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)