He Was There Again Today

A few months ago while I was on my morning walk that takes me to the cemetery, I saw an older gentleman in a motorized wheelchair. He seemed to be taking the same path as I, and when I got close enough, I asked him if he had been to visit someone in the cemetery. His face was wet with tears as he confirmed that his wife was there. I asked how long ago, and he said five years. I asked if he goes there often and he said, "Yes, every day." He continued, "...sometimes two or three times (and I thought he was going to say two or three times a week) a day." Two or three times a day for five years. He must be a very lonely man. I saw him again today and offered a silent prayer of thanks that the pain is not as sharp as it was 15 months ago; thanks that I have yesterdays full of good memories and wonderful children and grandchildren to fill my todays and my tomorrows. My life is full.

A Walk in the Park

After my first morning walk in Irvine, Andrew told me there was a nice park nearby that I might enjoy. The next day, Melissa and the boys took me there for a picnic. I have walked there every morning since then.

The park is only a couple blocks past Albertsons and takes about ten minutes to get there. I wouldn't have believed it existed in this congested college community.

William R. Mason Regional Park is 345 acres that was once part of a vast 100,000 acre rancho. It has a baseball field, sand volleyball courts, playgrounds, pavilions and picnic areas, an amphitheater, a 9-acre lake, 123 acres of wilderness/natural area, and Strawberry Farms golf course. There are hiking and biking trails that traverse the park. I only saw a small portion of it, but it was a beautiful place to spend a half hour or so each day.

I took my camera with me today to preserve and share some of its beauty.

Why I Fly...

Yesterday morning I was working from my home computer. In the evening I finished up my work from my laptop in Sunny California. That is one great benefit of airplane travel. Air travel provides a savings in time, gasoline and wear and tear on both my car and my body, well maybe not my body.

This morning I discovered another reason why I fly.

I try to take a morning walk as often as possible, five to six days a week usually. I try to walk even when I am visiting the kids. I am a bit nervous the first day whether I will remember the route and get home safely. In Vegas Brian's mom gave me a little map of the streets that I could take to get in my two miles and make it back home fairly easily. No problem. Their neighborhood was pretty "square". Maybe not quite like Utah's simply amazing grid system but not bad.

Here is one of my walking routes at home.

Pretty simple, and as you can see, the directions are pretty straightforward also.

This walk takes about 35 minutes. Now Irvine is a different story!! I had been to Albertsons grocery store near Andrew's place on a previous visit and thought this would be a good direction to take my walk this morning. Here is a map of the area. (The path marked in blue was where I traveled.)

By the time I got to Albertsons I had expended less than 10 minutes of my planned 40 minutes so I decided to keep going a bit longer before heading back. Even though the streets around there are all named after colleges and universities instead of north, east, south or west something, I figured if I just did my own type of grid calculations, I could get back okay. I did a 90 degree turn and kept going. Four 90 degrees with approximate equal distances in between would bring you back to the beginning, right? Well, I don't think there is one straight street in Irvine, nor are there any 90 degree corners. In spite of that, I did make it back to Campus Drive , which is the street that Albertson's is on. I then turned right on Campus drive and thought I would soon be back at Andrew's apartment. I walked a few blocks and didn't see any familiar landmarks. I saw a lot more businesses that I hadn't noticed before. I thought I had done a pretty good job of noticing which streets I took along the way--except for the VERY FIRST STREET. After wandering a route that looked something like this...

I decided I was lost. That was hard to admit. My thoughts then turned to wondering what Andrew and Melissa were doing and thinking about my being gone so long. My half hour walk had now been stretched to over two hours.

Did I mention that I didn't take my phone with me? Since I was walking so early, I thought no one would be calling me this time of morning. That was my first mistake. After spending some time looking for a business establishment that would be open at 8:30 on Saturday morning, I finally found someone who would let me use their phone book AND phone. I called Andrew and Melissa. As I surmised, I was not really that far from home. Melissa told me that I had to go up Campus Drive to California Avenue and turn right. That was the street that intersected Campus Drive back by Albertsons. One 90 degree turn in the RIGHT direction and I was headed home. 2 1/2 hours and 6+ miles after I began my walk, Andrew found me wandering along Verano Place trying to find the laundromat that was right outside their apartment. I decided then and there that I would have been in REALLY BIG TROUBLE if I had driven to Irvine from Utah. I doubt that I would be here yet!

Baby Girl Leishman--Taylor Rain

Here are some pictures of Taylor Rain Leishman and Company. Taylor was born August 27, 2008 at 10:35 p.m. in Logan, Utah. She weighed 6 lb. 14 oz. and was 19 1/2 inches long. She has lots of long black hair and the prettiest eyes with long eyelashes. Shane and Sonia are tickled pink. I have never seen so much pink in Sonia's house before. In the hospital it seemed that the staff put mostly blue blankets on Taylor, and Sonia was actually questioning where the pink was!








Taylor's Grandpa and Grandma Leishman and the Leishman aunts and uncles and cousins and Kaden had their family Labor Day campout this weekend. Even though some of them had the chance to see Taylor before they went, they came over as soon as they got home Sunday from camping so they could hold Taylor. Then they went home and cleaned up and came over a couple hours later to help celebrate Kaden's 9th birthday. Taylor was passed around again and everyone enjoyed holding her.

See more pictures.

What is missing in this picture?

