Christmas/New Year's/Groundhog Day/Valentine's Greetings

Cindy & Russ in 2024

Russ says his year was the same as always - working for Intel, and worrying about being laid off again. Thankfully he wasn't laid off, and this year his year had more in it than working. We went to San Antonio to see the eclipse (amazing), he visited Jason's family for a couple of days, and then spent a weekend in Utah with his dad in the fall.

Russ also had a 4 week sabbatical in 2024, and we added a vacation week to spend 5 weeks traveling. We spent time in Iceland, where we loved the icebergs, appreciated the waterfalls but agreed that most were equaled in Oregon, and both declined the opportunity to eat horse steaks.

Then we spent a couple of days in Switzerland, hoping our lost luggage would be found (it was!) walking around and appreciating the beautiful cities, eating lots of Lindt chocolate, and falling in love with the color of glacial rivers and lakes.

After Switzerland Russ had covid so he spent several days sleeping while I roasted in Rome with our friend Alisyn and her sister. After Rome we went to Venice, where Alisyn's husband Ken had finished teaching his Duke study abroad class. We stayed in Venice for almost a week and loved the water taxis, the beautiful buildings, watching a glass blower work, the ocean at Lido, gelato, gelato, and gelato. Venice was just as beautiful as the pictures show, but with approximately one million more people. But so beautiful.

After Venice we spent several days walking around Florence. Our peak experiences there were climbing the Duomo (we survive), attending mass in the Duomo (a woman passed out from the heat), and seeing the tour de France go over the Ponte Vecchio bridge from a window in the Uffizi Gallery. Also the fact that I managed to not get covid from Russ was a pretty excellent part of this trip. Let's just say there was a lot of masking going on.

We spent 2 days an on incredible agritourismo farm in southern Italy, then spent almost a week in a tiny apartment with no wifi in Sicily. While there I found a beach with more sea glass than sand and I'm still trying to figure out how that could happen. Also Mt. Etna erupted the night before we flew into Sicily, so now among my souvenirs I have a little bag of Mount Etna ash scraped off of the sidewalk.

Russ and I flew home through London and so we made time for a river cruise tour of London and watched Les Mis in the third row of a West End theater. We went to church at Westminster Abbey and heard music that was so beautiful that I almost changed religions right there. Also our suitcase handle broke off and something almost exploded in the suitcase at the airport, so that was exciting. We were definitely sad when our big trip was over!

After having some testing done last year we became convinced that my sleep problems were due to mold in our home, so after the girls were both gone in the fall Russ started demolition in our bathroom. Other than the flood that happened in minute one of the demo, the rest of it went well though slowly. We found a lot of rotten wood around the space previously known as the shower, and once it was all replaced my sleep started improving! Ironically when we had the carpet replaced in our bedroom just before we moved back downstairs when the kids were all coming at Christmas, we found a lot more mold under the bedroom floor and in the wall. So this process is still ongoing. We are still putting the bathroom back together, and when I started writing this letter we were waiting for the roofers to come fix the leak that has apparently existed in the roof the whole time we've lived here. Now we're waiting on bids for a new roof, and then after that's taken care of we will address the mold in the walls of the bedroom.

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My 2024 was really amazing. In addition to the eclipse and Europe, it was a North Carolina book club reunion year. This time we met in Dallas. (I went to the JFK Museum in the inn the book depository, then later read Steven King's JFK book and listened to the Rob Reiner podcast about JFK. Oh how I have thoughts!) In the fall I went to the Faith Matters conference and also an LGBTQ conference in Provo. I also went to visit Jason's family and spent some time in Durham since we didn't get to go there this summer. I've been lucky to spend time with many people that I love this year!

My writing group is still going strong and is one of the bright spots in my world, and I've started going to an in person book club in the next ward. Cindy Lynn's family and Josh still come over for Sunday dinner every week, which such a delight. With Josh's help (and strength) I've put new floors in our closet and half bathroom, and then Russ also helped us with the living room floor. I'm enjoying the construction, especially since my sleep has improved so much.

Because of our Europe trip the family wasn't together at the beach this summer, so everyone came home at Christmas time. We had a great time together, eating, singing, playing games, and talking. We are always so grateful for time with our family.

What the kids were up to in 2024

Cindy Lynn’s family had an interesting year, beginning with Mahon deciding to legally change his name to Jonas in the spring. They got to take several fun trips, including traveling to Utah and Idaho to see family and to California to visit theme parks and pet foxes (yes, really!) They spent most of the fall remodeling their house after a bathroom flood, which was super stressful but ended up looking awesome. Cindy Lynn had some cool professional wins, including being a keynote speaker at a major writing conference alongside Katherine Paterson and having two cities choose her books for their community read programs. Jonas also started a new project called PhilosophyPhriday.com, a YouTube channel where he discusses interesting philosophical questions.

