Snow! Again!

It seems something other than weather should be the point of interest when a person is in Tucson. But for the second time we got snow. In the last blog I mentioned how nice a day we had on Monday, and how nice the weather was. Monday: 70 degrees; Wednesday: snow. Late morning the wind began to blow, then rain. This turned to a rain-snow mix, then to snow. It was big, wet flakes that stuck to everything except the pavement. By 4:00 when we left work and drove home there was about 2 inches of snow. Very pretty. Late that evening it started to snow again. By Thursday morning we had four inches of snow and about 31 or 32 degrees. Very little snow on the roads so we went to work.

This seems unreal to me but it really happened (maybe that’s why we take pictures). However by midafternoon it was all gone. Look very carefully at the picture below. The dark object in the middle is a javelina (or peccary). Six or seven of them walked through this little clearing just off the balcony of the building where I do the keyboarding. I guess they were out looking for breakfast amidst the snow.

Keyboarding was interesting this week. Tuesday Doreen and I corrected the Nahuatl we had typed in. This went well even though there were more errors than we expected. It’s interesting how I can type it in carefully, then go over it myself and correct it even more carefully. Then when we do the side-by-side comparison there are still errors. Maybe that’s kind of like life. We try so hard to straighten out our lives, remove all the errors (i.e. sins) and be certain we are doing well. But when we compare our lives with what the Bible says God wants… oh, oh… we don’t measure up so well. That’s why it is important to be sure we are doing life God’s way or one day we will stand before him thinking we are pretty good only to discover the truth.

After Doreen and I got our portion all corrected we stared a new Old Testament summary. This one is Mixteco Jamiltepec. There are a lot of Mixteco languages. I am guessing it is one for each village or area. This one is in southwest Oaxaca State. I just looked it up on Google Maps. Typed in “Jamiltepec, Oaxaca, Mexico.” A link on the left let me switch to street view and I started taking a tour of the area. I can’t read Spanish so I downloaded a translator app for my iPhone and began “reading” the signs. Very interesting.

Speaking of computer sites. If you want to see and hear this language (or any language). Do this: go to www.scriptureearth.org. On the left side scroll down to Mexico. Click on it. Then scroll down to Mixteco Jamiltepec. Click. Then you will have lots of choices: read, hear, download, etc. You will hear the New Testament because we are still working on getting the Old Testament summary on line. It is a sight like this that a resident of Jamiltepec (or any other language) can go to to hear the Bible in his/her heart language.

After the “big snow” had melted Joyce and I went to Western Night at the Center. It is basically an excuse to get together to have fun without working. We ate cowboy stew, listened to some good western jokes, and sang some old, hooky western songs. It was fun, kind 0f.

This is most of our keyboarding team. A few were missing. Sharon, our team leader, is in blue, 3rd from the left. The lady with white hair in the rear left is Cathy Marlett. It was her parents that translated the Seri language. She was born and raised there and loved it. Her husband, Steve is to her left. The lady sitting on the left is Trudy. She is 82 years young, comes every year and is the life of the party. So…. that leaves me, the only other male, peaking over a couple shoulders. I am affectionately known as the token male.

I discovered my phone would take panoramic pictures. This is my keyboarding room. I would be on the computer at the left. Jackie is next, Donna is far right and Doreen is on the right. Actually this picture is distorted because Doreen and I are back to back. Jackie is from Oregon; Donna and Doreen are from Canada.

This is another panorama, from the balcony after our recent “blizzard.” Actually they posted blizzard warnings for I-10 south and east of Tucson – only the second time in 20 years for southern Arizona. The mountains are the Santa Catalinas.

If I were to move down here – and I am NOT – but if I were I would have two requirements: a view of the Catalinas and a large, really good telescope. Enjoy.

