Woo hoo! Sunny day!

Well, the Christmas tree is finally put away, my daffodils are about ready to bloom, the sun is shining on a crystal clear day and I can see sailboats out in the bay. If it was warmer (it's about 50), it'd feel like spring! If it was a bit colder, it'd feel like summer. :0) We have weird weather here, summer is cold and foggy).

I got a surprise call today from an Elder who served in our ward from Tonga. Weird coincidence since I just visited that ward, huh? He was in our ward for quite a long time, then they transferred him to San Jose, and after that to our Tongan branch. Since we do a lot of activities together with the Tongan branch, it was like he was in our ward for a total of over a year. He's home now and was calling from Tonga! While he was here I really tried to encourage him to go to college when he got home. He said his family was pretty poor, and he wasn't sure he could manage it. I bugged him about it a lot, told him to talk to his bishop, etc. He called to tell me that he was accepted to BYU Hawaii and that he was going to be working at the Polynesian Cultural Center to pay his way. WOO HOO! He was such a sharp guy, I'm excited for him and for his future.

This is Elder Lauti with the fire dancers from the Polynesian Cultural Center when they were here last June.

Visiting the Tongans

Today we had my favorite of all the ward conferences we attend in our Stake, the Tongan Branch. It's always a treat, they are all such lovely, warm people.

But, the most amazing thing is the music. They've never had an accompanist or organist. They sing all the hymns a capella, in nearly perfect four part harmony. I found out when we tried to sing along though, that they hear their own harmony, they don't necessarily sing what's in the hymnbook. They always sound amazing, and it's fun to just sit and listen.

Once, when I was going to be out of town, I told my Fijian friend Selai that I needed to find someone to play for Sacrament meeting. She said, "Ah, they should just do as the Tongans and sing without an organ.".

I told her that while that works great for the Polynesians who have music in their souls, but you get a bunch of white people with no musical training and no organ and it definitely does NOT sound like the Tongans.

It was a nice day, but it was sad to come home and find that our beloved prophet had passed away. I'm sure he and his sweet wife are excited to be together again, but we'll miss him greatly. Meggie cried for hours before she went to bed.

Hey, it's not raining!!!!!

Well, I was going to take the Christmas tree down today. (Yes, I said the Christmas tree). But, hey, it's NOT raining, first day in about eight or nine. Not to mention I've been sick as a dog for the last week. Serious cabin fever, so we took off for the day. Went and got some clam chowder at Phil's Fish Market, sat on the beach and watched the pelicans and waves, did a little Costco shopping where, as usual, we ran into about half the ward and did a bit of socializing.

It was a lovely day. I'll take the tree down tomorrow. Maybe.

Winter in Paradise

Ok, the downside of living here: It's rained everyday since last Friday, and there is rain forecast for nine out of the next ten days. Sam asked this morning when we moved to Seattle.

Fortunately, it only rains in the winter, usually the daily constant stuff is only in January and within a month or so, we should be back to clear skies until next November/December. And, when it clears enough to let a little light through, we get spectacular sunsets over the Bay. We had one last night...but when I went to find a camera, I found Sam had both of them with him.

I made him leave one home today.

Relief Society and Women in General

My calling at church is as the Stake Relief Society Enrichment Counselor. The first three months of the year are always busy, as this is when we attend all the Ward Conferences, and have to speak (ugh, my least favorite thing!).

So, while all this is going on, we spend a LOT of time together as a presidency. Sunday, as we were driving home together after two Ward Conferences and an orientation (7 hours of meetings, make for a tired "sitter"!), I was thinking about how lucky I am to associate with these and the other amazing women in my life. I think guys can sometimes get by with few, if any, guy friends. I'd never make it without my "girlfriends", and I'd love to be any of these people if/when I grow up.

Janneene: Who has a "steadfast and immoveable" testimony of Christ, although most of her family are not church-goers and kind of a pain about it. She's the first to volunteer to help anyone out, has a special connection to the youth and is a dedicated seminary teacher, getting up before dawn and hosting seminary in her living room at 5:45 am every school day.

Sharon the Nutt: She has battled cancer for the past several years and has not only survived, but never lost her amazing sense of humor, her love for everyone and especially for God. She has decided to go back to school (at age 45-ish) and is studying to become a nurse, so she'll soon be helping people deal with all the stuff she's already dealt with.

Wendy and Caroline: Both are perfect examples of a vanishing breed: truly gracious women. They are always cheerful, I've never heard either of them say anything bad about anyone, they love the Lord and are always there when you need them. They even know when you don't know that you need them and they're there, too. If that made any sense.

Lynette: My favorite example of a great mother. She has raised eight wonderful children, who are now raising more wonderful children. She has incredible faith, always knows exactly what I need whether it's help or a kick in the butt. Besides, she makes me laugh.