Jason, Ruth, and Danny are loving Pittsburgh. They bought a cute, old house and have had the “fun” learning opportunities of repairs and improvements. Danny remains a delight. This year he discovered the joy of playing games on the tablet (Sesame Street and Daniel Tiger) and loves recreating what he sees with his own toys and interpretations. Ruth continues to love her situation as a working mom, leading the Marketing team at Cogstate, as well as taking Danny on adventures (libraries, parks, etc.). Jason is rocking the stay-at-home dad gig! He is the official navigator of repair men, insurance calls, and healthcare appointment-making. Aside from patiently and lovingly caring for Danny (and Ruth), he also spent time this year building his own computer. The family is excited to welcome Baby Boy #2 in April!

Josh had an interesting year.  He got really into electronics and designed and built a boombox.  (That's it with him in his selfie picture.) He really enjoyed going to concerts and a big music festival by the Columbia River in Washington.  He got promoted at work, which was great, and then laid off in the big fall layoff, which is not so great.  He hasn't started looking for a new job yet, but he's spent a lot of time helping us with our house projects.  He's thinking of looking for a job in Colorado and we're excited for him but would really miss him!

Rachel finished her student teaching last December and subbed here in Hillsboro for the rest of the school year.  She and Jenna took a 3 week trip to Europe in the spring.  Rachel planned a lot of the trip and learned how to work the train system like a boss.  She taught swimming lessons one more summer, then started her first teaching job in Orem Utah in August.  She's teaching 6th grade and she says it's really hard but she loves in and loves her coworkers.

Jenna spent most of her year in Rexburg working towards her degree in Computer Science. During the summer she was home and got a freelance job doing a graphic design project for someone, it was nice for her to be able to use all of the things she learned before she changed her major! In Rexburg she'd been working at McDonald's, but before Christmas she quit that job and threw away the shoes. She let us convince her to go to Europe with Rachel, and I think she liked their day in Giverney the best. 

Jared and Ashley started the year teaching snowboarding at Sundance. They were able to snowboard a lot this last year and had a lot of fun working together improving their riding skills as they went. They ended the winter going to Hawaii with 10 other friends and had a blast. It rained the entire time but they were still able to surf and eat really good food. They also decided at the last minute to go skydiving for the first time which was a beautiful experience over Hawaii ocean. Over the summer Ashley got a promotion at her Zipline job and acted as a foreman (which is like the supervisor on the mountain). She had a lot of fun and learned new leadership skills and made a lot of new friends. Jared worked on trail maintenance at Sundance working long days in the sun. He enjoyed creating a brand new hiking trail that opened halfway through the summer from the summit of Sundance to the base. It was hard work but was rewarding watching people use the trail he put at least 250 hours into with a team of only 3 people. Jared and Ashley also enjoyed mountain biking this summer all around the Utah county area. Ashley switched her major to event management, and due to changing schools and majors she still has two years left to get her bachelors. Jared graduated in December with his exercise science degree from BYU and is hoping to begin aviation school this summer. They also adopted a sweet hairless cat named Momo, and spoil him with lots of love and cuddles to keep him warm. Ashley loves to dress him in sweaters but Momo still hasn’t decided if he enjoys wearing them or not. At Christmas while they were in Oregon they attended  their high school best friends wedding. They are also both teaching snowboarding again this winter and have already been out on the snow many times. They just celebrated their 4 year wedding anniversary by, you guessed it, snowboarding together..

Scripture Study dilemma

For more than a decade, when I have been studying the scriptures it's been a very very slow study. So slow that I've been doing this off and on for 11 years and I'm almost done with 2nd Nephi. I did take the concussion years off, the Isaiah chapters dragged on and on, and from time to time have been reading other scripture. But still, it's just so slow. 

So I had resolved that this was it. That I was done with the slow method and I was going to go back to a regular reading with journaling when moved by the spirit. But because I am a little orderly, I decided that I'd make the switch after 2nd Nephi. (Which is one of my favorite places in the Book of Mormon, and if any part of the Book of Mormon deserved a minute examination it would be this part.) 

I wasn't going to write exactly what I'm doing because it just seems like such a ridiculous way to study the scriptures, but I think I need to include it.  Many many years ago I noticed that my mom had a spiral notebook by her scriptures, and when I looked at it, it was clear that she was rewriting the verses from the New Testament in her own words. Young me did not understand what she was doing at all. Older me, when Russ lost his job in North Carolina at the end of 2011, had the idea that it might be good to make sure that I understood each verse well enough to be able to restate it in my own words. Typically what I do is read through the chapter, then write in my scripture journal, verse by verse, what the scriptures mean in my own modern words. This is not always as easy as it sounds. Often I find myself using a child's version of the Book of Mormon that we loved for our children to see what words that author has used. After I am done with my "analyzing" I also write down the insights that have come to me throughout the chapter, which I keep written on a sheet of scrap paper until I'm ready to write them down in my scripture journal.

Yesterday I was working with a couple of verses in 2 Ne 31. The spirit brought me some really good insights as I was working with those verses. As I wrote them down on my scrap paper I was excited to be able to include them in my scripture journal.

And then the question occurred to me, would the insights still come as much if I wasn't moving so slowly? If I wasn't really immersed in each verse one at a time?

