Oh, What Do You Do In The Summertime?

We go swimming! We have really enjoyed our pool. We go for a dip almost every afternoon. It is too hot to do much else at that time of day. The kids really enjoy the water and have gotten more and more comfortable as the weeks have gone on.




A couple of days ago Calvin found this life jacket and now he can swim around and even jump in all by himself. This is him jumping in.


Clare likes to swim too. She is giddy when we get into the pool. She plays with the noodle for a little bit but mostly likes to swim by herself (even though she desn't know how to swim). She tries to push herself away from Dave or I as we hold her in the water. She is a funny girl. She loves to use water wings because she doesn't have to have anyone hold her. I'll have to post a pic of that next time.

Spiders

We have tons of spiders here in the house. Daddy-long legs. They are in every corner. When I first got here I thought that if I cleaned really well they'd go away and never return but I was wrong. They appear in the cleanest of spots -- sometimes just to spite me I think! The picture is of one big spider and lots of little spiders I found behind a little stand that had our phone on it. I think getting all of them at once (with Windex) was my biggest kill yet. I kill at least one, if not several spiders a day. {Sorry the picture isn't that great, but it gives you an idea}

We also have ants here -- little sugar ants. They come out by the millions if there is ANY food left out. This morning there was a huge trail of them that had found a minuscule flake of honey bunches of oats. They are especially bad when the weather heats up and we are having our hottest weather of the summer so far. I hope as it cools off a little this weekend the ants will march away! They drive me nuts!

I've got gas

Today I filled up my beast of a gas tank. I had to do it in two separate transactions bucause the first time the pump stopped at $85. My second attempt added $22 more, so for a total of $107 I filled my tank. Today gas was 2.999999 and the lowest I've seen it is about 2.95. What is gas costing you these days?

New Shoes

I got these shoes with a giftcard someone gave me. I thought they would be nice to wear around instead of flipflops because they will give me more support and protect my feet a little more, yet they're still easy to wear and comfortable. It will save me having to put on shoes and socks everytime I go somewhere (like the store) that requires a lot of walking.

Beach Day!

Today we went to the beach for a little while. the kids have fun playing in the sand and wading in the water. the water is pretty chilly and I am always amazed at how the kids don't seem to mind at all and are still happy to get all wet! We usually go to the beach in the morning when it is not as crowded and not to hot either. It is a lot of trouble to bring the camera to the beach but I thought I'd give it a try so that we'd have a few pictures this time. we haven't been to the beach a lot since we've moved here but I want to eventually set up a beach day where we schedule to go once a week. Hopefully with some friends too. When I was growing up we always had a beach day with friends and it was a great tradition that I'd like to keep alive!

A First! (Chaper 246)

Last night we went out to dinner to TGI Fridays. What did Dave order? SALAD!!! For the main course. Any of you who know dave will probably think this is a little strange because he hates salad. Actually, he just hates salad dressing so he ordered the salad with no dressing (yuck). The salad came with chicken, crasins, cheese and nuts. It was supposed to come with mandarin oranges but they forgot to put them on. He had trouble eating the salad as he was chewing but not feeling at all full so he started using two forks to scoop the salad into his mouth, then he ended up with lettuce hanging out the corners of the mouth and he looked kind of like a giraffe eating leaves. It was extremely embarrassing. Lucky for us we were in the back corner of the restaurant so there weren't many people who would have seen him. I don't think he will do it again -- unless the salad is an appetizer and he can get a real meal afterwards.

4 AM!!!

What were you doing today at 4am?

We heard a noise and got up to find Calvin eating cookie dough (out of a huge tub my brother's got at COSTCO) and watching Scrubs on the computer!

Where does he come up with this stuff?

Calvin's Good Idea

Calvin is sad to see that Pete and Jessica will be leaving soon. Here is a conversation he had with pete the other day.

Calvin: "Where are you going?"

Pete: "To BYU"

Calvin: "Why you need to go to BYU?"

Pete: "To get an education, so I can get a good job and don't have to work someplace like McDonalds forever"

Calvin: "You could work at Chuck-E-Cheeses"

Pete: "Good Idea, Calvin"

Treasures

It will be embarassing to admit that we are still not very organized and we have been here a whole month. Today I found some great treasures while unpacking.