Did you guess "the quilting frame"?
After about nine months I was finally able to fold it up and put it away. I set it up shortly after Audrey was born last Thanksgiving, and have now finished my seventh grandbaby quilt for this year. Last night I took Alex and Laura's off the frame. I still have to finish binding three of them, but I need to give my fingers a bit of a break.
Here are the invaluable tools that I use to make the quilts:

Cutting board, rotary cutter and straight edges. They speed up the preparation process SO much!

My invaluable sewing machine.

I enjoy the piecing process of quilting, but it is always exciting to finally get the quilt on the quilting frame.

Here are the tools necessary to do the hand quilting part. I could never survive without the thimbles.

I used to watch my mom do quilting. I know she used a metal thimble on her first or middle finger but she had nothing to protect her thumb. She used small pliers to pull the needle through when she came to a tough spot.

It didn't take very long using Mom's method to know that I needed something more. I was so thrilled when I found this leather thimble for my thumb. It not only protects the thumb but it gives great grip for pulling the needle through. You can tell by the holes in the leather thimble that it has gone through quite an ordeal. It is only good for a couple quilts and then I replace it because the needle starts to come all the way through if I push too hard.

There is a verse in the Bible that says "let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth". This is in reference to doing alms (service, charity, etc.). In a little different context, when I quilt I have to kind of keep these words in my mind. With my left hand I push the needle through the fabric, and with the right hand I check the underneath side of the quilt to make sure every stitch goes clear through all three layers of the quilt. By and large, it is the right hand that controls the stitch length and uniformity. I have tried to use a protection on my right hand but I just can't tell what is happening unless I can feel the tip of the needle. It isn't a big deal at the beginning of the project, but by the end of a quilt my right hand fingers are a bit sore. After a while the finger becomes calloused and it can bear the pain a bit longer. Since I put a time constraint on the last four quilts I just completed, I did not give my fingers adequate time to recover from the effects of one quilt. When the right hand became ever more aware of what the left hand was doing, it was love that took charge. With every stitch I think about the children and grandchildren that will receive my gifts of love, and it is so worth it! Or maybe I am just crazy!

The most recent quilts that are waiting for binding.

(P.S. Keep those babies coming)

All that glitters is not gold

After we came home from our hike to Timp Cave, Aaron took Ammon and me back up the canyon above Tibble Fork to try our luck at panning for gold. We spent a few fun hours...if you call wet shoes, dust from the passing four-wheelers, muddy clothes, spider webs, ticks, (did I mention dust?) fun. No, it was fun to watch Ammon and Aaron wading in the creek, digging up the rocks and mud, putting them in their pans and swishing and sloshing until all they had left was a little "black sand" on the bottom of the pan which was supposed to contain valuable gold dust, or even finer "gold flour". You should have seen Aaron's delight when he found some large nuggets in his pan. After this, his search was on the verge of frenzy. He found a large boulder and dug the dirt and rocks from underneath it for quite a while until he had filled a 5-gallon bucket about three-fourths full. After trying to use a portable sluice box to speed the process they went back to panning out the rest of their findings. Imagine Aaron's disappointment when he checked one of the larger nuggets after he noticed it was kind of dancing along on the top of the dust as he swished it around. Gold's weight should not allow it to move so freely. On further inspection he decided he had been fooled...fool's gold or iron pyrite. Who knows, maybe there was a grain of gold in there. With that in mind, Aaron definitely plans to return for another try at gold mining. I hope I can go along.



It is kind of hard to see but this is the bounteous black sand that held the ore mined today. If you enlarge the pictures, you can see a couple flecks that glitter.

Hike to Timp Cave

Since we didn't get a chance to hike to Timp Cave for the family reunion, I was glad that Aaron suggested this as an activity last weekend when they were visiting. I asked him if they had jackets for the time inside the cave and he said he didn't think they had brought any. I said I thought we would have jackets they could use.

Early Saturday morning Aaron went and stood in line to get tickets for us. Armed with water bottles and snacks we drove up the canyon and met Ammon and Abby and family in the parking lot. We all pulled out our jackets to prepare for the cool 40 degree temperature of the cave...well almost everyone had a jacket. I had forgotten to get the jackets for Aaron's family as I promised. Fortunately Abby had a rather girlish pullover that would probably fit Morgan snugly but she boldly offered to let Morgan wear Hyrum's sweatshirt and put the girly sweater on their own boy. I am glad he has such an abundance of self confidence that he would not be intimidated by jeers of "Sissy" that he may encounter.

We headed up the trail at 8:20 a.m. anticipating a 1 1/2 hour hike to arrive in time for the 9:50 tour. We had an uneventful hike and made it to our destination 10 minutes ahead of schedule. Man, Aaron! We could have spent a few more minutes on those benches!

The cave was as dark and wet and cold as I remembered but the tour seemed longer than on previous trips. It was enjoyable though. It was hard to keep Morgan from touching the formations. I am sure if Aaron hadn't held his hand or held him he would have found it hard to resist climbing on them. He seemed especially excited about the one that resembled a St. Bernard dog.

In the hour that we were in the cave, the outside temperature had risen, but it was still a fairly pleasant hike down the trail. We encountered quite a few more hikers and they seemed tired and hot. We were super glad that we had chosen an early tour. It was perfect.


To see more pictures, go to this link:

Timp Cave