March 1 - 7, 2010

More pictures at:

http://picasaweb.google.com/kensbestpics/FamilyMarch2010?authkey=Gv1sRgCLD___jX-8WyXw#

Dear Family and Friends,
Well, how the heck are ya? (That’s Utahan for… well, never mind what that’s Utahan for). They say no news is good news and this week is certainly one of those good news weeks. No earthquakes here in Utah so far this week (knock on wood) but there has been anywhere from one to four 6.0 magnitude quakes somewhere in the world every day this week but Saturday; interesting times indeed. Yellowstone has been on my mind a great deal lately. If that cone (which has been on the rise lately) were to blow we would have to get out of Dodge and fast. We would probably have some warning which would mean we could pack up a few things and become a body of Saints on a mass migration to Nauvoo. You might want to think about getting a hotel reservation before the big rush. Perhaps a contractor in Illinois aught to build a bunch of condos or cabins along the river near Nauvoo and sell timeshare slots to Utahans; just in case.
Well by golly, I can’t remember much of anything over the last week – that’s really sad. We bought a desk and computer from dad and mom’s next door neighbor, the Gartmanns. She was starting to forget things so they put her in a home that can take care of her then he was just too old to be alone so he is moving in with her and selling the house. They were selling things in the house and we got the computer and desk, Steve and Evelyn got the washer and dryer, I don’t remember much else. I had to rearrange our family room to get the desk in and that took much of the week (an hour here and an hour there). Now I have to work on getting the basement and garage organized.
I am also finding and installing programs onto my recently fixed computer. It is hard to have Microsoft Word not know my personal spelling words (like Fortie) and the internet not knowing my favorite sites, etc. I have to start completely over again. They never did get the Ghost image back on and my computer is acting a little strange (it won’t play dvd’s, and won’t automatically start the installation process when I put a cd in, etc.). I hope I don’t have to do the Ghost image and start over AGAIN.
Friday night Tami and I went to a BYU sponsored fireside for our Stake. It is going for like 24 weeks and they are more than halfway through but we enjoyed going. I think one of these days I would like to teach some classes like that. After the class we went and got us something to eat.
Well, Sunday was the big day for an otherwise lackluster week. Church was normal. I taught the first of seven lessons in the genealogy class and we had several new people come in so that was good. Several weeks ago I had the impression that we should have Keith and Ricki come over to tell us about their mission to South Africa. We tried a few times but had to postpone for one thing or another and we finally decided to have it at Curt’s house (they have a big open area including the kitchen, dining room and family room) and have as many as could come be a part of dinner, birthday cake for Mary Kay (it was her birthday Sunday), David Mounteer (who is still on his mission), and Facil who has a birthday in a few days. After the wild eating frenzy we settled down and watched a slideshow and presentation by Keith and Ricki. They did a great job and we enjoyed learning about South Africa and the Saints and missionary work down there. We brought Marie Tolley so we took her back to her place in Provo and then headed home for a late bedtime but it was a great day.
I’m still waiting for word about Deseret Book and the new buyer and what (if any) pictures they will buy. I don’t know this new buyer so I’m not sure what he will do.
Well, that’s it from our house. Hope your week was a bigger blast than mine was. Keep your computer oiled and tuned up,
Ken and clan



Nathan and Paige:
Family~

On Mon I had my 28 week appointment for baby. All is well, so they say! I had to do the glucose testing for sugar, which was incredibly gross. Imagine drinking the orange drink from McDonalds, except take away the carbonation. Yeah I know! Nathan said it sounded great and he wishes he could have it! WEIRDO! All came back normal. Babies heartbeat is about 150 beats/minute and coming in at about 2 1/2 lbs. I can't believe how much bigger it's gonna get...I'm running out of room! I've had quite a bit of pain in my ribs, mostly the right side. After pushing all over, the doc told me that the baby has positioned itself right in between my ribs. She cupped her hand right under my sternum and said, "that's the butt, which is why you are hurting." The little stinker! I'm thinking of spanking it so it will move, but I doubt that will do any good! :) She said since I have a small frame the next few months might hurt a bit...fantastic!! Next appointment is scheduled for April 5th so more to come...

