The Inauguration

 We had the Presidential Inauguration on Jan. 20th. 

Such an inspiring ceremony from start to finish! So many messages of love, unity, and faith. That this beautiful inaugural ceremony occurred two weeks to the day after the attempted insurrection at the Capitol gives me so much confidence in and gratitude for our Constitution and American democracy. Feeling so hopeful that our country can start to heal and come together the way Americans have always done in the past during times of challenge. “We must end this uncivil war.” - Joseph R. Biden, 46th president of the United States of America.   

I don't love or even agree with all of what Joe Biden represents, but he seems like a decent human being. 

  It felt like an hour of women's power.   From Lady Gaga singing an amazing rendition of the National Anthem, to Kamala Harris being sworn in by a woman Supreme court Justice to the amazing poet Amanda Gorman delivering her hope-filled poem.  

My granddaughter Sophia was overjoyed with this ceremony. She couldn't believe a woman- a Latina woman like her, was being sworn in by a woman- a Latina woman like her.  Sophia was giddy about it.  

 I knew I would be alive to see this day when a woman would be VP.  I hope I'm still alive when a woman is President of the US.  

January Birthdays

We love getting together even in this time of Covid.  At this point every household has had it and three of us have Covid shots.  The Buzelli's are still on zoom because that's the safest way for them.    We celebrated January ( and Monson's December) birthdays on Sunday.  I decorated and made a special two layer cake.   We clapped our hands instead of blowing out the candles.  (another covid precaution). 

We celebrated Alfie, Wayne, Monson, Lady, Laila and Truman.  This means, besides presents, we went around the table and each said what we love and appreciate this person.  It's always fun to hear what everyone feels and it's great for the birthday person to hear how special they are.

On Alfie's birthday we went tubing at Soldier Hollow.  It as a blue sky day, cold, but with so little Utah snow this winter, we tubed on manufactured snow.  Fun fact:  It was 11 years ago that we went tubing that we first met Bre.  It was Addison's and Bre's first date.  The funny story is when Bre and I cane down with our tubes hooked together when we got to the bottom, I let go of Bre's tube prematurely and she went flying into the fence.  Good thing she wasn't hurt and continued to want to hang out with Addison.

Three generations of Welch Boys

Our birthday boy eating a donut the size of his HEAD

We love this 7 year old... He is sweet and calm and a thinker.   He loves putting lego's together.  He's so creative and willing to try things, but he doesn't want the spotlight.  Infact, Alfie said he was putting on a show.  SO he set up his couch with some of his stuffed animals, he set up a flashlight for lights and some instruments and blankets for curtains and just when you thought now he's going to DO something and perform...he pulled out a chair and sat on it.  He was the audience.  

Blurry picture...must have been water on the lens... we went with the Inkley family - Danny and Wendy are Add and Bre's best friends. 
_________________________

Some of our best friends are Laura and Eric Belnap. We are so blessed to have them in our lives.  We have raised our kids together and hashed out our troubles and explored the gospel and share all things with them. We love each other.  We went down to their home this week.  Laura and I were getting our Covid shots and Wayne and Eric who have both had Covid hung out and hiked and solved all of the world's problems.  Wayne and I got two good bike rides in.  It was cold, but gorgeous.

January- Enthusiasm

 Hope for a Better World-- 2021 year of awesome has started.

We had our kick off learning about what enthusiasm means.   When I was in Jr High  I had a great speech teacher - Mrs. Daniels, who made us stand by our desk and say every day with her, "I am Happy. I am healthy.  I am enthusiastic."  Then in high school another amazing speech teacher, Bryan Bowles, had us all learn a speech about Ralph Waldo Emerson and repeat, "Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm."    This has stuck with me for decades.   The Greek meaning for enthusiasm means "with God."    We all stood on our chairs and repeated over and over, "I am happy, I am healthy, I am enthusiastic" over and over til I believed it.  The grandkids couldn't believe we were standing on our chairs, but then when I asked everyone to sign a commitment to an awesome year and we were doing it under the dining room table, on the table itself, their brains exploded.  Meema wants us to write on her furniture.  It was so fun scrambling under the table and passing out the markers.  We signed and dated our names with enthusiasm.  

Part of our enthusiasm this month is for service in our families.  I made service stars for each family to use for the next couple of weeks.  Do a small service for someone leave a star and "tag your it," now it's your turn to do something and leave the star.  The littles really got into it.   

The final piece for this month is learning about, working on, and setting an Impossible Goal.  Impossible goals are awesome for three reasons. 1: By telling yourself from the start that it's impossible, your brain gets out of the way and isn't too worried and isn't throwing up roadblocks about how this isn't going to work.  2: It's great to brainstorm an idea and all of the different ways you could accomplish it, or try to accomplish it.  Go for 25 worthy fails.  Worthy fails mean you actually do something from your brainstorm list.  Not just don't do it.      3:  It's in the trying to do it, not the result that you learn so much about yourself and how you can fail and learn and just keep going.  Anyone who wants to pick this up, we will discuss and help each other through it.

