September 24, 2016
Blaine, Carl and I are headed to Missoula, MT this Saturday
morning. We slept in Dillon last
night. Blaine had to work until 5
yesterday, so we only made it to Dillon last night, it was about 3 hours
drive. We were able to stop in Rexburg
at 6 and eat at Costa Vida with Nikole, Breanna and Derek. It was fun to see and talk to each of them.
Elizabeth left yesterday morning, with her XC Varsity Team;
they arrived in Missoula last evening.
Mr. Gleichman is a great coach, and he always allows extra time to get
there. They were going to check in and
get the team’s race numbers and walk the course, etc.
Mr. Gleichman is going to pick up Carl’s number for us this
morning, since we won’t get there til about 9:30 and you’re supposed to pick it
up before that.
The Women’s General Broadcast is tonight at 6. I’m hoping we will be back, or else I’ll have
to listen to a recoding. I always love
those meetings.
The three of us listened to Marie Osmond’s song, Meet Me in
Montana. The words in the song are
actually true of Montana. There is a lot
of wide open space and big skies.
It rained most of the way to Dillon last night. We had hardly any rain all summer and now
it’s rained almost non stop for a few days.
Carl is playing the cello in his middle school orchestra
with Mrs. Schindler. This is his first
year playing that. He’s still taking
violin lessons with Melanie Moulton. He
is running first place on Teton Middle School’s Cross Country team. He ran a race on Thursday at Ririe. It was one of the hardest races, as far as
one huge hill that was very steep, that he had to run up and then later
down. It reminded me of the Grand
Targhee race, which is horrid. Heather
got first place in that one way back in 8th grade!
Carl did really well, but it was hard.
So, it will be fun to watch Elizabeth and Carl run today in
Missoula. I was surprised that Blaine
wanted to come. He has missed a couple
of Elizabeth’s races due to work or the week of Derek’s sealing, so I think he
was feeling guilty.
I just got a call from Elizabeth. It’s 8:10 here and they are already up and
have been to the grocery store to get food for the day. She said that last night, they arrived in Missoula,
walked the course, went to eat a nice Asian restaurant, then went back to their
motel. She says Mr. Gleichman is having
the whole Varsity Team stay and watch Carl race! He told Lizzie he wants to watch Carl!
Elizabeth is doing pretty well, but did “catch a cold” this
past week and got her pinky finger squished between a weight and the floor on
Thursday evening. Other than that she
had been doing really, really well as far as her health. You had to be Varsity to come to this Montana
race, so she was very excited to be third woman on her team last week. She’s been cutting time off each race.
Nikole absolutely loves college in Rexburg at BYU-I! It has been such a joy to see and hear her
talk about the happenings in her life.
She loves her classes, she loves being on her own, she loves dating
young men that are mature. She enjoys
her roommates. She rides the shuttle bus
that the Ivy provides. It goes all
around campus and down to Wal Mart twice a week. I’m impressed with The Ivy. Nikole’s been on
several dates. She is smart with
men. She was called to be the ward
pianist. I guess the Bishop interviewed
all his ward members that first Sunday before classes started. He found out Nikole can play the piano.
They asked her to play the next Sunday. She’s funny, and she said that they only
asked her to be the pianist for that sacrament meeting, because she
believed they were “trying her out” to
see if she could really play, and then they might ask her to be the ward
pianist, after they proofed her. She was
right : )
April Smotherman is in her room room. Nikole really likes her a a lot. I guess they are the two studiers in the
apartment. The others said they know
they will probably get bad grades, because they plan on playing. Blessedly, Nikole does both.
Derek and Breanna seem to be doing pretty well. They look radiant and happy. Breanna worries us with her health. A tender mercy is that our prayers were heard
and she was able to be healthy and whole during the wedding and their
honeymoon. They loved their trip to the
Cayman Islands and Cozumel Mexico – a cruise that was almost a week long.
Derek is working on an application for an internship this
coming summer at Nielsen Research, where Brandon works. These days it is very competitive to get
into good internships. He is working on
campus for 7 hours per week at the Career Office place he worked at last
year. Then he still works for Hal, but
it’s in spurts. Better spurts than not
at all, right? He is organized and works
hard and is enjoying his classes this semester.
I know that he’s had some really “bad” or difficult semeters, so I count
this as a tender mercy – perhaps that Breanna brought the blessing of comfort
and happiness, even during a semester.
He said that it’s because she feeds him good dinners J
We had them meet us at Costa Vida with Nikole for dinner
last night, because we needed to keep going towards Dillon, so we didn’t get to
see their apartment. The last time we
saw it was one day after they got home from their honeymoon, so it was just like
we left it – full of their wedding presents, one couch, one table and chairs
and we helped them set up their new memory foam bed.
Their apartment is really nice. I think it’s called Stone Brooke.
So, let’s go back to the open house in Driggs. So, we had a wondrous, beautiful day at the Ogden
temple, witnessing the sealing and feeling Heaven near. The weather was warm,
even hot at the temple for pictures. The
luncheon went beautifully and the reception at the Marcum residence back yard
was just fabulous.
