The Ralph Family House of Ideas: First Half of Year 2022

And now it's 2022.

January 6th was a birthday celebration for Caleb turning 3 years old. He knows what that means now and he really enjoyed his ice cream cake.

January was a new start and yet it was the same. Kids were still wearing masks to school. Jessica was to take Caleb to pre-school at Covington Elementary and they wouldn't let her in the class due to Covid restrictions. She stood by the door and they brought Caleb out to get a mask for him and she just brought him home.

In February, Stephen and Kathleen flew back to Utah for the baby blessing of Ellen May Heath on Sunday the 6th. While we were there the city of Lindon had a Sweetheart Ball for the whole community and we were able to go and dance and participate in lots of fun activities. The Heath's came late so the only family picture we got was of the Ralph Family that was there. Stephen and Kathleen stayed with the Heath's from Wednesday night to Friday since Austin's brother Colten and his wife were coming in. Saturday Stephen spent the day mudding and taping the drywall of Jonathan's new workshop. Kathleen helped a little but not as much as Ben and Stephen who did and suburb job. Stephen also laid down carpet in Jon's office and the front area of his workshop.

Elizabeth was asked to help her friend that did the Chinese Sitting month after her delivery. She had camera men with expensive cameras and lighting there to help make a video for a blog. It took most of the day to record a short interview with Liz. Hopefully we'll get to see the end product this year.

On February 20 Kathleen flew into San Jose California Airport going to Michael and Sarah Gordon's home. They had decided to move to Idaho and had a doctor appointment for Sarah on Tuesday the 22nd. So Kathleen helped with the drive for 10 hours on Monday with the three kids, Eric, Heidi and Jason and Sarah driving at 37 weeks pregnant. Her appointment on Tuesday with the doctor she wanted was canceled because the doctor was sick so she saw a different doctor. The checked to make sure the baby had turned from transverse (side to side) to head down where he was suppose to be. Jonathan flew to California that Wednesday to help Michael pack the truck and clean out the house. They drove all the way to Idaho on Sunday and Stephen drove to Boise after his stake conference where he spoke on the blessings of the Covenant Path. They all made it to Boise in the late evening.

Flying to CA.

After Sarah's Friday appointment she was contracting enough that we went into the hospital to be checked. We were there for a few hours before they sent her back home. Kathleen played with the kids and saw Jarom's project of building a robot. He had added lights and mechanical noise. It was quite an accomplishment.

The rental car Stephen brought to Idaho looked as bad as all the other vehicles that made the trip. Stephen stayed until Thursday the 3rd and then he had to drive home with a car full of frozen meat from the half cow that was purchased last year. Susan had stored it in her freezer until it was picked up. Stephen also went with Michael to the Idaho Falls area to check on houses. They made the trip in one day and that was when Sarah had to go to the hospital to be checked out due to contractions. Michael and Stephen were originally going to stay the night after they dropped off Jon to catch a shuttle to Salt Lake City where he could take the Front Runner down to Spanish Fork. Kathleen was suppose to drive back with Stephen on Thursday, the 3rd of March, and then fly back on the 9th. Sarah seemed concerned that her Mom would be gone for almost a week so Stephen and Kathleen decided that she should stay in Boise.

That was a good thing since Sarah decided to start contractions on Saturday evening. She and Kathleen had made some walking trips around WalMart and Kathleen had helped out by stripping Sarah's membranes. Sarah didn't want a baby on the 5th so they went slowly to the hospital where she was checked and and found to be 6 cm dilated. They decided to keep her and she got an epidural from the nurse anesthetist who was on call that night. It was a heavy dose because Sarah couldn't feel her legs or move her lower extremities at all. Her contractions were somewhat light and inconsistent so they put on some pitocin and used a peanut ball to help bring the baby down. Kathleen helped the nurse rotate Sarah from side to side every hour to half hour until around 5:00 in the morning. Sarah had been sleeping and Michael had been sleeping on the couch when the nurse came in to turn up the pitocin again. Kathleen noticed the heart rate kept disappearing during a contraction so she was standing at the bedside trying to find the heartrate on the monitor when the nurse came in. She was going to check Sarah's labor so Kathleen moved the peanut ball out and Sarah rolled onto her back and the baby's head appeared. The nurse seemed a little excited and turned to go out of the room so Kathleen just took the baby by the armpits and told Sarah to push. The little bundle was quickly placed on her chest and then the rest of the nurses came in and hurried to get blankets etc. The doctor came in and said, "looks like a nurse delivery." It was. Adam Richard Gordon was born weighing in at 9# 0.1 oz. at 5:16 AM on the 6th of March.

