May 31, 2015

Another week of working hard to get ready for the summer. I did pretty good in the kitchen except for a Caesar's Chicken dish that your father announced to everyone that it "looked better than it tasted" and he thought he was giving me a compliment. Let's just say that all the sisters were on my side in the ensuing discussion. The ladies actually had an afternoon off and we all went to a huge antique store called Apple Annie's and then had dinner in a cute 50's diner. It was fun and interesting to see what types of things everyone gravitated to. For one it was the vintage clothes, for several the old furniture, one was looking for an old quilt to be her mission keepsake. I loved looking at the dishes and looking for a small tea set.

The weather has been much warmer, but still some occasional rain. The drama continues with the young elders and the wranglers, and there have been some senior missionary health issues that need to be addressed.

We now have eight couples and as I have gotten to know them all I can honestly say they are very special and I feel a love and bond with them. It is so interesting to see everyone's special abilities that fill a need. Tomorrow Dad will start painting the exterior of the portable kitchen. He also did the special wood trim around the windows. But the day they poured the cement slab - it was others that had the experience and he wasn't asked to help with that. We just happen to also have a plumber and another one an electrician.

The end of next week will be our half way mark. Now that its behind us it seems like it's gone pretty fast. It's helped a lot that we've been able to see our family not once, but twice and we will be seeing most of you again in a few weeks.

I've finally stopped looking for new dinner ideas. I have a four week cycle that we will just repeat. I have most of the order lists (shopping lists) ready so that I don't have to fuss as much with those. Tomorrow we are off to Costco to spend another $1000. I have liked their meat very much but have gotten some terrible produce! I will not buy corn, lettuce or watermelon from them ever again. They are usually pretty good about returns - but for produce you have to take the rotten stuff back to get a refund. I'm just not going to keep the half eaten corn cobs and slimy lettuce and just plain bad watermelon around, either smelling bad or taking up precious space in a fridge. So I'm mad at them - there, now I've got that off my chest!

Love you all, Mom

May 24, 2015

Projects for me this past two weeks have been to put a fence around a culvert - pic included - and helping build a new kitchen at one of the girls camps. This is where the stove is going that we brought back from SLC that almost cost my wife her sanity when pulling the trailer with the truck.

Our days are getting longer - as we have added another hour and a half to our schedule. We start now at 7:00 AM and don't have dinner until 6:00 PM. On Friday I offered to help do the evening trash pick up with Elder Farr and that didn't start until after dinner, which meant I didn't finish my day until after 7:30 - and since we started at 7:00 AM it meant that even with 2 meal breaks it was a very long day - hope I don't have to repeat that often.

I guess I feel like my thoughts for this week have been about the various talents and personalities of our group. Some are stronger in "said personalities" than others. So as we are forming our groups and performing in our individual capacities it has been interesting to note the dynamics. The four people in the horse group all have opinions on how those horses should be "handled" - this results in seeing differing opinions at the best. Then the three people on the office deal with a lot of stress in handling the public and thus it's easy to get on each other's nerves.  Then the three young Elders are CONSTANTly at each other over "whatever" and really don't get along very well. Then throw in the two cute wrangler girls and the Young Elders are in turmoil. This brings me to my thoughts that in our unique ways, Sister Kenney as the cook/warm fuzzy food person and me as special projects just don't get caught up in the minor disputes that seem to be continuously brewing. And so it seems that maybe our peacekeeping skills are being utilized.

We are so looking forward to the Ben Kenney's return and seeing all of you in a few short weeks. We love you so much and are in our thoughts and prayers.

Love, Dad

May 17, 2015

It's been two weeks so quite a bit to catch up on. We are settled in to the RV and we love it! The dynamics of the number of people has changed drastically. We are now up to twenty with one more coming tonight. We found out that the one more couple that is scheduled to come is a good friend of Dads from high school and was from my good old Parleys Second Ward - Steve Schauerhammer and his wife, Sue.

The last time I shopped at Costco they were doing food samples of pot stickers and "Indian Samosas" so I decided to do a "far eastern" themed meal. It included sweet sticky rice steamed in banana leaves served with guava slices and coconut milk (purchased at Costco also). Everyone was at least "polite" about it - except the father of this family. His verbal abuse that it was the "worst" meal I had ever served him continued into the night when he told me I would be lucky if no one called the Health Department and reported me for trying to poison them all. That was just before he fixed himself a bowl of grapenuts to try to counteract the deleterious effects!

This morning he was telling me about his night of "vivid" dreams and still blaming last nights meal.

I guess I'm going to stick to meatloaf, chili, sloppy joes and barbecups. After all, I am nothing but a dutiful, supportive wife.