Andrew and Sophia finally made it to our home to do the enthusiasm cheer and climb under the table and sign their names to affirm they are on board for our Year of Awesome!

I've been rebuked

I got chewed out on Facebook after I wrote that "the  Rally and aftermath would not have happened had Donald Trump not kept telling people for 9 weeks that the election was stolen.  Here's the truth.  He lost.  Move on."

This was a reader's response:  

Thu 6:27 PM

Christie sent Yesterday at 6:27 PM

I loved the quote from Dallin H Oaks you posted on Stewart’s post and I believe wholeheartedly that violence never solves anything. But to say with such venom that Trump lost the election and that’s the truth was wrong of you. You don’t know that to be true, you CAN’T know that because you weren’t there and you didn’t see the evidence that the pollers in the polling stations saw and the drivers of the trucks transporting ballots over state lines etc. etc. I was ill over Christmas, I did not leave my house for over two weeks. I did not watch any main stream media news like CNN or Fox because I think all of them are very untruthful and skewed but I did watch a channel that was televising normal everyday people testifying to five different state legislatures that had signed affidavits that they had seen wrong doing in these elections. Some of them are older like me and have been working in elections for 30 years. Since coming forward with their signed affidavits and testimonies, they had been harassed and threatened but they were going to have their day in front of the legislature to tell their truths. They were good Americans doing their duties and being penalized for it. Until you have watched two weeks of their testimony and you have walked in their shoes do not say there was no fraud. Don’t discount others truths by rash comments that have no foundation. I have always respected you as a person but you need to watch what you say because it does affect people. Your words carry weight so make sure they are not your opinion, that they are fact based. We will be held accountable for our words I believe. I am convinced there was fraud after watching two weeks of normal people testify in Arizona, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Georgia. They saw it, they lived it!

My only response is WOW. Not all people have to like me. I like me...and that's okay. I had to work on managing my thoughts around all of this.

I would like to write back...but I won't. But if I did I would say:

I too have studied and read about this election. I don't watch FOX or CNN-- I stick to neutral, moderate news sources.

IS there some election fraud in every election...probably? The point is there is not enough evidence to support "the steal" nor would the results change. The end. Amen.

Some people want to point to the number of people who believe the election was stolen as proof that it must be so. “If so many people believe this, there has to be something to it, right?” These are not facts.

But WHY do millions of people feel the election was rigged and stolen despite countless Republican state election officials (who voted for Trump), over 60 judges (again, many conservative, including the entire Supreme Court with three Trump appointed judges) and even Trump’s own loyal Attorney General, Bill Barr, all saying there is not enough evidence by any stretch of the imagination to suggest massive, wide scale voter fraud to the scale that it would change the election results? BECAUSE TRUMP SAYS SO. Over and over and over again. That’s it.

Okay.. I feel better.

Wayne is 59

We celebrated Wayne’s 59th birthday! He’s glad he’s feeling better every day since his Covid time.  Monson’s Fam took Wayne to dinner with me  Tru and Laila to Joy luck.  Wayne had so many nice people reach out to help celebrate him in person, over text, and on Social media.  His buddies Eric and Bob took him to a hot pot for lunch.    

This is the quiz I wanted Wayne to Answer but he doesn’t really like these things.. So I answered for him.  

- What is something Wayne says a lot? Where’s Laila?👩🏾

- How tall am is Wayne? 5’ 10” (the perfect height 👍🏽)

- If Wayne became famous, what would it be for?  Writing a tell all Spy novel 😎

- What makes me proud of Wayne ?  How committed he is to his callings and his family. 👨‍👩‍👧‍👦👨‍👨‍👧‍👦👨‍👩‍👧‍👧👨‍👩‍👧‍👦

- What is Wayne’s favorite food? Sushi 🍱 

- What is Wayne’s favorite restaurant? 🥟🥢🥡 Thai. Chinese. Any place with good food. 

- If Wayne could live anywhere, where would He live? Where ever Melinda wants to live - 

Bountiful, Utah 

- What does Wayne do that annoys me? Doesn’t  get excited about these get to know your self type quizzes 

- What is Wayne’s favorite movie? Star Wars saga 💫  

- I get a phone call that Wayne’s in trouble. Who is he with? 

Eric Belnap , Bob Farley 

-What is Wayne’s dream job/career?  Being a human Alexa or Biking 🚴‍♂️ 

-If Wayne could have dinner with someone famous, living or deceased, who would it be? Jesus 🙏🏾

Wayne is  back at work for most of the day...he takes a nap on his couch and makes it through.  Most food still doesn’t taste right. Covid is crazy.