December 5, 2020
Thanks for your nice update, Jen! We love hearing what everyone is doing.
- We are glad Pam's house sold so quickly and at the asking price. We have some house news also. When Shane & Alicia crunched the numbers, they decided they couldn't afford to move ahead with the new house without selling their present home. They had planned on keeping it as a rental property. Scott had always wanted to someday get into the real estate rental business and had encouraged us to do so, but we just didn't have the interest at all. I suggested to Scott that they buy Shane's house and then rent it back to Shane until they moved to the new house. Scott seriously thought about it awhile, but decided the timing wasn't quite right for them. Then I had the thought that maybe we should do it and ran that idea by Scott. He thought it was a good idea. I just hated to see Shane's family have to move twice and uproot the kids. They were moving ahead with the new house because of us and our timing. Otherwise they probably would have waited a few more years. I wanted us to get settled with them while we still had each other, etc. So we are close to closing--maybe this coming week. Boy, the credit union lenders wanted proof of soooo many financial things---what a pain providing it all! Even with Shane handling everything he could for us. So I guess we will try using it for a rental place in a couple years after Shane and Alicia move out and see how it goes. If it doesn't go well, we can always resell it if renters haven't trashed it. It is sure hard trying to scale down our big house full of stuff for our eventual moving and selling. I'm glad the stock market is doing okay, as we had to sell a bunch of stuff for the down payment on the house.
- Jen, did a dermatologist ever say what your kids' skin problems have been? That is nice that Callahan and Keaton are so well thought of by their employer! And a raise and promotion is always nice!! And very good knowledge to have in their future lives and homes.
- Amber said the surgeon found even more damage in Conner's foot than he had expected. Conner was quite sick when waking up. Hope the recovery won't be too bad--hard to miss so much work for him also. I hope Callahan's foot is still doing good. Maybe Conner and Callahan should be checked for celiac disease. Did Callahan's doctor think his bones were strong?
- Chris & Corin came to work for us yesterday. For the first time it was too cold for them to work outside. We all wore masks and they tried to work in the basement---Corin doing carpet cleaning, etc. We are trying to be very careful since covid is worse now than it has ever been and with the vaccines coming before too long. The governor said in Utah 76% of the deaths were in folks over age 65!
- We are anxious to see who our new stake presidency will be tomorrow. Our bishop has been in 5 1/2 years now (he was just put in when Dad had his cardiac arrest episode), so we could be getting a new one soon.
- Scott stopped by for a visit a couple days ago---at least we didn't have to worry about Covid with him.
Have a nice weekend!
love ya, Mom
***** December 12, 2020
Janelle has Covid. Her test came back positive this morning. It finally caught up with her. This was her 6th test she has had to take in the past months, as everyone around her got it! On the news a few days ago, they had a segment on the St. George Hospital and how their ICU was at 150% capacity and in a bad way. Bring on those vaccines!
Wendy and Rick had a funeral this morning and then are flying out this afternoon, staying one night in Denver, then flying to Mexico for a get-away from their busy life. We hope they have a wonderful relaxing time!
We woke up to some snow this morning. We just sent our Christmas newsletter part off to Derek this
morning---he had it all made up with your information. I mentioned to Chris Thurs. that no one had responded and sent their info and pictures in. He said you all had responded quickly-------------then Dad checked spam and they were all there!!
Adria and Alicia, Jen wants to do a Westra Way page on Adria and her new job and put all the "bagging stories" and teenage job experiences we wrote back and forth. So she wants a picture of Adria that you want to use---or Adria could have someone at work take some photos of her in her Apron or whatever they wear at Macey's.