We work but we don’t work much

Maybe I should talk  about the weather. It changes faster here than it does anywhere. The first part of last week we had rain mixed with snow. Two inches of snow was predicted for Tuesday morning but it didn’t happen. What DID happen was that for about 5 or 6 mornings in a row I had to scrape frost (ice once) off my windshield!!! I know, I know, I could do that in Oregon. In fact I wouldn’t do it in Oregon. I would wait for it to melt before venturing out. I don’t even have an ice scraper in the pickup. So I start the pickup early, burn up a lot diesel, melt some of the frost, then use my Shari’s VIP Card to scrape the rest.

Then about Thursday it began to turn nice. We had 70* or so weather – short sleeve shirt weather – over the weekend. Nice today but clouds moving in. Now they tell us a cold front is escaping from Canada, will bring high winds tomorrow, and rain/snow Wednesday. Oh well. Such is life in the winter.

Wednesday morning all the keyboarders went over to my cousin Jim’s office for an overview of the typesetting process. We all wanted to see what happened to the pages we so carefully typed into the computer. Jim is one of the typesetters. That is the old term; now they are called compositors. So he showed us in a very quick modified way what he does to turn our pages into a book. It is very interesting and depends greatly on the computer program he uses.

I finished keyboarding my section of Náhuatl  (pronounced Naw – watt) later that day. I thought I was going to start a new book on Thursday but Sharon (our “boss” – she doesn’t like to be called that) realized the very last section of Nahuatl had not been assigned. So I photocopied those pages and started on a different computer. It is hard for me to shift from one keyboard to anther but sometimes it is necessary. By the way, we photocopy the pages because it is a lot easier to see the text enlarged and flat rather than in a book constantly trying to close. Then I copied some pages for another person. Then I helped correct some pages. Finally I got back to the computer. As far as keyboarding, it was a very unproductive day – about 4 pages!

The Mountain View Assembly of God Church was our choice for worship yesterday. It is rather small but by far the friendliest church we have been in. It is only  a couple blocks from the Center.

Today is President’s Day and is a holiday at the Center. So we played tourist. We went with a lady from Washington State to see the old mission church just south of Tucson. Mission San Xavier (pronounce hav ee air) del Bac was built in 1797. It is… well, I guess the word is  “interesting” to see what is important to those who built it and who worship there. No,  maybe the word is sad. I mean no offence to the Catholics but there is so much superstition. At one end of a side room is a life size representation of St. Xavier laying on his back. People pin notes, pictures, objects to his clothing in supplication that he will help them with their problems. Most of the objects are small legs or arms (like charms) or other body parts representing the part of the body that needs healing. People bow, cross themselves, and kiss the head. They lift the head three times. It is said that if they can do this they have a good heart. I watched all this happen.

The “body” is at the far end of this room just below the dark statue. By the way, there are 50 statues in this church.

This is the front. There are carvings of lions on each side of the altar. The whole room is rather dark with lots of echoes. Also, lots of candles representing prayers. I guess it is easier to light a candle than to speak directly with God.

The church is called “The White Dove of the Desert.” It can be seen for many miles. It is a “working” church in that they have regularly scheduled services here.

So from this “beautiful” (in a human sense) but rather dreary (in a spiritual sense) place we went to the Titan Missile Museum. Did you know there were 54 Titan II Missile silos in three locations during the 1960s, 70s and 80s. Eighteen were in the Tucson area, 18 round Little Rock, Arkansas and 18 near Wichita, Kansas. All were dismantled and the silos destroyed except this one which was preserved as a museum. Here are a few pictures as best can be taken in confined spaces.

The missile in the silo ready for launch. Just kidding. This one could never be launched – no fuel.

The warhead looking up from level three.

The whole thing looking down from the top (through a Plexiglas canopy).

The control room. There were a lot of “fail safes” to keep a missile from being launched accidently or maliciously by a rogue technician. One of the keys to actual launch is in the very middle of the picture on the top row in a small round window. The other key is to the left out of this picture. Both had to be turned at the same time.

And finally, me standing next to the warhead. In this little black thing was enough energy to destroy 900 square miles. Kind of scary. This was all cold war stuff. The concept was to have enough power to destroy the Soviet Union and let them know it. Meanwhile they had enough power to destroy us and we knew it. So no one started anything. Well, there is a lot more to the cold war than that, but I don’t have the time.