The weather has been windy with liquid-sunshine; the Trillium have passed through its white and pink cycles, are now are purple and fading. Our Elk heard has moved up higher into the mountains but we had seen signs of a bear and then last week one senior elder saw two bear cubs frolicking in the meadow when he was out for his evening walk. He was smart enough to not stick around to see the mother.

There is lots of work to get ready for our season to begin very soon - the hides are being put on the tepees, the climbing wall and rope swings are being tested for safety and over 50 "biffies" are being pumped, cleared of cobwebs and winter living quarters for all kinds of small animal life from mice to flying squirrels (really) (now that could lead to a real nightmare) and stocked with TP. Note: not too much at one time because that would lead to inappropriate use of said TP- so each Buffy has to be "checked" and stocked at least three times a day. Dad is NOT excited about this being his regular assignment should (more like when) it come. Or it could be to actually go to each Buffy and pump it out each morning-for sure he'll get some of that duty.

When we were in SLC to get the motorhome, while shopping at Camperworld I fell in love with something I just had to have!!! The color was pinkish-purple, had three wheels and a ding-a-ling bell! I begged for it for Mother's Day and "he" refused - imagine that! The next day, after much quiet-harrassment - he agreed that I could get it - but I had to use my "own" money from what remained in the dwindling fun account. I was so excited!!! It has been great - both fun and useful to get back and forth. I have ridden it every day except the day that the worlds fanciest-bicycle-lock became disfunctional and had to be "cut off".

(Go figure) Anyway - I'm determined to prove Mr. Bah-humbug wrong and that I will use it more successfully than I did the last bicycle (powder-blue-Townie with front basket rack - remember). I will admit I have been in one accident but it honestly wasn't my fault. The young elders were vying for my attention, each promising to "FIX" my handlebars and after they all were tired of "fooling with it" they left them not tightened. Unknowingly, I jumped on the next morning and just as I got up enough speed to start up a small hill, the handlebars went CRAZY and I crashed into a fence. Luckily the fence was there, or I would have ended up in the pond. I scrapped my knuckles and bruised my arm but mostly bruised my pride. I mean -  really! How can an old lady go wrong with a tricycle?

Don't worry about me because

 I'll just be Cookin' - meatloaf and Grandma Kenney's meatballs.

Love, Mom

May 3

We haven't written in the past two weeks because we had a lot happen all at once and we actually were able to see a lot of you.

On the Thursday of April 18 we finally got the "go ahead" to make our mission dream come true! We were asked if we "really wouldn't mind" going home and getting our RV to live in. Sure enough, just as we had hoped, there is a couple that wants to serve, but does not have living accommodations (and a tent is not an option.)

So in my wife's wisdom she jumped on the idea and had us on our way as soon as she finished speaking in sacrament meeting three days later.

There was also an additional idea that had been brewing in her head of a beautiful (functionally speaking) commercial stove that she knew of that the ranch could really use that she could get for "free". And Ensign Ranch is all about what they can get for "free." So, that idea and arrangements had to be followed thru on. This involved us towing an empty 8 foot trailer to SLC to bring back that well-over 1,000 pound succor!

Served her right! She had to tow the thing back with my truck all the way by herself, while I traveled in the relative peace and luxury of the motor home. Actually, I was very proud of her. She managed to follow close behind me most of the time and she only panicked when the entire load would obviously shift position to the point that she couldn't see it anymore out of the right hand rear view mirror.

Because the stove was on wheels it was more of a challenge than we had anticipated. This necessitated us stopping at every other rest stop along the 800 miles and re-strapping to secure the load.

So we were back to a week of our regular duties with little chunks of time to set up house in the RV when we could fit it in. We certainly aren't done, but we did get enough done that we could sleep in it last night.

I returned to working on my remodel of the "step-above-a tent-project". Before and after pictures are included here. I am all most done with the second one of six.

step-above-a-tent project: BEFORE

step-above-a-tent project: AFTER

Mom has been cooking as usual except that her numbers have increased and the dining room/scripture study room is way more crowded. We came back to another young Elder plus in the last week we got two new couples.

One is from CA., and the other from Glendale, UT. He worked for Uncle Ray Lewis on the original A-frame cabins at the Ponderosa many moons ago, plus he worked for many years with Galen at Custom Auto and we remembered each other from there.

While it was great to be at home and see lots of you it was also kind of strange. Both Sr. Kenney and I felt somewhat anxious while there and in discussing it we realized that our spirits knew we needed to get back to our mission, here on dedicated land and continue doing what we were set apart to do.

I do want to thank all of you that helped us do the things we needed to do while in town. Especially to my long time friend David Schwobe for helping me get the RV uncovered and going. The problem is that this results in a big "Mormon Gold Star" on his very Catholic forehead!

Till next time, Love Dad