Sarah had slept through most of her labor in the hospital but she had worked at getting there all the day before. The nurses were quite surprised at how big he was and how quickly he delivered.

Sarah stayed until Monday to get a chance to rest up before coming home to some excited family members. Meanwhile on Sunday, Kathleen went home to catch two hours of sleep before church. It was a nice meeting in Susan and Cory's ward. Josiah was an usher and Kimball helped with the little Gordon children. After Sacrament meeting we got back in the car and drove to a chapel in Nampa where Jarom was ordained an Elder by his dad, David Hardy. The bishop then set Jarom apart as a ward missionary and blessed him to know of his father's love and his mother's love for him and to show appreciation for all that they do. It was nice to hear those words since Jarom has a hard time expressing his love to his mother.

After coming home, Adam was given his first bath by his grandma Ralph. It's one of her favorite things to do for newborns. He has some dark brown hair so he's different from his siblings in the hair department. That Monday night Kathleen got a call from Elder Samuel Ralph in the mission field. He made his usual weekly call and was informed at the new arrival. He mentioned that there had been a downpour at his mission and he and his companion got caught in the rain. He sent a picture to show how quickly he got soaked just walking outside for a minute.

The rest of the week was spent getting baby Adam to get on a better schedule than sleeping days and waking nights. Sarah was pretty exhausted every day but that is part of the blessing of parenthood. Michael and Sarah were able to find a suitable house in the Nampa/Caldwell area and their house in Utah sold for more than the asking price so they were pretty happy about their progress.

Michael was able to help around the Brighton house by cutting down some trees, helping Josiah learn how to tie his necktie and watch baby Adam.

The week went by quickly and Kathleen flew home on Monday the 14th. Stephen had cancelled her other flights and gotten a one-way ticket to Seattle. Back in Seattle it was rainy and cloudy. Just the normal for that area.

This past week has been full of unusual happenings in the area. First was a shooting at the local marijuana store and someone was killed. It brought a lot of police activity. A few days later another shooting happening at the Lake Meridian apartments. A helicopter was patrolling the area for quite some time. It appears that the Signs of the Times are getting closer to home. Thankfully we have the restored gospel and prophets to guide us through these times. We are so very blessed to be living to see the fulfillment of prophecy even though it may be a rough whirlwind of happenings. With the war going on between Russian and Ukraine, it seems like things are moving more rapidly than ever.

The end of March had a birthday celebration for Jessica. She turned 38 and is expecting her 5th child, her fourth boy. She is a great mother of boys with a wonderful helper in Hadlie.

At the end of March, Juan was hit while driving home and turning into our street. The guy that hit his car didn't have insurance and didn't want the police called but Jessica, wisely, called the police. Fortunately the suburban that hit him was insured even though the driver wasn't and he didn't have a license. What a mess.

Stephen and Kathleen were blessed to go to General Conference and on the way there was a lot of visiting and chores done. Taking the truck loaded with Tagro mulch for Susan and Cory made a full load. Our first stop was in Boise. After spending the night, we left the truck there and took the Brighton's CRV to Utah. That saved us on gas which was getting very expensive at over $3.50/gallon. We stopped at the Home Depot in Layton where Richard works. We had two loganberry plants for him and he took us out to lunch. Then we went to the hospital in Bountiful where Kathleen had done her ICU rotation during nursing school. We visited with Carl Keyes for a little while. He has cancer and is not expected to live very long. It was a nice visit and Carl was so very positive. He and Stephen talked about their time together building homes and churches in Alaska and and Washington. Carl's son came by while we were there and it was a nice visit.

Next we visited with Ben and Carli and toured their new house. Ben had finished the new flooring in their house and needed to put in the baseboards. We took them out to eat at Costa Vida and Leonard and Helena met up with us there. They told us they were ushering at the conference center for General Conference and we made plans to see them there. Then we traveled south to Salt Lake where we met someone to take the old engraver that came from the Seattle Temple. It saved them shipping costs for us to bring it to them.

