From Mom - September 2020

September 8, 2020

We just enjoyed some fresh trout for dinner that Darrell Smith brought us last night. Yummy. They were white inside instead of the orange color like Chris has brought us when his neighbor brings him some trout from time to time. But they tasted good, with freshly-picked tomatoes.

Shauna Smith said there were about 90 people at our ward's first church today and they had regular testimony meeting, which is one of my favorite meetings. She was surprised at how many "older" couples were there.

We haven't even had our church yet today, but that is next......

We have bottled 14 quarts of peaches the past couple days.

We hope all is well with all of you. Write us a family letter and tell us what's happening.

From Chris: Are used to have two different times, but the total for the two was still less than 100, so we combined into one meeting now for church. The last couple fish I gave you were actually salmon

From Derek: Funny you mention eating trout - because Danielle and I are watching a survival show called “Alone” (there is one season on Netflix and we’ve watched a couple others on Hulu). It’s surprisingly addicting. They drop 10 contestants off in terribly remote locations with only ten items each and whoever can survive the longest wins $500k. They film it themselves. For the most part, they each end up starving and losing 80 lbs - but trout has pretty much been their only food source (a couple of them have been able to take down other animals, a moose, Wolverine, birds). But it got Danielle and I talking about trout and how I grew up eating trout. :) I told her that Grandma and Grandpa would go to Strawberry in their little fishing boat and bring back a bunch. Fun memories and I still miss me some trout dinner! :)

September 28, 2020

Hi Kids,

Wendy, thanks for your nice letter and photos--fun times! Hope Josh's back gets all the way better soon. That's nice he is doing so well in soccer and cross-country. Hope his referring works out for him as a job, after all your time and costs.

I just read the letter. I couldn't fall asleep until after 5:30 this morning, so I am getting to the computer late this morning. Cold painful feet.

I sometimes miss things sent at night, but Chris told me to be sure to look for your letter and his. I don't know if Scott and Amy get Chris's weekly letter because of the size and their email limit of 5 mb.

I am so sorry to hear about your dizzy spells and nausea for weeks---that feels so awful-----a taste of what Grayson goes through with Menieres. I remember when Chris had the problem for a couple days awhile ago. Thankfully his went away quickly. That's terrible to go through and never know when the episodes will hit. 

Our former bishop, and ENT doctor, did procedures on Betty Sollis and others in the ward that had the problem. I remember I found online instructions for some procedure that I had sent to Chris. I don't know if it is the same one you had done. I sure hope the problem ends soon for you. Please keep us posted. We will remember you and Josh in our prayers. Jenna's birthday this coming Sat.---your baby is growing up!

Hope Jaiden can handle her busy school schedule, her extracurricular activities she has committed to, with singing and student council, and 2 part-time jobs! With she still do her assistant teaching with the dance group also? Remind her to get enough sleep---teens often don't.

• Chris, thanks for your nice letter also and pictures. We'll have to taste Kim's spaghetti sauce sometime----hard to believe we haven't been to your house since last January and haven't seen your yard and projects because of Covid! Glad we get your and Corin's weekly visits and help. Nice to have Kim come for dinner and games one night also, when you were in town to pick up Cayson from his weekend with his mother. Nice that you could get Camden for the weekend
• Scott and Amy came for a visit last night, and it was so nice to see them. They brought delicious pumpkin cake for me and GF "muddy buddies" for Dad. Canyon School District where Taylee and Camden go, now has no school on Fridays--they said their teachers were getting burned out, having to do physical school and online school. I'm sure it is so hard for teachers and admire them and their dedication to help their students. The teacher at Taylee's school that was in the hospital on a ventilator with Covid, beat it and is home now, so that is good! Amy taught me how to get Taylee's games with full-screen on the TV, so I hope I remember how to do it. Derek was showing me how to do it with Shane's house tentative blueprints. Chris was showing me how to get "Chosen" up on the TV. I like and want to learn how to do all these things, so thanks for the lessons and I hope I remember. With Amy, I jotted instructions down, which should help. I'll have to do that on the other things. Jen said Jordan School District is being very transparent in listing Covid cases on their website.
• Our ward yesterday started doing Sacrament meet on Zoom, as well as in person, so that was nice to feel more a part of it. Now I need to learn to do that full-screen!
• In case they are too busy to write---Alicia flew the to the Bay Area for the weekend for some photoshoots for friends there. Adria is on her 2nd 2-week quarantine, from positive cases at school, which is the pits, missing almost her whole soccer season, and she loves soccer! Shane taught Elder's Quorum yesterday virtually. That's nice that their family will make a trip to St. George and visit Wendy's in Oct. The cousins have so much fun together!

We are sure enjoying all Jen's "Westra Way" blogs. They are so fun and cute and informative and such a great history of our family. We appreciate all the work Jen and Wendy and Chris are doing in scanning and recording and putting pics and histories on FamilyTree and Dropbox. Not everyone can see our wonderful dropbox project of histories and photos, without subscribing and paying for it, but it's nice they can get Westra Way. Chris is finding many fun pictures that we haven't seen before.

We are doing fine. I am getting down to my last few fresh peaches----I have loved them, not gotten (Grayson, rhymes with "boughten":-)) tired of them at all, though I bet I've eaten a couple hundred of them! I am glad our trees bear at different times, because of location and shade, etc., so our fresh peaches last several weeks. We bottled 60 quarts of peaches and some of tomatoes. Best tomato crop for years--Early girl, as usual, and nice bigger ones from Celebrity. We will do Celebrity again. And doing plants in our front perennial bed, sunnier location, helped. All our tomato plants along the back fence of Linthorsts and several other plants, died with they spray-painted their fence and the paint came through the cracks in the fence. I sure hope we have a long warm Fall!

We love hearing what you are all doing! Enjoy General Conference weekend.

love you all so much, Mom