Baton Rouge Week 25

Hi all

We have seen a lot of firsts here in Baton Rouge: Biggest Hurricane in the city’s history, the worst LSU football season in a long time 7-5, and the largest snow storm in at least 50 years. We woke up Thursday to a winter wonderland. Local school closed but the university kept at the finals schedule so that people could finish. Snow stayed on the ground most of the day and the next day temperature were back up to 70 degrees. Here is the web address for the university newspaper http://www.lsureveille.com/ you should be able to see some picture there if I can’t get them on to the blog.

Dana is improving as the days go along. She is still subject to getting tired after working hard. She has finished up grades but is working hard before we go to Utah to finish a paper or two so that she can have them in review as she makes application for jobs. We work at the school for four hours yesterday. Then she kept working at home for the afternoon while I did a few Christmas errands. We have been behind with Christmas preparations this year. Dana’s hospital visit slowed the pace of things. It is fine, it is better to put family needs first before all of the frills.

I have also finished my grading except for one graduate student. She has an independent study and her deadline is this Tuesday. I am actually looking forward to reading her paper when it comes in. That leaves me to spend this week doing house stuff, Christmas stuff, and some writing. I would like to write about four hours in the morning each day this week, and then work around the house listening to Christmas music, and then finish up the shopping or wrapping.

Maybe we will catch up on some movies. We went to see Australia last Friday night. I liked it but it is long. I thought it was maybe trying to be two movies about the same people.

I haven’t found the time to get involved with any basketball at all. I like both college ball and the NBA, just no time. I must admit that I am looking forward to the bowl games that I am connected to in some way. That is about the only sporting events I can get involved with. I just hope Raymond is following the Giants again. They have had a great season so far and have only lost that idiot who shot himself with his own gun. I like the overall image that the Giants seem to produce. I am so done with the Dallas Cowboys.

We are proud of Sophia generous holiday contribution at the McDonald house. If you don’t know what she has done check out her picture of the project on her blog at http://www.deaconsmommy.blogspot.com/ (for those of you new to links inside of texts just move the mouse arrow over the blue part and then hold down the control button and click the mouse key, the right side or you can cut and paste the address into the address bar of google). The bonus is that you will get to see a ton of pictures of Deacon. I was impressed with the wide variety of people who help her in a variety of ways.

We also want to tell Abbey how proud we were of her Sub 4 Santa efforts. A few weeks ago she asked her Bishop if the ward had a project. She volunteered to head one up, perfect for a member of the activities committee. The ward has six family home evening groups and they provided for six families in transition in the Boston area. You can check out her report and excitement at her blog: http://abbeysmind.blogspot.com/.

As far as I am concerned this is the best kind a Christmas that a child can provide a parent. We don’t need anything else.

Walker turned 20 this Saturday. His constant service as a missionary is another example of charity. I am sure that he has learned much and is growing in his testimony of the gospel of Jesus Christ. His service to the people of the areas in which he serves will be blessed in ways that he can’t even imagine. We are reminded often of his work because we see the missionaries so frequently. We had them over for dinner this Thursday night. Yes, the snow day. They were going go bike the six miles to our house and then over to another member appointment. I told them to bag that, I picked them up and then drove them to the next place and then they had a ride from there. The mission here is trying to involve the members more, imagine that. Our family mission plan has two major foci. We plan to invite neighbors and friends to any ward function that has been designed for socialization of the members and for missionary work. For example, we are having a Cajun Christmas this Friday at the ward house so we are inviting a few people. We will invite and they can decide. We are also trying to invite some non member friends for dinner at least one Monday a month for a family night. Combined with that, we are trying to invite ward members over for family night on a different Monday. Two other small things are having the missionaries help people move (we know lots of people who move around) and carry pass along cards. Lots of people say “have a blessed day,” aren’t they just begging for a pass along card? So, how can you help?

We have a ton going on here in Baton Rouge but it is time for people to make plans for a visit.

We love you. Take care of each other.

Dad and Dana