California Murrays

February 2010



It is nice to have Allison back from being MIA so she can remind us to provide an update on our family activities. Marylyn and I have been taking a few weeks off to relax and stay out of the rain. It has been raining almost every day for the past few weeks.



While it has been raining we have tried to do a few things in the house we have been putting off over the years. So we have removed all the wallpaper from the bath rooms and will start on the dining room when Marylyn can get me motivated to do so. The walls are so high that I keep thinking that the wall paper looks fine to me. I am having a hard time getting Marylyn convinced of that. One thing I have found is that things take a lot more time than they use to, and sometimes I end up doing things twice because of mistakes I make. We plan to paint both bathrooms and then move on to the other rooms in the house when time permits.



The past two weekends we have turned our house into a dog kennel. Jennifer has taken a few trips and asked us to take care of her dog while she was gone. She said it was too cold outside for the dog so it ended up sleeping in the laundry room. I do not remember ever having to take a dog for a walk so it could do its duty. What we do for our kids! I have made it clear to her that we have enough animals around here that our children have dropped off (Allison and Jennifer have both dropped off cats we have been taking care of for the past 12 years) and will only take care of her dog, Nikki, for short periods of time. She keeps telling me that I like her dog so much that I want to get one. NOT SO!



I think that Marylyn mentioned last month that Lyle and family have moved into their new house and seem to have settled in. We were there a week or so ago and found that they are doing very well. Lyle is working on the fence so their new puppy can have a yard to run around in. I assume that Lyle is getting accustomed to his new commute back and forth from Suisun to Petaluma. The kids like school and keep busy doing home work. Michael still is able to beat me on all the games he gets me to play on their wii.



We hear from Susannah almost every day during her commute home from work. She has unlimited minutes on her cell phone so I assume it makes the time go by much faster as she fills us in on what crazy thing happened that day at work. We are going over to their ward in Sonoma to have a crab and pasta feed for our Valentine presents to each other. I guess I will take some lettuce and make myself a Crab Luis. Susannah and Kevin have the wii networking set up so that the cousins and aunts and uncles can play games with each other even though they live at different ends of the state. That has been fun for them.



As you all know, it is hard to keep up with Allison and her trips. She is at Lisa's now taking care of Kyra and Austin while Lisa and Bob take a business trip. She is looking forward to her trip to China in May. It has been doing a lot of raining down in S. CA too, but so far Lisa and Bob's house is okay and their pool hasn't run over. They don't need to take a vacation anywhere…all they need to do is go out in their backyard and enjoy.



Things are nice and green in Petaluma and I have to cut the lawn about every two weeks-- provided it does not rain. Not too sure if it is worse to have snow or rain.



Neil's tales about the Uintah Mt trips and people getting lost brought back a few memories. It was nice to get the whole story on Neil getting lost.



Happy Valentine's Day everyone!



Jerry (and Marylyn)

The Jeff Murray Clan

Hi-


Our daughter McKenna recently completed all of the requirements to earn her YW medallion. She also just recently got her driver's permit and must log 100 supervised hours behind the wheel before she can attempt to get her license. We hope that she catches on so that she can drive herself across town to seminary next year. :-)


Our son Zack just took a first place ribbon in his school's science fair. His project will be entered into a multi-school science fair held at UNLV in March.


Jeff has been learning to play the bagpipes on a practice chanter, and recently got his actual bagpipes. (Now he can really blow the neighbors away) He plans to play with the fire department's pipe and drum band.


Hope everyone is happy and healthy.


The Jeff Murray Clan

From Anna and Wilmer's Journal

Sunday, January 6, 1980

We went to all Church meetings and enjoyed them. Lester came down about five o’clock. I thought he was coming for dinner but he didn’t stay. We had round steak, baked potatoes, beets, salad and ice cream for desert. Tried to get Fred to come but he had company. We really enjoyed Lester’s little visit. I believe LaVora called, but can’t remember just which day. She is so good about calling. I worked on my Visiting Teaching lesson for Tuesday.

Monday, January 7, 1980

We didn’t do anything out of the ordinary today. Dad got his wood in and I crocheted. Oh, I worked on my Visiting Teaching Lesson again today.

Tuesday, January 8, 1980

I decided to make handouts for my lesson. Dad fixed breakfast. The Bishop was at our Prayer meeting this morning and visited the Visiting Teachers message and Relief Society meeting. He looked tired. Hope he didn’t overdo. My lesson, with the help of Heavenly Father went over well. LaRae gave the In-service lesson first as Linda forgot to have her do it in Prayer meeting. So that set the pattern for my lesson. I thanked her for helping and then went on into the lesson. Floy Johnson is the new Spiritual Living Teacher. She gave a good lesson. Dad came back for me. Crocheted the rest of the day and typed Anna’s history over.

From Neil

Sage Brush

January 25, 2010

Dear Family

Well one thing that I can say is that winter continues. This past week has been one of one snow storm right after another. Sunday, however the sun came out and gave us a nice sunny day. There has been much going on with two weddings and two new arrivals. Reed and Kerry went back to Pennsylvania to see their new granddaughter and Angela and Amber returned from their honey moons. Angela was showing us her cruse pictures last night. She had a DVD where they were playing with the dolphins. It looked like they were having fun. Me, I did get around to booking a couple of flights to Hawaii in April where LaVora and I will hook up with Jerry, Marylyn, Dewey and Beverly for a few days. It will be nice to spend some time together. I think we have also finally got things squared away for our trip to Nauvoo. So I do hope to see everyone there.


As Near as I can tell, from LaVora’s Point of View or the Rest of the Story
It seems that after the ring episode on the shore of the lake, LaVora assuming that Neil had gone back to camp, which she could see from her vantage point, went on her way back to camp, probably the long way which took her to where Uncle Lee was working. I guess that since it was such a nice day that she was “moseying along” enjoying everything around her. I can see her checking out the flowers, interesting rocks and the lichens on the rocks. Upon reaching the place where uncle was he inquired of her “Where is Neil?” to which LaVora answered, “He went back to camp.” To which Uncle Lee said to her “You had better go check.” Whether or not LaVora hastened her pace as she went to camp I would not know but upon reaching camp and mother not seeing Neil with LaVora I would guess, one could only imagine what must have gone through mother’s mind. As LaVora said it had only been about six months since they had lost Deward. So the anxiety level must have been pretty high. LaVora said, “I went and hid as the search began.” She said that she could hear mother calling for Neil and the men who were searching trying to get her to be quiet so if Neil was calling they could hear him. At the conclusion of the successful search LaVora said, “I was hiding so that they had to spend a little time finding ne”. But soon all were together again and in a day or two things had returned to normal except that perhaps Neil’s cruising range was now probably somewhat limited. At this point in my writing the words my father spook to Jerry one evening in the Uinta mountains when Jerry and one of the other scouts had been lost and had eventually found their way back to camp and as they were bedding down for the night, Dad said to Jerry, “Sure beats sleeping under a sage brush.”

Next: Grandmother Atta Armela Murray