Nov. 17, 2008

Has it been a year since Benj and Robynne's wedding? Was it only a year ago that we had 500 sodas in glass bottles and 12 street lanterns in our garage? Sheesh time goes by fast and yet it seems like Brett has been gone forever on his mission to Paraguay. He emails every Mon. so it's a good day to update the blog. On Veteran's Day we went to the J. Paul Ghetti museum with Susan Bev and Spencer. Very fun.

School was cancelled today because there are major fires everywhere and the air is all smokey. Over the weekend the freeways were all shut down. Erika was at Disneyland with Tyler and it took her 4 hours to get home on Sat. They cancelled 3 of our wards in our stake because people were being evacuated. Carbon Canyon/Chino Hills/Firestone/Diamond Bar are where the fires are. There are others around LA and Santa Barbara also. We’ve been preparing our 72 hour kits and emergency stuff because the state and our stake had an earthquake drill this week. 3 families got picked to actually do without power, water and transportation this weekend. I was glad we didn’t get picked. On Sat. we had to go to 9 houses and check on them and then report to our block captain. This is a new calling Taylor and I have until we move or die they told us. The whole ward is broken up in to sections geographically so that we could walk to check on the families we have if we couldn’t use our car. The three families all said that water was the most important thing. We don’t even realize how much water we all use. We filled up our water barrels on Sat. We are trying to get prepared. "If ye are prepared ye shall not fear" comes to mind often lately.

This week I went to a rally at the high school. They were honoring all the kids who got straight A’s last year. I thought it was fun. Chaz thought it could’ve been better. They took his “mugshot” and put a video together of all of the kids being honored. The theme was cops and robbers and they transformed the gym into a jail. They did an obstacle course and had everyone sit with their class and yell out the year they’re graduating….12, 11, 10, 09…

There has been lots of demonstrations at the temples and ward buildings since the passing of Prop 8. LA and Salt Lake temples had to be closed because an envelope of white powder was found. They put signs saying we were bigots and hate gays in the temple fence. The press has had a field day with it. Even Gov. Arnold said they should take it to the courts to get it overturned. Taylor wrote him a great letter about listening to the voice of the people who have spoken out twice on this issue. That’s the blessing of a free democratic process and they all are stomping on it and our right of religious freedom. But of course no one is reporting that. The fires have done one good thing, they have stopped the coverage of all the demonstrations. Every channel is covering the fires instead. They announced yesterday that on Wed. they plan to demonstrate at our stake center. We were instructed to stay away from there and that everything was cancelled for Wed.

We went to the Newport temple on Fri with Caleb, Lisa, Josh, Erika and Grammie and Grandpa. It was such a peaceful and reverent feeling compared to the outside world. I love going to get the eternal perspective back. I loved having my family with me. Until next week....