Nathan is doing well. I think we are at the trunky stage!! hehehe I have to admit, I am too. Avery and I have talks every night before bed about daddy coming home soon. She doesn't quite understand. She hears daddy and home and rushes to the door to greet him, then looks at me like, "why did you tell me he was home?" So she's pretty excited as well! This deployment has lasted F-O-R-E-V-E-R!! Nothing else there to report, or that I can report. Sorry!

Baby is still scheduled for May 29th, but of course the odds of that happening are like slim to none. However, we are still looking to do the baby blessing on July 4th. We don't have a lot of space here, but anyone is welcome to stay here and sleep on floors, couches, chairs, you name it! :) Sorry we don't have a bigger house that everyone can fit in! We'll get there!

As for the move to College Station, well nothing is set in stone just yet. Army will tell us when he is really done and then we can start to schedule around that. Nathan has accrued enough vacation time that I think he might be able to get out a month early. So that will really help out...if the Army let's it. They always seem to throw a monkey wrench into things. I will keep you posted on when and how we are getting there once we know. The baby could also throw some things out of whack, but hopefully all will go well and we won't have to worry about that.

That's all for now. Hope everyone is doing well and enjoying the Spring weather!

Paige



Elder Fortie:
Hello everyone!
Well the weather here is a little up and down as well, one day it's just splendid and gorgeous, like 68 degrees and sunny, (which with the humidity is more like 74 degrees) then the next, it's still nice and sunny, but we keep getting these cold winds that come in dropping us down to like 52, it's lame. But oh well, give it a month and it will be just like paradise. So my companion is still adjusting to our area at night time haha, he about jumped into the trunk last night seeing as it was the closest safe place he deemed available as he saw a rather large rough looking guy briskly walking at him, I was laughing so hard I could hardly breathe. He'll get used to it.
So this week while I was tracting with Elvis and my companion (Elvis is a recent convert that loves missionary work) suddenly during a nice sunny day, it started raining, completely random, and never happens here! We were totally unprepared for rain seeing as it was a beautiful day and usually here you can see a storm coming a day off, and we thought dang we better get out of the rain, but we had only 4 houses left to finish the street and as we turned to leave I said, "oh four more houses, lets finish it! So we booked it to the last few doors. We had had not a single interested person after knocking all day, but as we knocked on the second to last door, a Spanish lady opened and just said, please come in. We came in sat down and she just started crying! She went on about how she had got in a car accident, almost died, couldn't work, was about to lose her house, thinks God hates her, and she was thinking about committing suicide. We talked with her for a few minutes, then I felt we should sing to her "Abide with me" (in Spanish of course) so we did, then we sang her "I need thee every hour". She was in total tears and we told her she needed to come to church and prepare to follow the example of Jesus Christ by being baptized so she could receive all the blessings God has in store for her, and that it was no coincidence that we had shown up at her door just now, and it was no mistake that all these bad things had happened to her recently to prepare her to humble her for our coming. Elvis also did a great job with her, he was exactly who we needed to have there with us. If we had decided to bag those last 4 doors cause of the rain, imagine what we would have lost. Just one of many little miracles we see every day here, it's truly amazing, this is the Lords work.
I took a part of our zone on a hike in the mountains last P-day, and I think it was really good for them, I got a chance to walk with some of them and cheer them up and energize and encourage them to rededicate themselves to the work, and it paid off, this past week we broke several records once again, and are leading the mission, next week I'm going to have them all get together in a park for a picnic and some kick ball, and while they are playing I will wander around and have some chats with people about their areas and what they can do better. Also this week I pulled the 6 district leaders of our zone in for a meeting and gave them first off a bit of a "what have you been doing?" then after, a "okay, lets fix some things, no more of this, trust me on this, and now, let's do this" haha, and they seemed to take it well, and things are picking up again, so we are excited and I'm going to work them till they die (missionary slang for "go home") (since I never will hehe!). Oh by the way, the reason I didn't write on Monday is because I changed our p-day to Tuesday for the week so our missionaries could go to the temple for a session, another thing I had hoped would give them a recharge, so we will see if that helped. Well I have to get going, I love you all, and I'm sorry, but it's a lie, I'm never coming home. Actually this week the mission office called me and asked about all my flight details, and if I was flying home or if my family was going to come get me etc. and I was like HEY I'm not ready for this kind of conversation! Sigh...
Love,
Elder Fortie