1. Laundry baskets - piles of dirty clothes on the floor are so out of style!
2. booster seat - for the kids to use at the table while eating (we do have a high chair here so we've been doing okay without it).
3. winter coats -- no longer a necessary treasure :) I'll probably re-pack them when they are all gathered to one place.
4. step stool - now calvin can reach the sink and maybe he can start brushing his teeth again
5. all of daves white socks - black ones are good for work but they have been silly looking with his shorts!

Some things I'm still looking forward to unpacking
1. Dave's books (just kidding .. .we have about 10 boxes of them and I definatly don't miss them at all!)
2. My razors -- don't worry I haven't gone a whole month without shaving but I do need to through out the one I have been using.
3. ....time's up! Need to get back to work!

Pictures

Calvin served his own powdered suger. He had about a cup of sugar on his 10 bites of pancake :)


Next door we have a FUN family with 5 kids. Their youngest is a 4 year old boy that Calvin is getting to know. This is a picture of the boys playing on the inflatable water slide. (now you know what I mean by FUN). I took the picture from my house. I was home with Clare when Dave took Calvin over to play. They have an apple tree with delicious apples. I'm not sure what kind.


Clare loves to hide. There are some good places that come as we clean out cubbards and closets and drawers. She is the perfect size for all of them.






The kids had a fun time one night on the deck blowing bubbles. We have a beautiful sunset view and we love to be out in the evening. This is right before bed one night). Our cousin lance is in some of the pictures.













We have some rose bushes in the yard and they are in full bloom right now. It is beautiful. Hard to capture in a picture but this is my best try.




Calvin loves to use my brother's computer with the head phones on. His favorite lately has been watching little mermaid on the computer. here he is on july 4th (see the firework painting on his arm). He fell asleep watching a show on the computer.

"Feast upon the word" and Book of Mormon Challenge

Today I gave a talk in Sacrament meeting. I can't put the whole talk here because some of it I made up as I went along but I can include some of the quotes I used to prepare the talk. The topic was feasting on the scriptures.

Elder Uchdorph:
Feasting includes searching, pondering, asking, praying, and living the word of God. Read the holy scriptures as if they were written for you—for they are. Nephi said, “For behold, the words of Christ will tell you all things what ye should do” (2 Ne. 32:3).

May I ask you to take time to feast upon the word of God? It is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week but should not be treated like a fast-food service. Jesus asked listeners to go home and ponder what He had taught them (see 3 Ne. 17:3). This pondering, feasting, and meditating will help you “know to what source [you] may look for a remission of [your] sins” (2 Ne. 25:26).

President Spencer W. Kimball said “There are still many of the saints who are not reading and pondering the scriptures regularly, and who have little knowledge of the Lord’s instructions to the children of me. Many have been baptized and received a testimony, and have gone into this straight and narrow path, yet have failed to take the further required stop – to press forward, FEASTING upon the world of Christ and endure to the end.

The years have taught me that if we will energetically pursue this worthy goal (to study the scriptures) in a determined and conscientious manner, we shall indeed find answers to our problems and peace in our hears. We shall experience insights, witness and unfolding pattern of all scripture; and the doctrines of the lord shall come to have more meaning to us than we ever thought possible. As a consequence, we shall have greater wisdom with which to guide ourselves and our families.

I ask all to begin now to study the scriptures in earnest, if you have not already done so."



Quotes from Harold B. Lee
"It has always seemed to me that the words of the Prophet Joseph Smith in counsel to the brethren, impressing the value of the Book of Mormon, have greater significance than many of us attach to them. His statement was: “I told the brethren that the Book of Mormon was the most correct of any book on earth, and the keystone of our religion, and a man would get nearer to God by abiding by its precepts, than by any other book” (History of the Church, 4:461).

If one wants to get close to God, he can do it by reading the Book of Mormon.

How long has it been since you have read the Book of Mormon? I was startled a little while ago by interviews with two men who were years ago in our seminary system and both of whom have gone into other teaching positions, who have obtained their graduate degrees. They have slipped away from gospel truths and now have been challenging and quarreling with and trying to destroy and criticize the teachings of the Church.

I have talked with both of them, and when I inquired about their reading the Book of Mormon, one of them said to me: “It has been fourteen years since I have read anything in the Book of Mormon.”

Another said, “I can’t remember when I last read anything from the Book of Mormon.” So it will be with any of us, if we do not continue to saturate ourselves with the teachings of this most precious book which the Lord has given us for a purpose—that is, to correct all of these errors and dissensions in our day just as He promised He would in other days.