So in the space of 4 hours we went from a fingers crossed hope that God would show favor to a fingers crossed hope that our power would convince them not to use theirs. I don’t know the moral here but I prefer the faith model. We don’t have to “prove” ourselves to God. We simply trust him because he said so.

Blessings.

Snow!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We woke up Saturday morning to about 2 inches of snow!!! Very wet snow. It didn’t last long but it necessitated my getting up, getting dressed, and brushing off the awning. Cactus with snow is pretty but seems kind of ironic. We have been here three different winters and it has snowed once each time. Like they say around here, “It IS winter.” After a nice warm week it has turned cold, near freezing at night and only into the 50’s during the day.

Each week is different and interesting. I starting keyboarding a new language. It is an Old Testament summary of en el náhuatl de Guerrero, an area in central Mexico. Some of the words are very long –22, maybe 24 letters. This is one of them: oquimahuistilijquej.

I also corrected the section of Seri that I typed earlier. It was also typed by a fellow keyboarder. She and I sat down at a computer that had a special program to compare our work side by side. If there was a difference, the program highlighted it. Then we looked at the original book to see what it really should be. We made the correction, poked a couple keys and it went to the next discrepancy. We corrected that and moved on. Etc. Etc. Etc. Yes, we had to make “several” corrections. But I was pleased with our work.

The ladies had a High Tea Thursday afternoon. Sort of High. But they had fun. While they tea-ed I worked. When they finished, Joyce and I went home early. It was good to rest with no keyboard in front of me.

At the top I showed you this area with snow. Here is what it looks like without snow. The road in to our home away from home is to my back. Can you see the black arrow just to the right of the end of the road? It is pointing to our RV. Just to the right of that is Jim and Joyce’s house. They are almost at the end of the road – only two houses beyond theirs.

Today we attended worship at St. Andrews Presbyterian. It is large – very large. Rather liturgical, with  a choir, children’s choir, hand bell choir, and a very good sermon. It turned out to be a nice day – probably low 60s, warm sun.

I’ll close with this interesting picture of a saguaro cactus from the National Park. Have a great week.

Around the Center

I trust you have had a great week. Joyce and I had a really enjoyable one. Working and playing and soaking up the sun. Let me say the last part of that again – soaking up the sun! We have been having such nice weather. Highs in the 70s or high 60s; sun shining with maybe some broken clouds. All this warm will disappear this weekend for a few days. Canada is about to descend upon us.

Where we spend our days is called the Center. Let me give you a photo tour.

On the right is the volunteer office and the main room for sorting and storing stamps. Another office or two is in that building. On the left is the study building – so called because it has about 45 small rooms, originally to translate the New Testament into various Mexican Indian languages. Most of the rooms are used for all kinds of things now – including keyboarding and the room Joyce works in.

It is in the shape of a “U.” The base of the U is behind me as I took this picture. It contains the break room which doubles as the room for ladies doing sewing and quilting, a small kitchen, restrooms, and a library. In the picture above are the two “legs” of the U. On the left top level has the two rooms we are using for keyboarding. On the right top is the room Joyce works in.

Here is what she says does. “I take stamp albums which have been donated to the Center. Presently there are 50 books to work on. I gently take out each stamp with tweezers and place it in the appropriate envelope – sorted by category. The categories are country of issue or the picture on the stamp. These wait for the Men Who Know to decide how valuable each stamp is. Valuable ones will be sold on the internet, less valuable ones are sold in bulk, ones of no special value are used by school teachers in their classrooms. The money generated is put into an emergency fund to assist translators who need to leave their village because of illness or political unrest.” At the present, Joyce is by herself in her room. The reason she is not with the other stamp ladies in the volunteer office building is simple – there is not enough room there.

Here we have the chapel on the right and regular Wycliffe (not volunteer) offices on the left. My cousin, Jim, has an office here. He does the “type setting” after the keyboarders finish their work. Calling it type setting is an anachronism because it is all done on computers now. The top picture was taken from the steps where the two people are.

