September 5, 2010

From the Editor's Desk

This upcoming week we celebrate Emily's seventeenth birthday! It is amazing to recall just yesterday when Mom brought this newborn baby with big brown eyes home.

The Wisconsin Haws Family

Emily started her junior year at Marshfield High this week. She has been working at Chips, which is a burger and shake restaurant here in Marshfield.

Fall weather has definitely started this week in Marshfield. Some of the leaves have started changing and the pumpkins growing in our yard have started turning orange. Geese have started passing overhead as they have been migrating south.

Mom has had an exhausting week at Washington Elementary School. She has been substituting as an aide for an eleven year old blind girl that goes there. Lanette and Mom met the girl and her mother one day in Walmart a while back and that is how the opportunity for Mom to work with her at school opened up. However, Mom is anxious for a full-time aide to be found so that Mom doesn't have to spend all day on her feet.

Grant has been commuting an hour each way to Stevens Point all week. He is training there for the next five weeks or so for his new position with Applebee's, even though he will end up managing at the Marshfield location. Right now he is being trained how to cook all the menu items, which has been a lot of fun. Grant is already anxious to have his one minute commute to work back. On Thursday night he was coming back from point and hit a deer. It banged up the bumper to his car, but luckily, he walked away unhurt...which can't be said for Bambi's mother.

Lanette played hookie from school this week and was able to spend time with her friends April Onsager and None Crowe. Lanette enjoys her time with Nona because of Nona family's "stupid talk" which is their term for silly subjects. Lanette got to watch one of her favorite movies, Titanic, with April. April is one of dad's former coworkers and has become a very kind friend for Lanette.

Logan started school at Columbus Catholic School on Monday. He is excited about the change from public schools, as he points out "everyone at Columbus is calmer." One of Logan's favorite teachers is Mrs. Derfus, who also works with Grant at Applebee's on the weekends. This weekend Logan worked on priming the wood for his chicken coop. Hopefully if the weather gets more sunny this week they will be painting it red. The chickens are getting pretty big and Logan was able to show them off to Brother Bates, who along with Sister Pilsner, got Logan interested in raising chickens. Brother and Sister Bates were over for dinner this evening and Brother Bates continues asking when Logan will get his first dozen eggs.

Dad spent the week in New York City. I had a wonderful time. The meeting was excellent and included physicians from all over the world. One funny thing that happened was a discussion I had with a physician from Brazil. She was standing in line in front of me. I noted on her name badge that she was from Sao Paulo. I introduced myself and told her that I had a son and daughter-in-law that lived in Angra. I asked her if she knew where Angra was. She paused for a while then said "yes, she was my favorite teacher." At that point I realized the language barrier was impeding our communication. I had a very enjoyable time with Steve and Dona. Steve and I went to two different free operas at the Metropolitan Opera. I thought that it would be very boring but found out that it was a profound art form. I enjoyed a dinner with Steve and Dona sitting on the shore across the bay from the Statue of Liberty. I have many wonderful memories of Steve. Steve has been an important role model for me taking the role of big brother. His service as missionary was critical to me wanting to be a missionary. His graduating from college was probably the first member of the Buchanan family line to accomplish this. That inspired me to go on to college and ultimately medical school. He continues to provide an example to me as he would pick up garbage left on the subway platform, buy meals for homeless people and always speak kindly of people. He is really a great person. I came home enriched by the experience.


The Jackson's of Albuquerque

A few weeks ago Kevin was assigned to open the Y every day. Since this meant Kevin would have to ride his bike up to work in the dark, Stacie decided to start driving him up and using the gym while he started off work. She was surprised to find that using the gym each morning really helped her wake up and feel more energized throughout the day- even if it means waking up at a whopping 4:30a.m. Both Kevin and Stacie enjoy having a little more time together each day and the "free" (I guess Kevin works for it) use of the gym. Kevin and Stacie have decided to run a half marathon together and are earnestly on the lookout to find a nearby race that will be held on a Saturday- a task which is proving to be pretty difficult.


On Tuesday Stacie attended mutual to fulfill her new calling in the Young Women's organization. The girls learned about etiquette and celebrated a new Mia Maid's birthday. On Wednesday Kevin decided to bake gingersnaps in memory of his great-grandmother, Grandma Viv's, birthday. They discovered, however, that their recipe makes far more gingersnaps than just the two of them could eat. They have spent much of the rest of the week trying to spread around their extra cookies.


On Friday they watched "Wall-e" together for the first time and really enjoyed it. Stacie was very happy to learn this week that "Beauty and the Beast" will be re-released in October. On Saturday Stacie & Kevin got to "sleep in" to 7:30am. Kevin headed off to work and Stacie deep cleaned their apartment. (Thankfully it is much smaller and younger than their old house.) When Kevin finished working he showed her around the gym and taught her some challenging exercises to try out. In the evening they went out to eat at their new favorite, Souper Salad, and stayed up late watching their favorite show, "30 Rock."

News from Newport News

This week has been busy getting back into the swing of things. Andy had to work a couple of days this week trying to take care of things before we head off to Fort Carson, but because of it being Fort Eustis and Labor day weekend they all told him to come back on Tuesday. Haley was able to meet her kindergarten teacher this week at back-to-school night. She is excited because this year she will be taking her own lunch to school in her new Hello Kitty lunch box. Saturday we took the girls to Home Depot to do an art project and then to the Virginia Living Museum.


The Lanes of Virginia

Hey to all!
This week has been VERY Very Busy!
Monday we helped an older sister in the ward who's husband was out of town. She needed some help with her food storage and moving some doors into their unfinished basement. Tuesday we were going to go back to the sister's house to move a piano, but that one fell through.
Wednesday Jeff had mutual. Thursday Julie had a baby shower in the evening. It was a fun experience. Before hand we stopped to see our kitty and it was cute as can be.Julie had made it a little jean mouse that had a sock with hot rice in it. When we put Ek Balam in our arms with the rice pack it was very cuddly.
Friday we went on a date to look at some prices on cat stuff that we were going to need for Ek Balam. However, Julie had done some online research as to what was the best way to buy some of the stuff for an awesome deal off of eBay brand new. As we compared the stuff to the stuff at Petco and Petsmart we found that there was about a hundred and ten dollar difference-needless to say we were excited about saving that much money!!!
Saturday we went up to the temple.We went to do some sealings and well another couple came up. The other husband was actually doing a living sealing to his dead parents. Jeff got to be the dead dad!Just prepping for Halloween! :) When we got home we moved our bed into the living room so that we could kind of experience what a studio apartment would feel like.

Sunday we had the opportunity to take some lemon-lime chicken Alfredo to a new mother in the ward. Jeff got talking sports to the husband and Julie books and crafts with the wife and before we knew it four hours had flown by in a heart beat.

Julie

The International Haws Family
Dad and Mom,

Our week continued rather uneventful. The kids are very happy as school has
been out since Thursday and will continue so until Wednesday because
Independence Day is on Tuesday, Brazilians never go to school.

Derick enjoyed an afternoon with Renata at the mall on Saturday, you should
find a turtle in the water. Derick took the pictures and returned home very
proud of himself for spotting it.