I talked with a man who is prominent at our state university. … While a member of the Church, he had been insidiously inciting and magnifying the doubts that were intended to destroy the faith of these youngsters. He said, “I haven’t been doing it this last quarter, though, Brother Lee.”

When I asked, “What has changed you?” he made an interesting confession:
“For twenty years I had never looked at the Book of Mormon, but I was given an assignment in the Church to do something. That assignment took me into the study of the Book of Mormon and the gospel, and I have joined the Church all over again in the last few months. Now when my students come to me, disturbed because of the teachings of philosophy, I say to them in private, ‘Now, don’t get disturbed. You and I know that the gospel is true and the Church is right.’"

President Kimball said, “I ask us all to honesty evaluate our performance in scripture study. It is a common things to have a few passages of scripture at our disposal, floating in our minds, as it were, and thus have the illusion that we know a great deal about the gospel. In this sense, having a little knowledge can be a problem indeed. I am convinced that each of us, at some time in our lives, must discover the scriptures for ourselves -- and not just discover them once, but rediscover them again and again."

Our Bishop challenged us to read the book of Mormon by the end of this year. If you read 3 pages a day, you will finish by the end of the year. As a ward we are going to be doing that. Feel free to join us! (If you start now you might need to read 4 pages for a couple of weeks to catch up)

Happy 4th

We had a nice 4th of July. We went to a "old fashioned 4th of July" event at a park in town. We listened to a band play, painted the kids faces and made a couple of crafts. There was a very nice couple standing next to us in line for the train who offered to take our picture. We handed them the camera and it didn't work becuase it was out of batteries. So, the lady whips out her camera and took a picture (above) and took our email address to send it to us.

PS. Can you tell by our Buckeye attire that we are not yet adjusted to living out of the ohio state territory? We must look pretty funny to everyone around here dressed as if we're on our way to the stadium but it ended up being an easy way to add red to the attire for the 4th.




Later, on the train ride she took a picture of Clare hanging out the window becuase she got a kick out of that. Dave took the kids on the train by himself.


We love America and are so blessed to be here, be it CA or OH. Today I was trying to teach Calvin about why we are lucky to be American's and it was a great reminder of the rich blessings we enjoy here (such as freedom to go to Kroger as Calvin mentioned), freedom to have a BBQ, see family, travel, go to church, get an education, drive a car, own property, etc.

Clare playing in an empty flower pot on the deck.



Here is a picture of Dave and I on the night we went to the neurosurgery black tie graduation dinner a couple of weeks ago. It was a lovely evening and fun to meet all the residents and staff in the neurosurgery department.

In the picture we are standing on the deck at my house. The house in the background is the next door house. The huge eucalyptus trees in the background are very common for this area and also in Australia. I learned in my ecology class in college that San Diego (and some southern CA) has the same climate and foliage as some parts of Australia and that climate/setting is found nowhere else in the world. Eucalyptus trees have a distinct smell and are the food for koalas (in australia).

Private Blog

Hello to those of you who successfully made the transition to the private blog.

Here are my top 3 reasons to have a blog (in no particular order).

1. Calvin is starting school this year.
2. Dave is a Dr.
-right now if you google "Gonda, Dr., neurosurgery, crazy" our blog is the #1 hit. We probably don't want dave's patients knowing he tastes car fluid and irons his shirt while wearing it. Or anything else about him.
3. We live in a house.
-If we post a picture of the house then you know it's ours...unlike in front of or in back of an apartment complex where ours could be any number of homes. And every house is unique. Plus, we'll be here for a while.



Welcome!

Chapter 245 in the book about Dave (I haven't documented all of the chapters here)

Last Sunday at 10:45 (church starts at 11) as I was getting shoes on the kids and trying to load them into the car I hear a call from dave, "Denise. Come in here, I need your help. DENISE." Denise said, "What do you need?" Dave "Just come help. PLEASE" So, I came into the room and found dave as you see him in the picture ... leaning down on the ironing board with one arm apparently missing. At first I thought dave was hurt but then he spoke again. "Can you straighten out my sleeve, I'm trying to iron it." WHAT?!! Ironing your shirt with it on. I laughed so hard that I cried and I did not help him straighten out his shirt to iron it. He was on his own for that one!