And there you have it. There are some shed and storage buildings for the construction and repair people. By the way, one of the projects this winter is building a house for a translator couple. It is almost ready for sheetrock.

Okay, all work and no play make Gene and Joyce edgy. Friday we helped Jim and Joyce move stuff away from their walls so the termite eradication guy could do his spraying. They are not having any special problems, it’s just that termites are always a problem here.

Saturday we went to Saguaro National Park (West). There is also one on the east side of Tucson. We toured the visitor’s center and climbed a couple hills. Well, I climbed the hills; Joyce doesn’t do hills well.

Here is the view from Valley View Overlook. It is looking away from Tucson and to the south.

Saguaro cactus only grow in a band running from northern Mexico thru central Arizona to northwest New Mexico. This area is part of the Sonoran Desert. Some centuries old petroglyphs are on Signal Hill in the park. They are a little hard to see in these pictures. Look for the shapes or lines on the rocks.

No one knows why these were chipped into the rock. Maybe religious, maybe to mark land, maybe to be artistic, or simply graffiti.

Sunday we attended worship at LifePoint Church in Catalina. It is only two years old, small, but a nice service. We went to the early service so we had lots of time to rest before the Super Bowl. Did you watch? Wow! What a game. Too bad San Francisco didn’t  win, but a good game anyway.

Enjoy your week. Blessings.

Keyboarding at SIL

Last Monday Joyce and I went to work. Well, I probably should put “work” in quotes since it isn’t wage-earning work and is totally voluntary. Let me tell the back story. I know you may already know this but a little review will keep it all straight.

Wycliffe is an organization that recruits, trains, and sends people (think missionary) to other nationalities to translate the New Testament into their “heart” language. I’m sure there are variations around the world so I’m going to focus on Mexico. There are hundreds of indigenous languages and various dialects spoken in Mexico. Many (most) of these are spoken by a local community with the village just over the mountain (or down the road or down the river) speaking a variation of that language – but a vary distinct variation.

Missionaries have been going to those villages, learning the heart language, and then translating the New Testament into that language. Bibles were printed and the people were taught to read. This takes, on average, about 30 years – a career for a missionary couple. Years ago this was all done on paper. Then came the computer which simplified the process.

The agency that sends the missionaries (now think translators) is called SIL – short for Summer Institute of Linguistics. Long story here and I don’t know all of it. Suffice to say that we are at the Mexico Branch Office of SIL – Wycliffe. This is in Catalina, Arizona at the extreme north end of Tucson. There are jobs here for hundreds of volunteers but usually only about 100 to 110 at the peak. These do not all work all the time at the same time. Some only one day a week, or only in the mornings. Some of the jobs are sewing, quilt making, rug making, furniture repair and refinishing, carpentry, simple house repair, yard maintenance, making snacks for everyone, stamps, and keyboarding. There used to be an auto repair but the IRS shut them down because of some obscure law. I’m sure there are other jobs I’m not thinking of. Joyce is working in stamps and we’ll tell about that another time.

There are four computers in this small room but it works out okay. The company is enjoyable.

I am doing keyboarding. When I was here before – can you believe it was 4 years ago? I can’t! – I put into computer some of the New Testaments that were pre-computer. We used the printed Bible as our copy text and keyed in the appropriate characters. It took several years to complete all the New Testaments in all the languages that had been previously translated.

They have now finished this process and we are keyboarding Old Testament Summaries. The OT is not translated in its entirety but rather a summary is written and that is translated into the particular language.

I need to pick up a loose end here. I mentioned heart language. That is the language that belongs to that village. They might speak Spanish but that is an imposed language. It is like an American Indian whose heart language is Navaho. He also speaks English but Navaho is the language that speaks to his heart.

