Newsletter: October 2002 Archives
This is the front entrance to Disney's California Adventure park
View more pictures of our disneyland trip
10-28-2002
k, so now this letter is a full two weeks late, but we've been busy so you'll have to forgive us.
First some big news on the house. We put in our order for new kitchen cabinets and they should be arriving on the 13th of November. We are very excited for the new kitchen to be done. This week we also had new vinyl windows put in, they drastically change the look of the house and they keep the heat in so much better than our old windows. I think James took some pictures of the house after they were in so we'll put a before and after picture up on the website. We also had the roofers come and do the reroofing project, luckily it waited to rain until they were finished and we had two full days of rain without a waterfall running down our bathroom wall.
On Saturday the 18th, we decided to tackle putting in a new front door. 12 hours later (3:00 in the morning) it was finally in. We still have to figure out the moulding on it because the standard moulding that came with the door doesn't fit, so my dad said he will help us out with that.
The weekend of the 11th we went on a vacation with most of my family. We drove down to Anaheim California on Friday and spent Saturday and Monday in Disneyland and the new California Adventure park. It was a really fun trip, except for the 12 hour drive. I guess I don't remember it taking that long to drive to Anaheim, but it was painful. I think everyone has agreed that we should fly the next time we go, or take two days to drive there.
Saturday we went to the California Adventure park and were slightly disappointed with it. There aren't very many rides there and then the ones that are there are just your typical amusement park rides, most of them we didn't even go on because we had all ridden them at Lagoon earlier in the summer. The best rides are the roller coaster and the Soaring over California, but it's not worth the 45 bucks just to go and ride those two rides. We've decided that unless they start including California Adventure with the regular Disneyland ticket, that we would probably never go there again.
Sunday we kind of lazed around and recuperated from the drive and a full day on our feet. James and I drove to downtown LA and took in some of the sites there. We wandered through the sculpture gardens at the LaBrea Tar pits and the LA Museum. Then we drove by the Disney and Warner Brothers Studios. We also happened to find the LA Temple as we were driving, which kind of surprised us. It's wierd to have the Temple in the midst of such a seedy city, but I suppose that's the way it is almost everywhere but Utah.
Monday my older sister Marrisse and her family met up with us and we went to Disneyland. It was fun to go to Disneyland with the little girls, Hannah was brave enough to go on a bunch of rides, even if she cowered next to her mom or dad and closed her eyes and covered her ears through most of them. She has a very low tolerance for the dark and loud noises. Maggie who is one and a half and not afraid of anything went on everything we took her on and spent most of the time pointing out things that caught her attention. The crowning moment of the day for the girls was the parade which featured characters from all the recent Disney movies.
Some of my favorite parts of the day were riding the Holiday Haunted Mansion (a very clever mix of the old Haunted Mansion and the characters from The Nightmare Before Christmas) and riding Splash Mountain twice in a row. James really liked the Indiana Jones ride and went on that one twice too. We had so much fun and hope to be able to go back again in a year or two.
On Sunday the 20th our ward had it's Primary Program. I was in charge of getting all the parts typed ready for the teachers to distribute and of typing and copying the program to hand out for sacrament meeting. That Sunday was a little stressful, but the program went off pretty well. I ended up sitting with the Sunbeam class who were very antsy after having to sit still for two hours. They discovered that they could reach one of the side microphones and I finally had to get up and move it. As a presidency we were glad that it was over when it was done, because now we can get used to being a normal presidency instead of Crazy Program organizers.
Well, I think that about wraps it up for these last three weeks. We love you all and hope you are well.
Love,
Miekka and James
10-07-2002
This week has kind of been a wind-down week for us after the great dumpster filling excitement of last week. We have made quite a few changes to our house this week, but didn't have to lift a finger for them other than to pick up a pen to write a check.
We had our new furnace and AC unit installed on Wednesday. Since then we have enjoyed the luxury of not having to remember to turn the thermostat on and off and waking up to a warm bedroom instead of freezing for the first half hour of the morning. Getting the AC installed at the beginning of winter has been a little anti-climactic. Everyone is jealous though (everyone meaning my parents and my sister who both have swamp coolers.) I'm excited to try it out next year when it starts to get warm again.
We also had a new water heater installed and have loved taking long showers without the hot water running out. We decided to get a 50 gallon instead of just replacing our 40 gallon tank, we figure that the time will come when having those 10 extra gallons will be worth it.
James started his new job this week, but hasn't been able to get much work done due to technical difficulties with his new computer upgrade. He decided that if he was going to be working on his computer all day that he wanted it to be a little faster and nicer, so he bascially bought all the parts for a new computer. He had trouble with the new motherboard and after a day of trying to figure out what was wrong decided to replace it with a diffferent one. Everything seems to be up and running just fine now so hopefully he can get some regular work done this week, plus some make up for last week.
I have been working with the other members of the Primary Presidency to get our Primary program in order so that we can give it on the 20th. We are doing it very simply and in line with the guidelines that the church has set for it. The Primary president is very against doing "fluffy" extras that the church doesn't condone and I think she is very smart in this approach. So it will mostly just be singing and short parts by the kids. We have a very small Primary (for Utah that is) and so the program promises to be short and sweet.
We loved having Grandpa Lynn and Grandma Jean come and visit us this Friday. They took the grand tour of our house and are excited to come back and see how the work progresses. We also went out to dinner with them at the Macaroni Grill and enjoyed the good food and good company.
Saturday and Sunday were spent in watching and being edified by General Conference. I think the main theme of the conference this year was Preparedness and Sacrifice. There were several talks on Tithing and accepting Church callings, and James reported that in Priesthood session President Hinckley reiterated his call to get our houses in order and to get out of debt. Other major news from the Priesthood session was that Temple recommends are now going to be good for 2 years instead of one and that the Church is doing away with Missionary Farewells and Homecomings as we know them. I guess a Farewell and Homecoming will now only consist of the missionary speaking. There will be no parent talks, no special musical numbers, and no open houses afterward. I think that a lot of people will have a hard time with this counsel, but I think that it's good, espcially here in Utah where missionary stuff can get way out of hand.
Sunday we went to Laura's house for the 2nd session and dinner. We had yummy Sauerbraten and Cake and ice cream for Aunt Sally's birthday. It was a fun evening spent with family members that we don't get to see very often.
That's it for this week. We hope that everyone is well and happy and we'd love to hear from all of you.
Love,
Miekka and James