Lysa: She REALLY makes me laugh. Someone asked her once if she was that funny as a child and her response was "hmm..I don't know...I did get slapped a lot!". She turned her rather scary life around as a 15 year old in New Jersey and never looked back. She's a wonderful mom to her four little kids, a great example of faith and determination. Besides, she's brave enough to take my Meg for an entire week while Sam and I cruise! She likes to give me a hard time sometimes that she wasn't even born yet when I graduated high school, but she's definitely wise beyond her years.


I didn't include any family members on this list because there are just too many to count. I'm lucky to have so many examples of great women to look up to, and that are such wonderful examples to Meggie, and I don't know how I'd get along without them. Thanks guys!

So now we need another Meg vid to laugh at. This one just makes me laugh because of her laugh:

Losing Weight, Taxes, Cruising and other assorted stuff

Not much happening here. I need to get started on our taxes, ugh! Some day we'll be rich and someone else will do it. When that happens, someone will clean our house, too. And do the laundry. I'll just camp out down by the beach.

My parents decided that most of their progeny was too fat. They're right, of course. But, it's their fault, they gave us their fat genes. Ok, actually it's Mom's fault...Dad's family is all pretty skinny. But wouldn't it figure that out of six kids, only one looks like my Dad's family and all the rest of us look like Tanner/Fullers. So they've started an "Elsberry's Biggest Loser" competition. We have until July 1st, whoever loses the highest percentage of their starting weight wins. As long as that person has also lost at least 10% of their weight, and has done it healthily so that they can keep it off, the prize is $1,000. So fasting until July is out.

So, Sam and I and Ry and Susan have signed up. Dunno how "the kids" (as we call them) are doing, but we're each down about 8.5 pounds. Only about a 100 each to go!!! Ok, maybe only 80. This is the first time that I've been able to get Sam excited about losing weight/exercising more. He's already got the money all spent in his head. I'm guessing we'll need it to buy all new clothes, but he'd rather cinch up his belt and buy some new electronic gadget or camera toy.

The only bad part is that I feel that our entire lives now revolve around deciding what to eat, when to eat it, etc etc. We can't afford Jenny Craig, and I'd rather learn how to do it on our own, so that I can relearn how to cook healthy. I'm really great at unhealthy cooking: babyback ribs, mac and cheese, anything Mexican, etc. The biggest problem is that I actually have to cook everyday. I like cooking, but I really hate the cleaning up part (hence the need for a maid). When I cook three meals a day, I feel like all I do is dirty and wash dishes. As I'm washing up from lunch, I'm planning dinner. I'll be glad when/if these new habits sink in and I can do it all without thinking about it.

We're excited about the Bailey Family Cruise. We're planning to take our little video camera, and maybe we'll get some juicy bits for the blog. In the meantime, here's another little vid of Meg that makes me laugh.

Why we live here...

We had big ocean swells today due to a storm that went north of us. So, we went out to Point Lobos to watch the waves. It was amazing. It was a beautiful day and we sat there watching until the sun went down....

East Coast Baileys

On Monday, Tom, Zach and Jess and significant others, came by to see us. It was a quick, but lovely visit. It was great to see them all, and see that they're doing well.

Zach's girlfriend Mareika (dunno how to spell her name) really wanted to swim in the Pacific, so we took her down to the beach. It was about 55 degrees, the water was colder than that, and the wind was blowing. But, she said she's from the Netherlands, cold doesn't bother her. She stripped down to her bikini and went for a swim, declared it "not cold at all" (although she was goosebumpy and very pink), and posed for pictures. I thought she was nuts. So did Zach.

Afterwards we had a nice lunch at Bubba Gumps on Cannery Row in Monterey before sending them on their way back to Bakersfield. We enjoyed having them here and hope it won't be another 5-10 years before they get back here again. And, that they'll be able to spend more than a couple of hours here.

(This is Indiana Bailey, with his seaweed bullwhip.)

Happy Birthday, Ryo!

OK, I'm a day late again. Story of my life. I'd like to say we were too busy New Year's partying, but the fact is we did "Happy New Year" at about 10:12 PST and went to bed. Just couldn't stay awake that long.

I wanted to say Happy Birthday to Ryan, who turned older yesterday than either his Dad or I wanted to admit. Sam says he's not old enough to have a 28 year old. I'm not either, but then, I can always claim stepmotherhood, like I'm not actually old enough to have a 28 year old either. Not that anyone really believes it.

Ryan has always been a good kid. We're very proud of him and his life choices. He works hard and has all kinds of dreams and ambition (he calls it scheming). He's always been very sweet with his little sister, and she adores him (she's called him Ry-o since she could talk). He worked his way through college on his own, never asking for any financial help whatsoever. He and Sue both have a great sense of humor and we really love having them around. We just wish they lived closer.

So Happy Birthday, Ryan. In his honor I've posted a very short video of Ryan being the great big brother that he is and playing with his little sister on the beach in San Diego when she was about five.