So I (and others) are keyboarding the language of the Seri people. They live along the Gulf of California on the mainland side about half way down the Baja. There are about 650 to 1000 speakers of this language. It was once endangered but is now rebounding. The July 2012 issue of the National Geographic has an article on the “Vanishing Voices.” The Seri language is one they featured. Lots of pictures. Check it out. Ed and Becky Moser went to this area in 1951 to begin the long process of translation. They finished the New Testament, an Old Testament Summary, a dictionary, and some other material. Ed died several years ago and Becky died a month or so ago. Their daughter Cathy and her husband Larry Marlett have been updating and revising these works. Four years ago I edited a book on the Seri language for Larry. Now I get to keyboard the OT summary.

Here Joyce is hard at work sorting stamps:

Our schedule is very “demanding.” We go to chapel at 8:00 (if we want to). Work from about 8:45 to 10:00, take a break, work until noon. Go back to work at 1:00, take a break at 2:30, and quit at 4:00. All of this – if we want to. Monday thru Thursday. Friday is a day off. So for about 5 1/2 to 6 hours a day I type away. Here is a sample. It comes from near the beginning of the Old Testament. Can you recognize a couple of words?

Cmaam tiquij Eva impah. Adán xah Eva xah ziix z iti imaaiha xo ziix z iij cöpahiitax hant z iti tmoiiha. Taax isolca coi ziiz quih imiipe taax isolca coi iti tmahcama taaxah aa itahma aama. Yooz quij cmique quih cöiixi ac hipi isoj quijo yaaiha.

All I can tell you is that it is something about Adam and Eve and that the word “Yooz” is God. It occurs many times and is always capitalized. You notice a lot of repetition and a lot of qu and z and x? My left little finger has never had so much work! The computer has a special program in it that lets me enter the two dots over the “o” by pressing the colon (:) and then the oh. To get the glotal like over the “a” I press the back slash (/) and then the a. These are called diacritics and this language has very few. Some have lots and others have LOTS. It took me all week (minus a few of the above mentioned hours to get a haircut and do laundry) to type 30 pages (some with pictures). Generally it takes me about 12-15 minutes to type a page and 20 minutes to check the page for errors. Another person is also entering the same information. Later we will compare our work with a special program that shows any discrepancies. We will correct these using the original book, but I haven’t done that yet.

Why is all this done? For preservation. To make possible the printing of more Bibles or Summaries as “on demand” printing. That means they can have printed only as many as are needed – one or two if desired. Another reason is that these computerized New Testaments are available on the internet. You – yes, you – can find a portion of the Bible in the heart language of your new neighbor, co-worker, friend, whoever. You can print on your printer as much as you want to give to them as you talk to them about spiritual things.

Yesterday we wanted to stay close to “home” so I would have more time to finish the Senior Adult Newsletter and work on this blog post so we went to church nearby – The First Baptist Church of Catalina. It was a good service, very much aimed at older folks. The Pastor’s sermon was “Understanding Imputed Sin.” I won’t comment.

Here is our setup on Jim’s RV pad:

Weather? The first part of last week was fabulous! Highs near 80*. At the end of the week we got a storm from Mexico that dumped rain Thursday and Saturday. Now we are getting a storm from Canada that is bringing cold weather and a little rain. They say it will snow at higher elevations tonight and are warning us about ice on the roads for tomorrow morning. I’ll leave you with this picture I took Saturday late afternoon. It is looking southeast. The mountains are the Santa Catalinas.

We Have Arrived

We are now in Catalina. That is in the extreme north part of Tucson, Arizona. Today we started “work.” More about that later.

We left Newport Beach Friday morning arriving in Quartzite, Arizona about 4:30. It was an uneventful trip except for the very heavy traffic in Riverside. It was stop and go for 2 or 3 miles where one freeway merged into another. This was middle of the day; I’d hate to see it at rush hour!

