May 23 - 30, 2010

Fortie Family Flyer

May 23 – 30, 2010

Dear Family and Friends,

            Well, they didn’t waist much time getting to Jason’s homecoming (which isn’t called a homecoming anymore). The Bishop told him not to say anything about his mission in his talk so he didn’t. We told him he could use stories that related to his topic as the prophet and apostles often do in conference but he decided to do what the bishop said and said nothing about his mission. We had several people say they wanted to hear some stories and were a bit disappointed even though Jason gave a very good talk about Christ and the Atonement. We had family and friends over to the house after church and had a nice visit. Gardner’s also came over from the ward but I think that was all. We are just too old for this ward I think. Anyway we sure enjoyed seeing family that we haven’t seen for a while.

            We had a late snow this week and it killed the blossoms on my apple, peach and pear trees so I got only one or two from each tree, very sad.

            Alicia put together a surprise birthday dinner for Chad at the Belgian Waffle House. We all arrived early and he was surprised at how many people were there. We had some good eats and cake after so it was a great time. My kids are getting up there in years, I guess that puts me way up there now, oh my!

Keep having birthdays (it’s better than the alternative),

Ken and clan

May 17 - 23, 2010

Fortie Family Flyer

May 17 – 23, 2010

Dear Family and Friends,

            Well, the big news this week is, of course, Jason returning home from his mission. He left in January of 2008 but came home for a few months of the summer of 2008 to have surgery on his knee. His mission was then extended for that same amount of time so he could get his 2 years in. He went to the San Francisco Spanish speaking Mission but due to persecution because of prop 8 in California that mission was closed and he was sent to Oakland across the bay. Since he was Spanish speaking his areas were always large enough and in bad enough places that he never had a bike. He was always in a car so he didn’t get much exercise and with all the dinner appointments he went to so he gained some weight. Other than that it was the same Jason coming home with 2 great years of service to the Lord under his belt and a love for the Spanish speaking people of the bay area. He really seemed to enjoy his mission and was always upbeat about his experiences in California. It is great to have him home and we look forward to the coming years of school and moving on with life.

            Since I’m writing this much later that is about all I can remember so I will sign off now and try to catch up (good luck with that (that is all I have to say to myself about that).

Keep spreading the word,

Ken and clan

May 10 - 16, 2010

Fortie Family Flyer

May 10 – 16, 2010

Dear Family and Friends,

So, the week was a census week for me and that about sums it up. Lot’s of interesting stories from each of my crewmembers about strange people and their strange responses to the census. Nothing really new though.

I have been getting headaches almost everyday for several months now. I have been experimenting for a while to determine if it is a food allergy or what. It is hard to tell, sometimes I think it is wheat, then sugar, then chocolate. Maybe I’m just allergic to food in general. If I stop eating for a few months it will probably all go away. I’ll have to figure it out.

I took a break from all the chaos this week and I rode my scooter up the canyon and stopped in a quiet place where I saw several deer. I walked up a dry streambed, sat down and played my flute to the forest. It was a nice break from the hustle and bustle of modern day life. After that little break it was back down to my meetings with my crew and all the paperwork and dealing with problems.

Sunday was a nice break as well. I did have to get up early to collect binders and papers from my crew and get them to my boss (not fun or relaxing) but then I didn’t have a new class yet to start the genealogy lessons over again and I didn’t have to teach High Priests so I used the time to create a questionnaire to find out where everyone is on their genealogy and passed them out to everyone in Priesthood, Relief Society and Primary. After church we wrote letters, Tami made a dessert, and we all took a nap while we waited for Brian to come home from his meetings. The home teachers came by while we were all asleep so it took us a few minutes to get our bearings as we let them in. We enjoy their visit and tend to keep them here longer than we should but we like the company.

After that we headed to grandpa and grandmas for dinner. It was a nice day so we had a BBQ outside. I went out back with Spencer to explore and I found a watering can in his favorite shed. I filled it and had him help me water some flowers. He got quite a kick out of that so we kept doing it over and over again. Later Brian chased him with those big punching balloons and he would run into the shed and shut the door screaming all the way. We all had a good laugh at the performance; nothing like a good dinner and a show. After dinner we played ‘keep the large bag of old birthday balloons off the ground,’ it was fun. We then played a few rounds of golf and headed home.

That’s it from our house.

Keep playing music,

Ken and clan

From Elder Fortie:

Well, it's my last day in the field... tomorrow I will spend the day with president, then the next day... well the next day I'm not sure what happens but I think it's something comparable to the great wall of china falling down or something like that....