Then our couple made it to Salt Lake that night, made it to
the Salt Lake airport very early the next morning, then made it to Miami and
later on to their crusie.
While they were gone, we brought her belongings and the
wedding gifts from Utah to their apartment while they were gone. Brandon and Heather drove a moving truck and
unpacked the whole thing, including packing her parent’s old, nice, heavy couch
up 3 flights of stairs. Blaine and I and
Carl brought another load from Driggs with their table and chairs they
refurbished, their filing cabinet and their bed parts that had come in long
boxes.
After they got home, we went back and took one of those last
items, helped them set up their bed, watched them open their presents.
Derek started classes the next morning. Breanna is off track this time, this end up
on the same track as Derek, but I think she wanted to get her health back into
normal order. She is tending 2 children
for her uncle’s family, as a job. She
works Monday through Friday from 10 to 2.
I told her it sounds like she is their mom, she runs errands for the
mom, tends the children, cleans house, does laundry, etc.
On Friday, after Derek’s first week back in classes, they
came to our home, and we had our “Open House”.
It turned out beautifully and we had many tender mercies with it. First was the weather. We had forgotten, when we planned it months
ago, that the weather the end of August and early September is
unpredictable. Sometimes it rains,
snows, or is nice and warm. The week of
the open house it rained almost every day.
It had not rained all summer, hardly, and now it turned cold and it
rained.
However, we
had been praying fervently that the weather would be nice for just one day and
evening, so we could do our open house on Blaine’s mother’s lawn. Our prayers were heard. It was windy and rainy the day before, but
when we woke up that Friday morning, it was clear and blue skies.
The second tender mercy of our open house was that my
co-worker, Rubi Valdez, came into my office a few days before the open house. She does wedding decorations, too. She told me she had a dream that she helped
me with my decorations for the open house.
She said that she does weddings for the Hispanic community, but the
white people don’t know who she is. She
figured that if she helped with decorations for ours, it would be free
advertising, and she wanted to do it for free!
Well, I’m not crazy, so I told her what I had from the luncheon we put
on , and then said I’d be happy to have her help.
So, Thursday night, Blaine and I took our Suburban and
loaded 6 round tables, 2 long banquet tables and 65 chairs and took them up to
Grandma’s lawn and set them up.
Friday, Blaine went to work, but I had the day off. I went to the yard at 11;00 and wiped all the
tables and chairs off with hot soapy water.
Around 2, Rubi came with her horse trailer full of
decorating things – beautiful shabby chic looking wooden doors for the
backdrop, a desk with drawers that pull out and mirror on it for cards, sign
in, etc., an old juke box, an old telephone, old windows and screen doors that
we spread all around. It turned out to
be very classy, shabby chic looking. We
worked on it all afternoon. Rubi brought
another friend form work, Jenny.
So, by 6:30, there we were, up in the tops of mountains, on
our Mom Ripp’s own front lawn, across from the Tetons, with a wonderful view,
ready to go. Marcums had arrived – all
but Jamison, who had some sports activities, and our Elizabeth who was at a
cross country race in Pocatello.
People started to trickle in. It was steady all night. Breanna’s mission president and his wife came
right at the very end. They are from
Utah, somewhere by Breanna’s parent’s home, but they couldn’t make it to the
wedding or the reception down there, so they drove clear to ours. That was
another tender mercy.
That Friday night, we later found out, was also Homecoming
foot ball game night at our local high school, so we feel very blessed that as
many people dropped by as did. It turns
out that people loved the cheesecake.
After trying to get them from Costco, where they were supposed to be
splendid, but that didn’t work, and then trying Sam’s Club – but that didn’t
work either, Blaine told me to just order them from Broulim’s, even though they
were about $150 more. He figured it
would take that much effort and gas money to drive to Pocatello or Idaho Falls,
so I listend. The cheese cake was
wonderful. It had either raspberries or
strawberries on top, chocolate syrup had been drizzled over the cake before the
berries were added. It was luscious.
The decorations were beautiful, our Derek and Breanna were
gorgeous, and the company that came through was great. My parents, Tad and Kortny, and Christian
and Jennifer and their families all came for a short while. That was nice. None of the Ripplingers came, they had all
come to the sealing or reception in Ogden.
So, the whole evening was as if another dream come true.
Grandma Ripp, Blaine’s mom, was so thrilled over the open
house on her lawn. She is kind of a home
body the whole time I’ve known her. She
has her children come over, but that’s about it. She doesn’t invite other people over. Well, she was so thrilled that now people
know where she lives. President and Sister McKellar were the first ones
there. He talked to her a lot about her
good family, and her continued good grand children, etc. That made her really happy. She stayed on the front lawn clear until the
end of the reception, which is unheard of for her. She usually has to go in and lie down, whenever
she is having a normal day. So, it made
me happy that she was so thrilled over it.
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