Wander With Wayne

When Tanner and I returned from cutting the tree, Noell had the gingerbread cooked for gingerbread houses. The family had a great time making houses. We did a number of small gram cracker houses and one large gingerbread house.  It was fun having McKenna Wright and Adonnis Kent with us. McKenna is the youngest child in a family of six children and Tanner's best friend (the Wrights are a great family). Adonnis is from New York and is Kaneesha's boyfriend. It was nice to let them all decorate their homes while Noell and I were able to relax. We called Grandma Goodworth during the decorating to wish her happy birthday.

This fall we had a very wet snowstorm with a lot of snow. As the snow fell, it piled up everywhere. Many of the trees in the area still had leaves on them. I home teach sister Diane Siufanua, a widow in the ward. Her biggest tree lost a large branch in the storm. A few years ago she paid $1300 for someone to trim the tree, but felt now it just needed to be removed. Several of the large branches grew over her neighbor's garage. Diane feared that at some time a branch would break off and destroy the neighbor's garage. I connected her with Tony Bishop, who's father has had a tree cutting business for decades. Tony and his father said they would remove the tree for $300, if ward members would help split and stack the wood. I arranged for ward members to come, Diane invited her family, and Tony and his father did most all of the cutting. The two of them were able to keep us busy. Much of the time Tanner and I were picking up split logs, carrying them in a wheelbarrow, and...

Last Saturday, when I stepped out of my bedroom, I was greeted by this sight. Tanner had set up the entire game of Clue. He explained that he felt if he had it all set up, we'd have time to play. Evidently the little genius was correct. I sat down immediately and we enjoyed a great game. As we played, we reached a point where it appeared to me that he knew all the clues and would win. I rolled the dice, quickly moved to the center and made my guess. I was wrong... TANNER WON!

Kaneesha has so many talents. Recently I came home to see Kaneesha sewing. While this wasn't the first time I've seen her at the sewing machine, it was fun to see her working with such enthusiasm. She hardly looked up, and kept sewing. It was impressive to see the work she had done on her first quilt. Adonnis is having a birthday soon and she wanted to make something special for him. Noell has been saving a lot of old worn-out jeans for quite a while. Evidently they came up with this idea. The finished quilt will be a nice throw blanket for Adonnis.

Last night as we were sitting on the sofa visiting with Kaneesha, Noell noticed the earrings that Kaneesha was wearing. When Noell asked about the earrings, Kaneesha smiled and  told about her experience this weekend. On Friday night she took Adonnis to see the lights at Temple Square. After a great time of seeing the lights, Adonnis had Kaneesha close her eyes. When she opened her eyes, Adonnis was on his knee with a little box that contained earrings. He then asked her if she would be his girlfriend. It's now official, Kaneesha's Facebook status says she is in a relationship with Adonnis Kent.

This school year Myranda began taking a musical, dance, theater class after school. Her good friend, McKell Wright is also part of the group. They have a very fun teacher and seem to love the classes. Saturday night and tonight they had their Christmas performance. Her group was 27th of 34 dances.  In the last year, or two, we began to recognize that Myranda loves to act. When we realized Myranda's love of acting, we felt she could benefit from experience dancing. This class could help with acting, dance, and singing. Tonight it was very impressive to watch her perform. Myranda is very talented, and can not only act and sing, but she definately has GROOVE!

On Thursday night the young men and young women in our ward had a special missionary activity. The full-time missionaries in the area taught them some about missionary work, then they broke into companionships and went with their leaders (and some recently returned missionaries) to visit and teach families in the ward. Our family was asked to role play with the youth when they came. We were told to be a Buddhist family who has met with the missionaries several times and enjoys the meetings because of the feelings we feel when they teach us. Kaneesha and Myranda were involved with the event, and Noell was playing volleyball. Tanner and I were the "family" that the "missionaries" taught. We had four different groups come and teach us. It was a very special experience for me. I hope the youth enjoyed it as much. After it was done, I discussed with Tanner what it was like to be a missionary. I asked if he felt he could do what the youth did: teach about Jesus, the s...

This is an old post from this spring, that somehow I didn't post: As bishop, I had the opportunity to interview Myranda to join the young women program. As I do with all the youth, I also interviewed her to receive a temple recommend interview. Since the interview, I've been excited about setting up a time to take her to the temple and baptize her for individuals who have passed away. Today was the day that we were able to fit it into our schedules. Last night I asked her which temple she would prefer, and she chose the Manti temple, "Because I think it's very pretty," she said. There are a number of things that, as a father, I enjoy doing with my children, and this is one of the best. The time I took Kaneesha to the Salt Lake Temple for baptisms and taking Myranda to Manti were very special. When we arrived, we were about the only people in the baptistry. As we were completing the baptisms, a ward was waiting on the benches. It was great to particip...

On Monday, things looked very different when I walked in the house. For some reason, my eyes were drawn to the floor. It looked to me that Noell had vacuumed the carpet and mopped the tile. When I first walked in, I even said, "Wow, the floor looks great." Noell informed me she'd not mopped the floor. Later (perhaps even an hour later) when I walked through again, I realized that she had put up all of the Christmas decorations. Evidently the decorations were the difference in the home... I am so very observant! Noell had me put up the Christmas tree that night. This year I felt that with all the indoor decorations, that the house looked great and that we wouldn't need lights on the exterior. On another evening Noell convinced me to put the lights around the windows. I hoped that lights around the windows would suffice. Finances have been tight this year, with a lot of medical expenses, and attempting to save money for a trip to Europe this summer. I felt that le...

This morning Tanner informed me that he wanted to work on his Cub Scout Wolf Badge. He had been looking through his book and felt he could do some of the things with tools. Some of the assignments were to learn the names of some household tools, show that he could use some of them, and even build a small project. It looked like fun to me, so we decided to build a bird feeder. We have two different bird feeders in the back yard, but one of them has broken. The broken feeder is one that holds thistle seed for finches. I quite enjoy watching any bird, but the finch feeder has been especially fun for me. There have been times when there have been more than eight finches eating at a time and some times there have been three or four different types of finches eating at a time. I've never built my own finch feeder, but felt this would be enough like the one we bought from the store last year. Hopefully this will last longer. By building the bird feeder Tanner was able to complete the ...