Sometimes I like to have a radio on when I’m going to sleep and if I wake up (if? if? what I mean is when) …when I wake up in the middle of the night I’ll turn it on to go back to sleep. It is on a timer so it goes off on it’s own. Anyway, we had KNX 1070 tuned in. It is all news, weather, traffic, and a few short features. It was helpful to hear the weather and interesting to hear what was happening on LA freeways – not just the accidents but the debris they would find. Amazing what lands on a freeway. Pretty soon Joyce and I started playing a guessing game: “What will be the next piece of junk?” They reported such things as bumpers (I can understand how bumpers could fall off considering the condition of the freeways), garbage cans, dogs (I know, they are not debris), lumber, ladders, a washing machine, boxes, insulation, and simply “debris” – six cars were damaged but they couldn’t find the offending obstacle.

Which got me thinking (ah oh, here we go!). As we travel through life there is debris out there which can cause us damage. Do we watch out for it? Are we alert to avoid a mishap? Or do we just plow along the freeways of life hitting this thing and running into that thing? The “debris” could be everyday stuff that hits us wrong. Maybe something like an encounter with someone that leaves us angry or a temptation we succumb to. Maybe it’s something bigger like an old habit raising its ugly head. When we are not careful we find ourselves running into the stuff and then having to stop and repair the damage. Much better to avoid it in the first place. The Bible says be alert because your enemy the devil prowls around like a hungry lion waiting to devour (trip) you up. I wonder if he prowls freeways?

Before we left, Jana and the kids came down to Newport Beach and we all went out to the beach. Bee – oot – ti – full day! The kids played in the water  a little and in the sand a lot. This was Jey’s first trip to the beach and she wasn’t too sure about it – especially after getting knocked down by a tiny wave. The local playground was more to her liking.

They came late in the day as you can tell by the shadows. This is the same pier Joyce and I walked out on a few day earlier – pictures below somewhere.

Later in the evening we used the hot tub for one last time. No one else was there so the kids had fun in both the pool and the hot tub. Then they left for home. Sad. The next day we left for Arizona.

That is Catalina Island in the background. Now we are in Catalina, Arizona. Odd, isn’t it?

Today we went to the Wycliffe center for chapel and then “work.” I'm keyboarding and Joyce is working in the stamp department. More about this next time.

By the way the weather is about 75 in the daytime and 46 at night. However, a change is coming they say.

Final California Pics

These are random pictures from our 4 weeks in southern California and more specifically, with the kids in and around Los Angeles.

I love this one. It is cropped from a larger one taken at the marine museum a couple weeks ago. In a lot of her pictures she does the “cheese” thing and her smile is not really natural. This is a natural smile.

I like this one too. We set him adrift in a stormy sea but his tenacity as a helmsman brought him through. As you can guess, it is in front of a poster in the marine museum.

I think I’ll crop this and put it as the picture at the top of my blog. We are standing on the pier at Newport Beach.

At Jey’s birthday party with Korak’s parents. They are Juanita and Toby Taylor.

This is the business district on Balboa Island I mention in one of the posts below. A fun place to visit.

Our end of the RV Park. Look very carefully and you can see Joyce  standing in front of the white car on the right side of the street nearly at the top of the  picture. You can’t see our RV because it is tucked in between two others. The white car is our neighbor’s. My pickup is behind it. The houses on the bluff are on the other side of the water (I  guess it would be called the inlet to the back bay – everything in this area is called back bay).

This is a VERY boat oriented part of the world. It would be interesting to know the value of all the boat in this area. I know it would be in the several billions of dollars. This picture is taken from the bridge to Balboa Island.

Ok, this is it for now. How about encouraging me with some comments in the comment section!!! It is supposed to be easy to do. It’s okay to use anonymous – but identify yourself somehow so I know who anonymous is.

Nice Place… and Cold

One day last week Joyce and I drove to Balboa Island and walked the main street. It’s hard to describe Balboa Island. It is part of Newport Beach, a man-modified and man-made island in the harbor. Actually it is three islands. It is mostly residences which are mostly small and mostly in the 2 to 3 million dollar range. There is a two block business district with chic shops, a few eateries, and 4 or 5 real estate offices! Go figure. From the island you can ride the 3-car ferry over to Balboa Peninsula. It has a small Fun Zone, boat tours for whale watching, and lots of really up-scale homes.

