Kydon and Shanna.  I loved going on vacation with you.

My new bike at long last.

 

About 4 years ago I started riding. I quickly went through or tried 2 bikes and quickly discarded them. I got this 30 year old bike and have been riding it for about 3 1/2 years. I slowly upgraded, but there is only so much you can do to an old bike. It was about 30 lbs when I started and is about 26 lbs. now. I knew I would be getting a modern bike as soon as I felt I had the money. Everything is a compromise where money is concerned. If not we would all have the best of everything, house, cars, trips, food. etc. It took be awhile to come to grips with what I was willing to compromise on and what I wasn't. The most expensive  bikes are the lightest and the fastest. I knew weight would be a compromise. The compromise ended up at 19 lbs. That is pretty light for a heavy rider tipping the scales at nearly 200 lbs.  The rest of this blog will be some of my thoughts on the bike I have built and why I did different things.


First it had to be the right size, not compromise here. I am 6 ft. 3 in. tall, so a big bike is a must. I found this bike frame on Craigs list. It is 65 cm. That is very big. It is Aluminum with a carbon fork and Carbon Seat stays. The carbon is the black parts. The compromises are it is from a small company with a reputation for bad paint and graphics. It isn't very flashy and the paint chips like crazy. You can see the large chip if you look close. The frame was never assembled into a bike, so it was virtually new.
 

 I got the handle bars used from Craigs list. I would like wider bars but they are fine and another compromise. The seat post works great and is generic. It isn't heavy or light saved money. The wheels are very inexpensive, but are very aerodynamic. They spin true and are pretty light. I have the same ones on my old bike. I saw a $10,000 bike smashed up in a mater of seconds and decided some parts just don't need to be exposed to being trashed. That is when I decided $450 cheaper wheels than I was planing on were just fine.

The tires are also a compromise.
The are pretty expensive, but I shop and shop for good deals. they are pretty light and roll really fast. I get about 3000 miles on them. Lighter tires are more extensive, but don't last as long. They also are not prone to flats and will take up to 165 lbs of pressure.

I decided to get the best running gear I possibly could get. There are 3 companies that the pro riders use. Each company has it's own top of the line models. They do work a little differently. I decided no copromise here and went with SRAM Red shifters, chain, cassette, and derailleurs. The crank has to be 180 mm long, no compromise. Red didn't offer one that long so I went with a lower priced rival model. It saved a lot of money and is a lot less maintenance than the Red model. Good choice there. The pedals have always been  a problem. You can't know until you try them. I read and read and ended up with an ebay deal on speed play 5x model I think. I really like them, but will try another speed play model next time. The saddle is another problem. Hurts you if you don't get the right one. The local bike shop loans out test saddles. I tried several and settled on the Selle SMP Glider. It is the best one so far.

The crank

                                                                                                  The saddle.

The bike

I really like the bike. It is a lot of money , but way less than what others have invested. If  I crash, I won't feel so bad when things break. One or two pieces can be replace with minimal outlays. click on the pictures if you want a closer look. There are a lot of details I left out, so if you want to know more just ask.
By the way the new bike has it's own garage. That's the yellow cover in the first picture. Works well to keep it clean and free of dust in the wood shop/garage.

A visit to Atlanta

Yesterday we had a fun day in Atlanta visiting with Kydon, Shanna and kids.  Spring is finally in the air so it was a good day to go to a soccer game, have a picnic and hike with the Olsen's and to visit the Llsen's at their house.

 

  

February

The month is almost gone and it has really flown by!  I have been busy working my little part time jobs that are now a bigger part of my life than I thought they would be.   I have a few piano students, have done some childcare, have worked some days at Sodexo catering, have cleaned houses for three wonderful ladies, and have been very busy helping put together the women's conference in our stake.  All of these things should be talked about in detail, since they have all been fun and good experiences for me.  In the future I want to start doing this..but it takes a lot of time and I must keep trying to be more patient and just do it!!.   I will blog more as things happen next month.    Details make things interesting, right?  Anyway, that's another goal to work on.