We had a great Thanksgiving. We missed Christian a lot, but we also talked to him a lot and like I said in previous posts, he spent the holiday with very good people. This was one of those Thanksgivings that was unexpectedly encouraging and helpful. We went to a church event on Friday where we saw good friends from my college days, made the acquaintance of some new folks and just had a great chance to talk in an inspiring setting. We plan to make our way back up there again.
One of the highlights of the trip was our friend Carl who was out to Washing for a round of special meetings of our church. We got to hear him preach in Spanish and to say that what he had to say was something I needed to hear is a wild understatement. And he was not the only one who had good things for me to hear. We knew we would miss our North Carolina friends, but we are amazed how frequently–at least daily–we think of reasons to remember them to each other.
On Sunday, we take my parents to church in the morning. When there are Gospel meetings, we take them Sunday afternoon, too. This Sunday was the last Gospel meeting before the holidays and we were surprised when our friends Kirk and Melanie from Charlotte walked in. It is a small world and it is nice to be reminded of the gifts of friendships we receive day in and day out. It is by the grace of God we are given time and opportunity to realize how good we have it just because of the fellowship we are in.
Betty Blonde #435 – 03/18/2010
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Our friends Ralph and Barbie invited Christian over for Thanksgiving this year. He planned to come up here to spend the weekend with us, but was just too slammed with work to make the trip. Lorena, Kelly and I will have a full Thanksgiving weekend and Christian will be well cared for, but this is the second year in a row when everyone was not together for our favorite holiday. Kelly, of course, is working on her research between petting Kiwi, the remaining twin cat sister. It is going to busy and nice, but we really do wish we could be with Christian. We have decided we will all try to head south to Arizona for Christmas. I hope we can make that work.
We count Gladys as the fifth grandparent of Christian and Kelly. We are really thankful to have the chance to live so close to Glad. She has been a fixture in our lives since forever. She and Lorena went down to their Wilsonville manicure salon this morning, then we made our way to the new Noodles and Company here in town for a (late) Birthday lunch. We are especially thankful that she was able to make it all the way out to Raleigh for Thanksgiving and for the kids graduation from NCSU when Grandma Sarah could not travel. Thanks Glad. We love you.
Lorena had surgery about a year ago at the Duke University Hospital in Durham, North Carolina. Everything went very nicely and now she is back into a dentist/doctor team here in Oregon to finish up. There is nothing that is any fun about this kind of thing. It is uncomfortable (fortunately there has not been a lot of pain), expensive and a hassle. Oregon Health Sciences University has a wonderful hospital but its location and the way it is laid out makes it horrible difficult to navigate. I know their are topological/geographical and historic reasons for all that, but that does not diminish the hassle when you do not feel good and are trying to get to an appointment, not to mention getting back to your car.
Lorena and I actually drove out to Mulino to look at an old schoolhouse on a little less than an acre of land to decide whether we wanted to buy and remodel it into a house. It was very, very cool, but it would have been more work than we wanted. We hate this waiting, especially with the holidays almost here. If we were at a different stage in life, maybe we would have done it, but now is not the time. So there is nothing to do but keep looking until we find something that is close enought to “right” that we can pull the trigger. In the meantime, we work a lot on the weekends, go to McDonalds before breakfast on Sunday–no down side to their sausage burrito–and go back to work on Monday.
Christian gave his paper at the 