Well I have a request. My homecoming is next week, as I'm sure you are all aware of. My request is, that as many non members as possible are there to hear me speak! Invite everybody you know! Spread the word through the ward, family members etc. to bring as many non-member friends as they can muster up! That would make my day to be able to talk to one last group of people that don't yet have the gospel! Can you imagine if every member brought one none member!???!!!!!! (I had to use as many of those as I could with that statement!) So spread the word and bring on the people, and tell whatever Elders that cover our area they are welcome to bring investigators, and I will try not to let them down! So let it be written so let it be done!

Otherwise, well I suppose I'll talk to you all next week... not much else to say for now... uhm, oh, so Satan is a mean cuss! He is not letting me quit easy. So my eye is recovering just fine from the last weeks surprise, but this week, hehe... I may have damaged some of the discs in my back slightly... I'm now on some more happy medications, and pain killers... and I possibly will have to see a chiropractor... but I should be fine!!!! emphasis on that, meaning no need to call and bother the office people, they can't tell you anything more then exactly what I just told you, so yeah we shall see how that goes, but Satan is just cruel that's all I gots to say.

Well I shall see you all soon, take care, be happy and keep on smiling!

Love, Elder Fortie

From Jennifer:

Hello! I thought since this is gonna be the last letter, I’d better write!

            So elder Fortie, how are things going? I never finished with my Disneyland telling but I think I will just wait for you to be home. We have lots of pictures to show you! And I’m sure you have plenty to show us. Sorry, don’t mean to make you trunky ha ha.

            This week I babysat everyday and had some fun moments with the boys! Last week the little guys and I made a mothers day dinner of slightly soggy spaghetti, meat blobs and chocolate cupcakes that had marshmallow cream inside, but we forgot to only fill them 2\3 of the way and we filled them to the top, making them overflow all over, but it was fun! But there was so much batter left, so we ate it all and got our faces really messy, the pictures were priceless!

            My school finished up with end of year testing this past week, making school now pointless, but really fun! Freshman year baby! I’ve been so good with my grades lately, I’m not gonna lie, I’m pretty proud. Anyway, the school had all the students take the personality color quiz thing, I’m a white with blue and yellow perfectly tied in second, and absolutely no red. It was really cool to learn about the different personalities! And fun to learn what my best friends are, none of them are white, just me, all alone. Ha ha, but that’s okay, because when I’m around them the more yellow in me comes out! I had yet another friend pass me up, I’m now the shortest one in our group, I guess I should get used to that, alas, I am done growing, at a whopping 5ft.2in. I know, I’m gigantic! But on the positive side I can always wear heels on dates! J Bonus!

Well, I had a way fun night with some of my best friends-Hannah, Derek, Gabe, Sharpie (his real name is McKay), Kati, Kevin and Sarah. We played basketball for a minute, well the guys and I did, which I epically failed at, because I’m almost a whole foot shorter then sharpie, but oh well! Then we all played boys against girls keep away and watched a movie called Hoovers, really boring movie by the way! We were all more focused on the guy’s creepy short shorts and our candy! Yummy! Then we made delicious personal pizzas that were actually really big! I didn’t come close to finishing mine! But I tried an anchovy at the same time as Derek and Sharpie, really not THAT bad, but I’d never have them again, I’ve tried it once, now I can say I’ve done it and go on with life!

Which I have to go do now! Off to grandma and grandpa’s! Can’t WAIT to see you! Good luck on your mission! Love you, and bye.     

