On December 11th, Alan and I were able to see Eric, Nicole, Ella, and Olivia dance in a local performance of The Nutcracker through the girl's dance studio. It was so good - much better than I thought it would be. Everyone did so well!
Eric & Nicole were Clara's parents in the opening scene. They danced beautifully together.
Ella as The Mouse King
Encore, Encore!
Winter has officially arrived here in Riverton. Our first snowstorm arrived on December 9th. Thankfully, it wasn't too bad.
We have known for a while that Alan had a congenital problem with his heart, but never in our wildest imaginations did we ever think that he would need open-heart surgery to fix it.
Since we moved to Utah last April, Alan has seen a few cardiologists for different problems. After many tests, including an angiogram, EKG, MRI, etc. it was determined that his problems warranted surgery. It was discovered that his enlarged aorta was a big concern since it's like an aneurism ready to burst at any time. Also, instead of having a tricuspid valve and a bicuspid valve, he had two bicuspid valves. Evidently, his defective valve was regurgitating about 46% of the blood the heart was pumping. That's not good. Therefore, Alan needed to have his valve replaced as well as have the enlarged aorta reinforced so it couldn't burst.
On October 26th, Alan met with his Cardiac Surgeon, Dr. Afflack, who confirmed that he needed surgery. He had an opening for the next morning, so on the 27th, Alan underwent open-heart surgery. This was how he looked when I first saw him post-surgery. He was still very sleepy from the anesthesia at this point.
We love our new home and we love living in Riverton. However, when you see a problem, you need to fix it, right? We have a fairly big yard, but it wasn't easy to take care of. There was no mowing edge, the sprinkler system wasn't working well, most of the plants were overgrown, there was a lot of "morning glory" weed growing, the yard sloped to the house so in a flood we could potentially have our basement flooded, the sprinkler system didn't work well, there was no automatic watering system to our garden boxes, etc.. None of this is good, so we decided to give our yard a new makeover. Every one of those problems (plus more) were addressed and fixed. All of our planter areas had bark, which wouldn't stay where it belonged. We had all the bark removed and replaced it with stones. I think the stones look so much better than the bark.
Front yard before:
Back Yard Completed
Lower patio Before
Lower patio after
I have a strong belief that God is in even the smallest details of our lives. I believe he guides us in making decisions and plants us in the part of his vineyard where we can do the most good and prosper most effectively.
When we were looking for a home to purchase in Utah, the housing market was booming. Many others besides us were trying to purchase a home at the same time, which made it very difficult to get a home. Most homes sold very quickly and most had multiple offers on homes in our price range. This was a stressful time because we had sold our California home so we needed a home to move into in Utah.
Our search area for a home was pretty large. We looked in Utah County, Salt Lake County, and Davis County. We put an offer down on a home in Sandy, but others bid higher than us so we didn't get the home even though ours was a cash offer.
We continued searching and found a home in Riverton - one mile from where Eric's family lives. Although I never thought we would end up in Riverton, a house that we loved came on the market so our Real Estate Agent, Ashley Jensen, and Eric & Ella visited the home. They each gave good reports about it to us. With no time to spare, around March 5th, we placed a cash bid on the house (without ever seeing it in person) with an escalation clause that we would offer $5,000 over the highest bid up to a certain amount. We knew this house was popular so we could only hope and pray that our offer would be accepted. As it turns out, there were 31 offers on the house and it was on the market for only a few days! The odds of us getting it were very slim.
On March 8th, the same day we found out that our Lancaster home sale fell through, we found out that our offer had been accepted in Riverton. What a relief to know that we had secured a Utah home, but we were very disappointed that the sale of our home fell through.
