Condo Closed - Memories of Mother Living Here

[June 8, 2015] Monday

Phew! Cutting it close. The papers were all signed today, and we no longer have to worry about what's going to happen with the condo. We have lots of sweet memories of having Mary, Molly's mother, living here and sharing her life with us.

We bought the condo in August of 2006 when Mary moved out here to Utah. It has been such a sweet blessing to be able to visit with her, hear her sing to us, laugh with us, and share all kinds of chocolate treats. Molly really has appreciated being able to spend so much time with her sweet mother. 

As the years have taken their toll on her eyesight and balance, we have been truly grateful that she has maintained her sharp mind and wit. It has been such a pleasure to be part of her life.

Mary Glidewell - Spring 2015 with her favorite trees in full bloom (her "copse")

This is Molly now. I just have to add my part here. Having my mother live so close has been a dream come true for me. My parents went on a mission right after we got married and I never lived close to them again after that. If I had known they were not coming back to Utah I would have spent more time with them. But being a new bride, I wanted to be independent. I was giddy when I learned she would be moving just 2 miles away and that giddy feeling never diminished in the 81/2 years she was here.

We had so much fun together. We swam most everyday, sang to everyone whether they wanted to hear us or not. We tried to be of service every day. She helped me tend grandchildren, who loved playing with Super Grandma. She is the best listener and all of us have needed her loving, compassionate non-judgmental ear, as well as her wise counsel. I even got to drive her and her boyfriends on some dates.

We attended the temple together and tried to do family history. I would attend her parties etc. and she would attend all of mine. My friends would tell me how lucky I was to have such a wonderful mother and I better appreciate her. Her friends would tell her how lucky she was to have me for a daughter. We both knew how lucky we were and I don't think we took each other for granted. I learned so much from her and continue to learn from her everyday.

My sisters and I have a name for the one that gets to be with mother, "TOTH" meaning The One That's Here. Sometimes I would call myself TOOTH because I was the only one that was here and she was stuck with me. I will always cherish the time I got to be TOTH. If I didn't know a mission was the right thing for Charlie and me to do right now I would not give up being TOTH. But I have wonderful sisters and any one of them would be a great TOTH.

It is Nancy's turn now and her family will be blessed to have Mother so close. I love you dear Mother. You have blessed my whole family more than you will ever know. We are so grateful to
have you in our lives. You are my SHERO!!!!!!!

Family Dinner at Becky and Paul's Home

[June 7, 2015] Sunday

Becky has been so sweet to have us over most every Sunday for dinner and this day she invited all the family. Becky made yummy grilled barbecue chicken and every body brought sides. We finished it off with Texas Chocolate cake and ice-cream. You can't beat that. It was good to be together.

There were a few emotional moments realizing this wouldn't happen again for a couple of years. We Skyped with Seth and His family while we were there. Holly's family was unavailable at the time but we were able to Facetime with them the next morning.

We have such a sweet, supportive, loving family. We are excited to see how much they change over the coming two years, and we'll be able to do that with modern technology.

Family Doings

[June 1 - 6, 2015] Monday - Friday

Besides an assignment at the Welfare Square Cannery for Molly and I, this week was full of fun family doings.

First the Cannery. This was the first time I have worked at the cannery when they were canning salsa. Things have changed a bit. The last time I worked at the cannery down in Lindon, they were still using steel cans. Here, they used plastic bottles, so our assignment was to screw on the lids as the filled bottles went past on the conveyor belt. I worried a bit that we might have an "I Love Lucy" moment with bottles going faster than we could manage, but we kept up just fine.

While we worked, we got to visit with a number of other sweet people who had volunteered. One lady told us about volunteering on Temple Square to help usher various events each month. Another told us she knows the Kowallises from American Fork. We had worked with them a number of years ago in a parenting class that Molly and I were learning to teach. Another (Sister Schoenfeld, we think) remembered serving as a Senior Missionary when Jeff (now our daughter Holly's husband) was serving in Bulgaria. She remembered him as a sweet, hard working missionary. That's our Jeff.

It was fun to visit with them as we filled the tedium of screwing on bottle lids.

It was the last week of school around here so we were able to attend some fun activities. First we watched Sawyer perform with his kindergarten class the school's dance festival. He was so enthusiastic and smiley. He continued the dance at his last soccer game that night. What a fun kid. He's the cute one in the middle with the yellow hat.

Here is Sawyer with his trophy, treat and team.

We enjoyed watching Henry graduate from Kindergarten. He is in a French immersion class and it was so fun to hear them sing in French. They sang lots of songs and Henry sang every word and performed the actions perfectly. A boy in his class made candy bar leis for every child in the class. Henry is Henry on the left with friend sporting their candy bar leis. He is very happy about it.

We were also able to go to one of Andrew's soccer games. He's a good little runner. It was fun to be with the family. We even got frozen yogurt afterward. But I didn't get a picture.

We have loved the visits this week from Becky's and  Matt's families as well as Stacy and Emily. We are soaking in every bit of this family that we possibly can.

Learning from Friends

[May 29, 2015] Friday

We met with the Dibbs from American Fork. Molly knew Sister Dibb from her Stake Relief Society responsibility a few years ago, and had heard that they had recently returned from a mission in Bolivia. We went over to their home in American Fork to visit with them today.

They told us lots of interesting stuff. They started their mission in La Paz, and were there for thirteen months. But, due to the altitude, and some back pain, they were transferred to work in the Cochabamba Temple for the last five months of their mission. They told us about the temple, the work we'll be doing, where we'll be living (and showed us some pictures of the apartments), the climate, availability of medications, and all kinds of interesting information. It was very nice to be able to ask them questions and feel their joy in having been able to work there.