Jennifer

May 3 - 9, 2010

Fortie Family Flyer
May 3 – 9, 2010

Dear Family and Friends,
Another busy week with the Census and helping sick people recover. I have come to the conclusion I will have to sleep in the millennium.
Tami and other sick people are recovering so things are looking better on that front, at least for another week.
My Census job is to meet with my 14 enumerators individually every day to check on their progress and take the questionnaires they have completed. If they are having a hard time getting someone to answer the questionnaire then I decide if we should send someone else, go myself or take some other course of action. I am amazed at how many people treat census workers so poorly. They act like we are conducting some casual survey that is unimportant or even a nuisance that they don’t have to participate in if they are having a bad hair day or just don’t feel like it. What happened to “We the People.” I also have to go with my enumerators for a few hours to see how they are doing. At one door a lady (in her 30’s) reluctantly started answering questions about names and birthdays and halfway through she asked us what this was for. I was shocked she was giving this information out without knowing what it was for, but then when we told her it was for the census she asked what a census was. Wow, public education at work. We have had several people refuse so I have to go see why. One lady just slammed the door in my face. I sat in my car out front for about 10 minutes filling out the form about her and deciding where to go next and just as I pulled out of her street a police car pulled in. I didn’t stay but I’m sure she had called the police on me. I should have gone back to let her know that the police support our efforts. I even have a letter with me from the Census Bureau to show people that if they don’t comply there is a $500.00 fine. In fact, one of my enumerators went to an apartment complex where the night manager wouldn’t give him any information, she said he needed a court order. We talked to the main manager who acted rather rude and said we needed a court order to get any information. She called her supervisor over all the apartments in Utah and she said we needed a court order. All along we told each one we did not. The supervisor, rather belligerently said she was going to call the corporate attorney. He told her she was required by law to help us out. Well, she called the manager who then told us (in a rather embarrassed tone) she would help us with what ever we needed. People just aren’t informed about the importance of the census. The first census was conducted during George Washington’s first year as President. It was important then and still is. It helps us plan for everything from schools to retirement centers. It helps with fire stations, libraries and community centers and even law enforcement.
And while I’m on this soapbox, it is too bad more people didn’t mail their census questionnaire in. It costs the government something like (I don’t remember the exact numbers) $30.00 to process a mailed in census form and something like (again don’t remember the exact number but it was big) $2,500.00 to drag the information out of people by training a bunch of people to go knocking on doors until they find people home and talk them into giving up the information. Some of the hardest people to get cooperation from are probably the people who talk most about wasted tax money in other areas of government. I saw an email that some nut was sending around, telling people not to give out information to the “evil, controlling government”. Once again it is no longer “We the People.” Too bad we let people like that influence us.
Anyway, I had one of my enumerators go in for surgery this week and instead of a few days of recovery as he was expecting he has 2 months of recovery so he had to quit and give me back all his census stuff. I will have to fill out the paperwork to reassign it to someone else.
They don’t believe in days off with this job so I tend to work every day (on Sunday I ignore them and just collect pay sheets in the morning and run them to my supervisor’s house so I don’t have to go to the meeting at night). Most of my people don’t work on Sunday even the non LDS people realize the culture here wouldn’t like it. I tend to work about 4 to 5 hours each morning, meeting with the crew members who are busy at night, and 4 to 5 hours at night meeting with the people who are busy in the daytime (much of that is just paperwork). I do that 6 days a week and there goes my week; around 50 to 60 hours of it anyway.
Well, enough census talk. For Mother’s Day I felt that Tami would like a new set of dishes (the old set is missing some of the pieces) so I got a set I thought she would like for her for Mother’s Day and she and the girls thought they were perfect.
After church we headed over to Curt’s for a Mother’s Day dinner. There was, as usual, some great food and great company. Of course Curt and Mary Kay were there, Facil and Susan and Facil’s son, Brent and Emily and kids, Mike and Linda and kids, our crowd and grandpa and grandma. Spencer was so excited about Curt’s broken 4-wheeler out back that Curt got out his working 4-wheeler so we could all take turns going around the yard giving Spencer a ride.
We even had a birthday for grandpa at the end (for those who couldn’t come last week) and we set up a few more displays of 75 things for that (like 75 dominos in the shape of the number 75). A good time was had by all and we got home late, as usual.
Well, that’s my week as far as I remember (and the memory seems to be one of those things that is slipping away) must be the pesticides (I just heard about a report that there is a strong link between pesticides and autism… interesting).
Stand up and be counted.
Ken and clan



From Elder Fortie:
So uhm, Well I just talked to you yesterday, so I dunno there's probably not a lot to say... uhm, This past week has been alright, it's been a bit rainy... The work here still needs... well... work... But I'm running out of time to do it... I keep trying to put off things like packing, and sending off things etc. but I'll get around to it.... sometime... I really just kinda have no idea what on earth I'm going to do with myself when I get home... I just can't imagine where to start with things. There's like a month worth of things happening here in California like baptisms of people I've taught, and mission farewells of people I've taught, and people I taught going through the temple, etc, etc. that I'd love to come back for, but I don't think I'll be able to come back for all of them, but if I can't come back for all of them, which ones do I come back for? Especially since I won't know how much time I'll have depending on job situation, money situation etc. I just think I may pretend I forgot about my plane ride home and just somehow get stuck here so I don't have to deal with all that crazy stuff called life! But I know that's probably not a good plan... sigh... Well I think that's probably about all I have to say... so uhm, I guess I'll send you an e-mail next Monday to let you know whether or not I am going to "find" my plane... By the way do I have anything like set for me the day I come home? Or are we just kinda floating what floats the boat? Keep on keeping on!
Love, Elder Fortie