A New Beginning

Hello Dear Family!
It is a new year and a new beginning for all of us!  We (Dad and I) have missed our family website and reading everyone's posts and enjoying their pictures.  It is such a good way to keep a family history of some sorts and so at Jenny's suggestion and with Amy's help, we are attempting to transfer our family website to a family blog....We hope that ALL of us will do our best to post at least one entry every month that tells what is happening in each family - pictures would be great, too!  We think this will help us stay "connected" and informed as to each family's activities....
This morning Dad and I drove to Merced to visit Merced II and Merced III Wards and the Hmong Branch.  It was good to see old friends...We haven't seen Hendricks for so long and learned that Janet had cataract surgery recently and needs both her knees replaced..., Sue Chambers was released as Stake RS President and Ellen Rowan was released as her counselor, and Missy Castleton was sustained as a counselor in the Stake RS Presidency.  Last week we visited Merced I ward and the Single's and Spanish branches.  We were invited to dinner at Ellen and Creed Rowan's along with Fife's and Jerry Callister (Kathy was out of town).  It was so good to be with them and to be in our old ward....This last week was our short week at the temple - we worked Tuesday night and Thursday morning with a meeting on Wednesday.  We took advantage of having some time off this weekend and last night we had a dinner here at the temple home for some workers at the temple who helped us so tirelessly at our recent Temple Workers Devotional that we held shortly before Christmas.  We had soup and salad and played Cinda's "conversation cards" activity.  It was fun to have them here.  We are blessed to have made so many wonderful new friends as we have served in the temple.  The advantage of serving in a small temple is that we can actually know (as well as remember the name of) all our ordinance workers and those who serve in the laundry and office.  I'm sure this will be counted as one of the greatest blessings in our lives.  As we are coming down the "homestretch" of our service, I am telling myself that I need the make the most of the remaining time as it will come to an end sooner than we realize.  We love all of you so much...Please let us hear from you...Love, Mom

I will add a short note to what Mom has told you.  The weather here has been cold but not like where a lot of you live.  I was talking to Austin the other night and he said it got to a minus 20 there a few days ago but was a high of 18 degrees that day.  Austin says he has been enjoying his back country skiing class but it is challenging.  The past couple of days have been very nice during the day and in the mid 60's.  We have been trying to sell the office in Merced since last Sept. but without any luck.  A few showings but no offers.  The economy and especially the real estate market in Merced is very bad and commercial real estate is worse than residential so we will have to see what happens.  Dr. Patel as you probably remember bought a larger newer office space and so our office has been sitting empty for 5 months.  I will probably go up there tomorrow and clean out some of the things I left--books, etc.   This next week in the Temple we work evenings and then the following week is our morning week and we will be there 6 days counting me being there most of Monday and our presidency meeting on Thurs.  We enjoy seeing your text pictures and notes and it was cute to see some of you doing your Wii dance game the other day.  Hope all of you are well and safe.              We love you, Dad