That night we stayed with Liz and Austin and their family. Stephen was to go to Idaho Falls the next day with his mother and Lisa and Tom. Kathleen stayed with Liz and went to see the Kid's Country Fair in the morning. Their school let the sixth graders create displays for different countries and put on an educational fair. Isaac did his on Spain. Some of the students were very creative and had spectacular displays. It was a fun event. One student even had miniature Heath bars to give out, from England. Then she went over to Summer Field to help Grandpa watch the funeral of Aunt Mary (Grandma's sister) online. It took a little while to adjust to a Mac rather than a PC but we managed to get it going correctly. The sound was low but it worked out OK.

That afternoon Austin had his last day working for Qualtrics. He took all of us to his work and we had lunch and ice cream cones. There was a basketball court that the boys enjoyed playing at and a cute Ice Cream VW van that was a self-serve soft cone ice cream booth. It was a fun way to say good-bye as Austin was starting his next job with a new company. Stephen came home late that night and we stayed with Liz and Austin again.

April 2 was the first day of General Conference. We went to Jon and Jenna's home for the first two sessions and watched conference on television. It was a large group of 13 kids and 6 adults. We had two tickets for General Conference but we decided to have all the women go together to Jenna's stake building.

Stephen and Kathleen stayed with Jon and Jenna that Saturday night. Liz and Austin took their kids home and the plan was to pick them up for General Conference and the Spoken Word on Sunday morning. Jon took, Stephen, Kathleen, Katelyn and Nathan to the Heath Home and we picked up Isaac, Andrew and Emeri and the Heath van and drove to Salt Lake.

It was pretty cool walking into the conference center and seeing everyone. You had to have tickets to get in and they checked you purse/bag. It's sad that we have to worry about security at all but it's another sign of the times.

We divided the kids up and separated them between the adults. They were given a notebook and pen and told to write their impressions during the talks. The children were very reverent and it was a special time to be able to witness the spirit of the conference center.

After the session was over we were able to find Leonard and Helena at their post in the conference center. They were stationed to help the various general authorities and their families who came to conference. They seemed very pleased to be able to serve as Missionaries in the conference center. Afterwards we were able to go outside and see the construction of the Salt Lake Temple. They are retrofitting it for earthquake control and redoing so much of the outside and inside. It will take several years to complete but I'm really looking forward to seeing it when it's done.

We made it home before the next session and Ben and Carli were able to come and join us at the Ralph House in Spanish Fork. Jenna and Jon had a pork brisket smoked and we had various soups to go along with rolls that Liz made. Monday Stephen spent morning taping and mudding the drywall in Jon's new garage. He had an appointment in the afternoon with his parents and a lawyer. Tuesday was the same but we had to leave by 11:00 to make it to Boise for Jarom's endowment session at the temple. We stopped in at Carli and Ben's house to drop off some sourdough start and to pick up a check from Ben. We arrived in Boise in just enough time to change clothes and go to the temple with Susan and Cory. Jarom came with Dave. The session was very small but nice. Jarom was then set apart as a temple ordinance worker for the few weeks that he had before starting his mission call to Minneapolis, Minnesota. After the session we took pictures outside of the temple and then Susan, Cory, Jarom, Stephen and Kathleen went to a restaurant for dinner.

It was late that night when Stephen went to pick up his brother and sister-in-law, Don and Wendy at the airport. They flew in from Cincinnati to see Caitlin graduate from BYUI.

They came with their youngest son, Joshua and their son Zachary came to pick them up early in the morning to drive to Rexburg. It was nice to see them if only for a little time. Joshua and Zachary helped Stephen load the double wall oven that Cory was able to purchase from Lowes where he works. It was a clearance special and then Cory got 10% more off because he works there. It was a great deal for us.

On April 12 Kathleen had a flight to Dallas, Texas where Rebekah picked her up and took her to her house. The next day Rebekah had a gastric bypass Duodenal Switch performed laparoscopically. She spent several hours getting prepared for surgery and she was the last case to be performed.

The waiting area

We had to take some before pictures so that she could see the change. We parked under a tree because it was hot and we had bought some protein drinks that we were leaving in the car. Kathleen was to spend the next two days in the hospital with Rebekah.

Prepped to go.

Back in her room after surgery.

Rebekah's oxygen levels kept dropping at night so she had to have respiratory therapy come and work with an inspirometer to increase her lung capacity. She had to get up the next morning early to walk around. She was pretty sore at first but she kept pushing herself and by day 2 she was cruising the hallways.