Later in the evening, we had dinner with some very dear friends. I'm not sure if I mentioned the Terry's - Steve and Jill - in a previous post, but they are two special people that I met while working at Utah Valley Hospital in the Quality Improvement Department. On our first Sunday in the Jordan Meadows Ward, I saw and recognized Jill in one of the classrooms preparing for Primary. What a surprise. Steve is a counselor in the recently called Bishopric. The ward reorganization that took place in March, just before we moved in, put us both in the same ward. We really feel that this was a tender mercy of the Lord.

Jill was the administrative assistant in the Quality Improvement Department when I left and moved to the EDW Team at Intermountain. Over the few years that we worked together, she showed herself to be a hard worker, but also to be kind and appreciative of all those around her.

After I left, she continued there for a time, and stayed with Intermountain Healthcare, but we'd lost touch until just before my retirement. In trying to let friends whom I had worked with, but who had left Intermountain for other companies, I was fortuitously connected with her again, although now she was working at Health Catalyst with a number of other friends. She came to my retirement party, where Molly and I were able to catch up a bit with her, but at that time, we didn't realize we had moved into her ward. How sweet.

So, we had dinner with her and Steve, and caught up. She told us about her brother, how he had decided to serve a mission, and the affect of that and the influence of friends on her returning to activity in the church, and the blessings of that in her life. Steve cooked a wonderful, delicious dinner of pistachio encrusted Tilapia, rice and beans, topped off with very tasty ice cream for dessert. It was a fun, sweet evening spent with these wonderful, supportive friends.

Like Pulling Teeth

[May 27, 2015] Wednesday

OK - it's really not like pulling teeth - that might have been easier and less stressful in the long run.

Over the past couple of weeks, Molly had been stressing out a bit over a sore in her mouth, on her upper gum. She figured she had scratched it, and it would heal up. Over time, though, it didn't, and it started oozing a bit, so we figured we better have a dentist here in the United States take a look, just in case it was serious.

Turns out, she had a cyst on the root of one of her molars. Time for a root canal. As the dentist finished, and took final x-rays to make sure everything looked good, he saw another tooth alongside the affected one that had an incomplete root canal, and suggested a crown for the one he had just done the root canal on. He said they could be fine for some time to come, but the likelihood was that eventually the work would have to be done.

In the spirit of preventative maintenance, we decided to have it all done now, just to be sure we didn't face the need to have an (as yet) unmet and untried Bolivian dentist take care of it. Our dentist has done really good work so far in Molly's mouth (four previous root canals that have not had any issues), so we were comfortable with his suggestions, and went ahead with the work.

After a total of five hours in the dentist's chair, Molly's teeth are fixed, and she's doing well. 

Arranging Financial Affairs

[May 26, 2015] Tuesday

In the spirit of documenting everything pertinent, and to help others who might have questions, I'm going to outline some of my thinking. This may vary from what other, wiser folks would have done, but such is life.

Over the years, I've tried to educate myself about investing, especially in mutual funds. My thinking was probably mostly influenced by advice that I had read on sites like The Motley Fool and others like it. Generally, the advice is to invest in low load mutual funds, and buy with a long term vision. Meaning, not a lot of buying and selling. 

Over the years, I have done this with both my 401k, through Intermountain, and a couple of post-tax funds outside the 401k. As I have looked at retirement, and missions, I realize that I really don't have the time, nor the savvy to adjust the funds to reflect a more conservative mix as I get further into retirement, and I realized that my current diversification strategy was a bit shaky.

For better or for worse, I'm looking into target date mutual funds through T. Rowe Price, and Vanguard to land my 401k/IRA funds, and for the funds derived from the sale of the home and condo in American Fork. From the looks of things right now, with my pension (I know - no longer common, nor is it something my kids will have to fall back on), and considering the cost of living in Bolivia, we're hoping to not have to touch any of the investments for living expenses in the next couple of years. We are debt free, and with Sam holding down the fort at the Condo and paying the basic costs (condo fee, internet, utilities), we should be in a pretty favorable financial position, knock on wood.

Lastly, we're really grateful to have Sam watching out for us back home. We've signed him onto our bank accounts so he could deposit any checks (like refunds for Condo insurance from the AF Condo, or car insurance as we divest the car and truck), make unanticipated payments or ones that we can't take care of on line, or help take care of any business that we'd be stretched to accomplish from Bolivia. It's another blessing to have him around to help us out.

So, time will tell whether I have to return to the world of the employed in two years or if we can continue to pursue our dream of a service oriented retirement. 

Lyon Family Get Together - Memorial Day

[May 25, 2015] Monday

What a great Memorial Day!

We got to spend the day with our Lyon family relatives. We get together once a year for a fun day at the park. We love these reunions. There is always so much to catch up on.

The visiting is wonderful and the food is great. The grandkids are all growing up and are playing so cute with each other and with Grandma and Grandpa. It was so fun to watch the kids ride on Grandpa's jazzy with him and push Grandma in her walker.

We seem to miss more and more of the clan each year with all the cousins who are branching out in the world. We have family in Massachusetts, Virginia, Wisconsin, Missouri, and Florida now. We really missed seeing them, but we do enjoy hearing from them in the monthly Lyon Family Newsletter. We wish for the best for them.

We love you dear people. We're so glad we could do this before we left for Bolivia.