Packing up!

Yes, I know!  I have been packing for weeks.  The china cabinet has been empty for a month.  The linen closet, coat closet, and the bathroom cupboards have been cleared and there have been a couple of trips to DI.  The spare room has been empty for a week and the play room is packed, ready to move everything to storage, but it wasn't till today that I started to feel that we are really moving.  What 'did it' for me?  There are now empty shelves in the study.  Rod's 'inner sanctum' is starting to empty.  We are really doing this!

Wow! Almost all of the finishing up projects are done.  The doors latch, new tile is in the bathroom.  It is truly going to happen. We have been in this house since the month before our last daughter was born, about 25 years ago.  There has been a lot of living here, lots of wonderful memories.  Who knows if we will ever live here again. Not us.  Still, you can't move forward if you don't leave the past behind, sooooo onward we go to new adventures.  Stay tuned.......

'Farewell' sort of.

In between our camp out and our family photos, we had our 'farewell' Sacrament meeting.  Normally I don't have too much trouble speaking in church, but I admit to being nervous about  this one.  The reasons were probably  the stress of planning the camp out and also from the feeling that people have high expectations from Rod and I.  Actually, Rod has to face more of that than I do.  I was glad that I went first.  I quite purposefully made my talk quite short and left Rod most of the time.  Our assigned subject was 'attitude and hope' and I was glad that Rod chose attitude.  I took the subject of hope and talked about the comparison between the Spanish esperar and hoping and waiting  (the Spanish verb can mean either). Studying the scriptures on the subject, it became clear that hoping is a very active process that leads to charity.  That is one purpose of speaking, it forces me to study and grow in understanding.  Another reason I was glad that I went first was that all five of our kids sang the 'special number'.  They sang  'As Sisters in Zion- Armies of Helaman'  They did such a beautiful job and Rod and I weren't the only ones in the congregation that started crying when the boys sang 'we have been born ... to goodly parents'.  Rod did a fantastic job as always.  He spoke of the importance of attitude and the impact that members of the ward and their attitudes had on us and our family.  He quoted from his journal some of the comments that ward members had made that impacted our family.  We were deeply touched by all the people that attended the meeting to show their love and support for us and our mission.  We are so very blessed.  Thank you all!

Missionary companions!
Yea!  The talks are done!

I have a good looking comp.

Now we just have to get those visas in so we can actually leave.  As of now, we go to Provo for our 'medical training' on Dec. 3.  If the visas aren't ready by then, we will come back home and wait for them. Well, maybe I will be able to absorb more Spanish by then.  Pray for us.

Family portrait 2012

Those of you who have known us for very long, know about our family portraits.  For the rest of you, since spring  1981 we have had a family portrait every year.  Most years were thematic, ie:  oriental, safari, patriotic etc..  Individually they are fun but all together they are amazing just for the progression and history.  We have been very blessed because the kids-in-law have been good sports and gone along with this craziness, and as you might guess, the more children the crazier it gets.  For this year's photo, Rod decided we should do tie-dye as the theme.  Turns out our camp out was the perfect place to dye our shirts.  The mess was much easier to clean up outdoors.  It was my first experience doing tie-dye.  We had a good time. Here are the results.

Each family designed their own shirts and chose their colors.  Rod and I tried to use most of the colors.

I am afraid that we do the crazy version better than the serious.

We sure do enjoy being together!

Todd's family

Not everyone wanted individual family photos.  I think Keith was in a hurry to get out of his shirt.  The colors for their shirts were chosen by his six year old daughter.  :)

Alicia's family

If you should decide that you want to see the rest of the photos, come by soon.  Things are getting packed.

For the first time the Rod Castillo family had a 'family reunion'.  We all went up on the rim and camped out for 2 days.  We had a wonderful time.  Of course no camp out is without it's 'adventures'. First, the instructions for finding our camp site were less than clear.  It was especially interesting for those that arrived after dark and were looking for us in the rain.  (Second) Yes, it rained that first night.  Real RAIN.  Wow, I don't think our tent has ever actually been rained on.  It wasn't very water proof.    Still, it wasn't too bad.  We had enough sun the next day to dry everything out and only got sprinkles the second night. Third was setting up tents in the rain.  Heavenly Father was kind enough to have the rain let up while we were setting up tents for Todd and Keith. (You probably remember trying to assemble a tent without instructions.  Even if you've done it once before it is still hard to remember.) We got them all together and everyone bedded down but they got pretty soaked during that first night. Thank goodness they were sleeping on those thick air mattresses and so were off the ground.  We had skunk visitors each night, and a bear was sighted though not in our camp. On the fun side, we got to see everyone and just visit.  So nice!  All the kids got to play together.  It was wonderfully cool, enough so that we were grateful that Dad was a good scout.  (He was prepared with jacket and sweat shirt for those that didn't think to bring such things.)  The Mom and Dad brought and prepared the food to take some of the work off of the parents of small children.  Nora was the only child 'lost' and that only for about 5 min. Alicia and Eric got the best toys award for bringing a play house and the coaster car.  Kids played in the creek too.  What could be better.

tent assembly

calm and quiet

                                                       

This was the clearest rainbow I have ever seen!

Kiss it better Pop pop!

Don't we have the cutest family?

Why is it harder to do something new the 2nd time?  I know.  Cause I don't have anyone here helping me.  Lena I miss you.  Here is hoping this works.  I wanted to add more photos of the front yard remodel.

This is the finished product.  There is a little twig that has new leaves on it.  Our second transplant took.

We have found renters and are pleased. They will move in on Oct 1.  We are continuing to fix up the things that have been on 'the list' for a long time.  You know 'the list'.  It is all those things that ought to be fixed but you can't find the time for till you are about to leave.  Things like sprinkler repair, grouting the brick pathways that were put in 10 years ago, anchoring the garden arch so the wind doesn't have such an easy time blowing it over, that stuff.  If you don't have enough of your own list to do, come on over.  We'll be happy to share.

Developments

This is my first time posting anything.  Another skill I have to develop for this mission.  We are in full

 'get ready to leave' mode.  It is exciting and a bit scary.  We have had some potential renters look at our house.  I don't have any doubt that we will know who we should rent it to, but I am afraid I will have a hard time saying no to the rest.  Rod has almost finished redoing the landscape in the front yard.  It looks good.  The photo is before we spread 25 tons of red granite over the front and side yard.  We also have added some plants along the curved wall and Rod built a path from the front side walk to the entry way.  One tree we planted has died.  It was a volunteer (it started growing on it's own from seeds left either by the wind or birds) that we tried to transplant.  Since it was free, it is no great loss.  We had to move it anyway so it was worth the effort to try and transplant.  There is another one just like it we will try and a couple of other kinds we may give a shot if the second dies too.  Another photo will be added soon.

The Mission Call

We received the letter from the First

Presidency on 2 March 2012

Jeanene and I have been called to serve a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons).  We will be serving in Malaga Spain.  We will report in September, 2012.  Malaga is on the Costa del Sol---the Spanish Riviera.  It was a tough call, but as I told Jeanene, someone had to "man up" and accept spending two years on the Mediterranean :)  I can speak Spanish but it has been fun listening to Jeanene convert her French to Spanish.