Anyway, we walked both sides of the business district, ate lunch and took the ferry over to the peninsula ($3.00 for pickup and two adults). Let me emphasize it was a beautiful, sunny day and not very cold.

I copied this picture from Wikipedia. In the foreground is the mainland of Newport Beach. You can see Balboa Island in the center and the peninsula in the background. Notice the pier at the top. I will post some pictures taken from the pier but I’m not sure if they will be in this post or at the top in another post.

The last time we went up to the kid’s house we drove up Highway 1, known at PCH (Pacific Coast Highway). It was about the same distance as going the freeway but of course took a lot longer. It was an interesting trip going thru all the cities – Huntington Beach, Seal Beach, Long Beach, Manhattan Beach, Redondo Beach (notice a theme here?). Some of the way we could actually see the beach, but mostly not. We had lunch at an In-N-Out Burger.

Here is an interesting observation and object lesson. Those of you who have driven the freeways in the Los Angeles area can relate to this. Let me paint a word picture for you if I can. When they built the freeways they poured concrete in “lanes” or “strips” about 12 feet wide. Then, next to that they would pour another lane, then another, and so on. Of course there was a seam or crack where the lanes adjoined each other. The direction of these lanes probably followed where the freeway was going to go – back then. But over time the actual driving lanes were often shifted a little to the left or right and sometimes shifted a lot. The driving lanes are designated by white strips and those little buttons that make your tires go “thump-thump-thump.”

If your eyes get focused on the concrete cracks you can easily wander into someone else’s driving lane and get sideswiped. You always see someone almost do that when the white lines and the concrete cracks have been together for a ways and then suddenly shift away from each other. I have to be very diligent to watch the right thing or I hear “thump-thump-thump” and maybe a car horn.

Here’s the lesson. As you go through life you need to keep your focus on the correct thing or you will find yourself getting sideswiped and maybe disaster will result. You can go along for a long time following the white line but if you aren’t careful your focus slowly goes to the crack. Then the crack takes you away from the white line – “thump-thump-thump.” HONK. Be careful where your focus is.

Here is an interesting PS to this. At night the cracks don’t show up as much but the white line and little bumps reflect your car’s headlights. So it is easier to drive at night. Now, you work that into the object lesson.

Friday was Jeyanthi’s second birthday so her big party was Saturday. I mean BIG party. I think it is really an excuse for the family and friends to get together. We had cupcakes, pizza, salad, pop, a jump house, games, presents, and beautiful weather. Jey held up pretty well, loved the attention and learned to blow out her candles. I think there were 19 children and about that many adults at the party. Full house and yard.

We used this picture in Jey’s invitations.

If you live on the west coast you know about the cold weather. It is cold here, too. Just not as cold as up north. It has been getting down to about 40 at night and up to low 60s or high 50s in the daytime. As soon as the sun goes down, the cold creeps in. It is supposed to warm up by the middle of the week.

Did you hear about the robbery and hostage situation at Nordstrom’s Rack in the Howard Hughes Center? That is about 2 miles from Jana’s house. Friday morning we were going to take a shortcut through the center but police had it all blocked off. It is a Taylor “tradition” to go to Johnny Rockets on a person’s birthday. Since Friday was Jey’s, our plan was to go to the one in the Howard Hughes Center. Nope. The place was still shut down Friday evening. So parents, brother, sister, grandma, grandpa, and Jey ended up at the one in Manhattan Beach.

We brought Lilly back to the RV with us Saturday evening. This was her “special” time with grandma and grandpa. Sunday we attended church at Mariners. It is very large – they claim 9,000 members. They have one Saturday evening service and two Sunday morning services plus a Sunday evening service that is different from the others. I’m not good at judging crowds but I would guess there were 2,000+ at the 11:00 worship we attended. It was a very good worship experience.

In the afternoon we drove to Monrovia to have lunch with Korak, Jana, and Korak’s parents at the Old Spaghetti Factory. We used to occasion to give Lilly back to her parents.

This is our last week in Newport Beach. My next post will be from Tucson – hopefully on time. Blessings