*****December 14, 2020
Saturday evening surprise, Shane and Alicia came bringing a lovely Christmas tree they bought at
Home Depot and pretty new ornaments and lights and presents to go underneath. They did all the decorating and we didn't have to get out all our Christmas boxes at all! How nice of them to do that! We played Christmas music and chatted while they worked. I made a batch of my Christmas fudge, but it didn't turn out as soft and smooth as usual. They took a plate of fudge home with them, as they were going out to dinner as the rest of their date night. Thanks Shane and Alicia! As Chris mentioned, they came Fri. night after dropping off Cayson at his moms. Kim had picked up two of the large poinsettias at Costco for us.
***** December 16, 2020
Happy Birthday to Scott today! And Colton's 15th birthday will be Mon., Dec. 20. Jen and Gray's "baby" is growing up! Scott and Amy came to visit Mon. evening, so that was fun to chat with them. They brought us a G.F. lasagna! So we had the lasagna for dinner last night and Dad will get several more good meals out of it, which we both appreciate!
We closed on Shane and Alicia's house yesterday. Wendy and Rick will get home Sun. So they are having a nice long trip. Janelle says she is feeling well now and can go back to school tomorrow (just in time to get out for Christmas vacation, I imagine).
Steve Woolston had covid in Oct. and got in on a study, and got the real medicine, not the placebo. He's just barely getting his energy back. Cheryl said 4 of her kids had it, Sherry the worst. Some of you know Joe Cramer, retired pediatrician in our neighborhood. He went to Calif. and came home with covid; positive test come back Sun. Cheryl Woolston said Joe is in the hospital. Plus he fell in the hospital parking lot and broke his ankle. Double whammy to recover from! we hope he will be okay.
Chris and Corin aren't coming to work this week because of the expected snowstorm. Stay safe!
**** December 20, 2020
Merry Christmas to all of our 32 grandchildren! Attached is a pdf of our Christmas newsletter, so you can magnify the photos. We will miss seeing you at our annual Christmas Eve Family party, which we had to cancel because of Covid. Hopefully we can be together next Christmas Eve. Jeni is still going to create our annual family slideshow that we show on Christmas Eve, so we will send that out to all of you. Thanks Jen! We would love to have you all take a few minutes to write us and tell us what you are all doing. We want to keep our family close by knowing what is happening in each other's lives. We could compile them and send them out to everyone. We will get the Family Photo Calendar to all you married kids. and grandkids. Alicia does such a good job creating it every year. Write your daily activities on your calendar and save them from year to year, as a photo and written history of what you did that year. The calendars don't take up much room to save and you will be glad you did in years to come! We love you! Grandma and Grandpa
*****December 24, 2020
Bringing soup and cookies, as per tradition.
From Jen: Very cute picture! Glad you got some soup and cookies! I made my traditional chicken noodle soup and breadsticks and some classic Westra gingersnaps ... but it's only our immediate household, as my married kids are playing it safe and staying away (as Gray isn't feeling well/fever ... got a Covid test today but we won't have the results for a few days). Christmas will be a bit boring for the three boys without their brothers around to at least play games and such (at least the three have each other). We were going to try and stop by the folks today or tomorrow, but now with Gray questionable, we'll wait and stick around home. Keaton was the most disappointed when I told him the Westra gathering was off, he said "Christmas Eve and Father's Day are my favorite!"
***** December 31, 2020
Wendy drove up on Mon. with Jenna and Jaiden and spent the night the night at Shane and Alicia's with cousins; then Tues. night at Rick's mom's; then came to our house yesterday, so it was nice to see them--probably hadn't seen them since Father's Day ate Scott and Amy's. Alicia drove in last night with her 3 kidlets to visit more with Wendy and so the cousins could be together more. We 4 grown-ups played Rummi Kub. Rella stayed and slept over with them at our place. Adria had to work this morning so couldn't stay. We wore masks.
Then after Alicia left with Adria and Calder, we watched a good movie on Amazon Prime: "The Christmas Candle." Based on the book by Max Lucado. Wendy swam with me this morning then left for home in the afternoon, to celebrate New Years Eve. Hope they didn't run into snow. We had a veryfew light flurries.
No comments:
Post a Comment