After getting home, Rebekah was limited on the amount of weight she could lift so Kathleen was in charge of all the heavy lifting that goes into packing the house for sale. Rebekah determined to sell her house and move closer to family. Tamara Heath was consulted as the Real Estate Broker and she helped move the move possible. For the next two weeks. Kathleen packed, cleaned and weeded the house and yard. The front area was trimmed out with two new plants that were repotted in the pots that she had in back. It was getting so hard to get everything done and Stephen willingly came to the rescue to help pack and move stuff to the garage after a week of trying to get it all done.

The before and after pictures of the backyard.

The front yard had flower pots added to give a little pop of attention.

The inside was minimized down to just the basics. the Bedspread was turned over, table polished, hutch emptied and almost everything packed and moved out to the garage. It was a very big project. Stephen came and added 5 ceiling fans to the house. Thankfully Stephen made it so everything fit in the garage along with Rebekah's car which was very impressive. Kathleen flew home on Wednesday and Stephen stayed one extra day as the microwave was being delivered that day. It came in the morning and Stephen flew home that afternoon.

Rebekah's house wasn't put on the market for a few days so that Tammy Heath (Austin's mom) could get the paperwork done. Once it was on sale it sold in 5 days for over the asking price. Rebekah was truly blessed. Jon and Katelyn flew to Dallas on Tuesday and Austin flew in on Thursday and they loaded a moving van of Rebekah's stuff and drove her stuff with her driving with Katelyn to Utah. Rebekah then moved in with Benjamin and Carli and is making headway with her future goals.

Stephen celebrated turning 64 with a sour cream Lemon Pie thanks to Jessica.

The beginning of May Stephen was in charge of the Seminary Graduation Dinner on the 7th and a Stake YM/YW service activity at the temple grounds on the 14th. Kathleen was able to come and pull weeds. Br. Nelson from the Stake is the "Lord's gardener" and gave the kids a talk and a wood burned gift that was a very nice momento.

Then on the 19th of May Stephen flew to Utah to participate in the wedding of Scott Cook. Grandpa Ralph performed the ceremony at the Payson temple on the 20th. Because Stephen was gone, Kathleen decided to have a cookout in the "secret garden" for the people left at home. It was a nice day and perfect for a marshmellow roast over hot coals.

Later that month on the 25th, Susan and Cory brought Kimball to stay for the week and Jon and Jenna brought all their kids and Rebekah to stay at the house while the adults went on a cruise to Alaska. They left on Thursday and on Saturday, Michael and Teverly flew into SeaTac airport and Leonard and Helena drove from Boise and Eric and Detsy flew in from Dallas so that we could go on a cruise to Alaska starting Sunday. Jon brought his 15 passenger van which made it easier to take all the kids places during the time the parents were gone and getting the other adults to the pier on Sunday after church.

After church on Sunday, the four couples headed to Alaska climbed into the van and Juan drove us to pier 91 in Seattle. From their the four couples went through the check points before boarding the new ship Discovery Princess. The ship sailed at 4:00 pm and we were at the diningroom that evening and every other evening by 5:15. It was nice to have good food, good company and good conversation. Michael and Teverly had purchased the beverage package and the crew allowed us to have specialty drinks at dinner including, alcohol free strawberry daiquiris, pina coladas, dirty monkeys, shirley temples, salty dogs and more. They had asked if it was ok to allow the rest of us to share in their package and the service center said it was OK.

Our first stop was in Ketchikan where we climbed up to a hiking trail and had a good view of the port. It was nice to visit some of the shops that we were able to find good prices on shirts

We also visited Juneau and Skagway and just enjoyed the scenery. We didn't go on any excursions which saved us a tone of money but it was so nice to share time with friends and family.

Leonard and Helena celebrated their anniversary onboard and they were provided with a little dessert as a special token. The rest of us just enjoyed sharing their moment.

When we got home we brought a few shirts for the family that stayed behind, at least the ones that were left at home while we were enjoying time on the sea.

In June we drove back to Boise to hear Jarom's missionary farewell. What an exciting blessing. We have a son and a grandson serving the Lord in the mission field.

The stake president set him apart.

While visiting the new missionary we spent some time with Sarah and Michael and enjoyed watching kids and helping with a sewing project that Sarah had started while living in Utah.