Interestingly, being disappointed that the sale of our home fell through, I said a prayer and asked my Heavenly Father if we would be able to sell our home. The answer I received was "yes, it will sell, but it will take some time...just be patient." Two weeks later we had another buyer for the home. Hmmm, I thought the Lord told me that it would take some time, but that didn't take long at all. I really didn't understand it. I figured that I must have misunderstood the Lord's message to me. However, things didn't go well with the new buyer. Instead of the 45-day escrow we were promised, things went south and dragged on and on. After 158 days of being jerked around by the buyer and his two lending agencies, the buyer withdrew from the purchase. We were led to believe that we were almost at the finish line, but then the rug was pulled out from under us. Unbelievable! NOW I UNDERSTOOD WHAT GOD WAS TELLING ME! It all made sense. Fortunately, we had received another offer on the house two days before he withdrew from the contract. The offer was for $1,000,000 and we counter-offered at $1,025,000 and it was accepted. The buyers wanted a 30-day escrow so it is supposed to close on September 20th. Yay! Things seem to be going well this time around, thank goodness!!!
Back to my statement at the beginning of this post that God is in the details of our lives, I will share a story to illustrate that very thing. Shortly after we moved into our home in Riverton, I had a personal revelatory experience. I found myself on my knees at my bedside saying a prayer of gratitude to my Heavenly Father for basically three things - That Alan was able to sell his dental practice (post-covid) pretty quickly; that we were able to sell our Lancaster, CA home; and that we now had this beautiful new home in Riverton. I was marveling how things just seemed to have fallen into place for us as we made this move and it all happened within a short period of time. As I pondered on those three things, I heard the Lord speak to me (in my mind) telling me that he had orchestrated our move and that we were in this home and in this ward for a specific reason. He said "Joan, you just wait, you are going to love your new ward."
I'm so grateful for that experience. I don't know why, exactly, we are in this home and this ward, but I do know that it's where the Lord wanted us to be. I'm very confident that he wanted us to settle here. We do like our ward and our neighborhood very much. Living in Riverton makes me happy! So glad to have been blessed so abundantly by my Heavenly Father. Life is good!
I find it hard to believe that I graduated from High School 50 years ago. It seems like yesterday! Now that I live in Utah, I didn't have an excuse to not attend the reunion, so I did. Boy, am I glad I attended! I had to talk Jane into going with me, but she's glad she attended also. We took pictures at my home before we drove with our husbands down to Spanish Fork High School where the reunion was held.
It's kind of funny that we both purchased a pair of white jeans to wear to the reunion on the exact same day. Great minds think alike, I guess. Haha!
It had been 50 years since I set foot inside Spanish Fork High School. It brought back so many good memories. Things have obviously changed, but the layout was pretty much the same. From what I understand, another High School is being built to take it's place so this school will be torn down soon. That thought makes me kind of sad.
The couples sitting at our table were (from left to right) Craig & Carrie Davidson (Carrie was a classmate and she and Jane were good friends); Jane & Ken Aird; Larraine & Dennis Rosenbaum (both are classmates and we were good friends with Larraine); Alan & I. Alan took the photo, so he isn't in the picture.
The meal was very good and was catered by a classmate named Blake Hawkins who owns a small chain of restaurants.
The program was very nice. One thing they did was honor the many classmates who have passed away - about 50 of them! Gone, but not forgotten!
It was a blast being able to see friends from the past that I hadn't seen in so many years. I learned a couple of interesting things from classmates. One classmate, Paula Darling, told me that when she was in 1st grade her mom gave her a couple of matching dolls and she wrote the name Jane on one and Joan on the other because she thought we were so cute. She has kept them all these years, but one was recently destroyed by one of her grandchildren. So funny! I had no idea she had done that! Another classmate, Kurt Nield, told me that he and Earl Taylor had a crush on me in the third grade. Haha! That one made me laugh.
At the end of the reunion dinner, all class members in attendance gathered outside to take a group photo. The reunion was well attended and I had a lot of fun.
I've been trying for years to talk Alan into getting rid of our 2002 Lexus RX 300, but he would never give in. He tends to drive cars to the grave. I always said he wouldn't get a new car until Hell froze over. Well, Hell froze over today.
The Lexus.
We called her Ralph because anyone prone to motion sickness would get car-sick while riding in this car. She has been a good car for us for the past...oh, I don't know...maybe 15-17 years, but it was time for her to go bye bye.