I don't know the answer. But it could be that I have read the entirety of the Book of Mormon through enough times in my life that going this slowly for the next many decades might not be a terrible thing. 🤔

Family Letter 2022

Happy New Year! 2022 was an amazing year for our family, filled with many beautiful adventures and a few difficult ones as well. I’m excited to be able to tell you about it in this format, with lots of pictures. (If you're reading this on your phone and wish the pictures showed up bigger--you can click on the picture and then enlarge it.)

Sadly we were all together only once in 2022, at the beach in North Carolina. But our week together was terrific, and thankfully we've had other time together in smaller groups throughout the year.

Back: Kate, Cindy Lynn, Mahon, Josh, Jason, Danny, Ruth, Rachel
Front: Jenna, Cindy, Russ, Ashley, Jared

Russ had quite the year. In his job at Intel he’s been the manager of a small group with just 2 other people that supports a much larger group. As a manager he’s had to take all sorts of different trainings, figure out how best to use the resources available to give his co-workers raises and bonuses, and finally in this last part of the year to worry about who was still going to have a job going in to the next year. After months of worry we found out just this afternoon that he is still employed, but the experience has been so unsettling that we are still going forward with our photo organizing business.

Russ’s favorite parts of the year (I don’t even have to ask him this!) were spent looking at the ocean. After our week at the beach with our kids and our friends’ kids we spent another week in a small condo with just our friends. As our families have gotten older/bigger/grandchildren we’ve realized that we don’t have a lot of time to hang out with our friends at the beach like we used to, so this second week has been wonderful. He also enjoyed spending time with me in the beautiful ocean of Hawaii in October. By then we already knew that there was a possibility of layoffs, but the trip was already paid for so we figured we might as well have a last hurrah if that’s what it turned out to be. We spent hours every day in the ocean looking at the fish and true to his turtle whisperer nickname, he found one turtle on our very last snorkel. Besides cooking great Sunday dinners for us every week, Russ’s other favorite hobby has been watching families on YouTube who live on sailboats and sail around the world.

My 2022 was a year that felt very “best of times/worst of times.” I spent the whole year having online book clubs with different groups of women that were just wonderful and fed my soul. In the early spring my NC book club reunion was back in Durham, and it was terrific. I spent some time in Utah with our families, and in September took a wonderful trip to CT to spend a week with Jason, Ruth, and (especially, of course) Danny! I had looked forward to that visit for months, but did not expect that it would be my second trip there of the year.

(Healthy) time with Danny in Sept.

In June I’d convinced Cindy Lynn to go on a once in a lifetime trip to swim with dolphins in the Bahamas. Not a choreographed dolphin swim, but going out on the ocean every afternoon with a guide who was very knowledgeable about dolphin behavior and getting in the water when we found calm, interested dolphins. It was a beautiful trip, but also much more exertion than either of us had expected. I wasn’t feeling great by the time we left Bimini, and then the air conditioner in the Miami airport was broken and I felt even worse. Our plane left Miami late and we missed our connection for Portland at JFK. Before we were able to get our bags and make it to our hotel near JFK, I had started throwing up. The first year we lived in Oregon I had a bad experience with a supplement that caused gastritis, and I found out that I have something called cyclical vomiting syndrome.  Which just means that once I've started throwing up, I can't stop.  I haven’t thought of it much in the intervening years, but that night I desperately wished I was traveling with medication. In the middle of the night I went to the ER there in Queens, and let’s just say that the ER in Queens is a whole different ball game than the ER here in little Hillsboro! Back at the hotel, Cindy Lynn had fortunately packed an extra day of all of the different medications she needs to deal with her cystic fibrosis, but she knew she still had to fly home that day. She called Jason in Connecticut and told him that he needed to come to the hotel so that he could pick me up from the hospital when I was discharged. Then I laid in the dark hotel room for 2 days until I felt strong enough to ride a shuttle 2 hrs to New Haven, where I pretty much laid in their bed (or occasionally on the floor) for the next week. I didn’t eat for a week, lost 13 lbs, and it took me a full month to feel recovered after I got home. It was the kind of misery I wouldn’t wish on anyone and I was unbelievably grateful to have kids who took such good care of me.

Cindy Lynn & I surrounded by sting rays!

Cindy Lynn spent the year working on her next book, No Matter the Distance, which comes out February 21st and will be the first-ever traditionally published novel about cystic fibrosis that’s by an author with CF. She has gotten really interested in trees and plants and particularly making medicinal salves from them. When covid rates were low in 2022 they traveled to Connecticut to visit Jason's family, and in the fall to Utah and Idaho. Cindy Lynn is my favorite kid because she came to swim with dolphins with me in the Bahamas. She still homeschools 9-year-old Kate, who loves reading, art, and knows more about cats than most adults.

Cindy Lynn, Kate, and Mahon

Cindy Lynn’s husband, Mahon, graduated this summer with a Master’s in Artificial Intelligence from Georgia Tech. Mahon spent 11 months of the year designing software for a company that helps organize clinical trials, but was unexpectedly laid off at the beginning of December. He’s seeing this as a blessing in disguise since now he has more time to work on his robotic pantry while he's looking for a new job. I have had to stop doubting Mahon–every time he says he’s going to make something amazing or fantastic I secretly doubt him and then he always does it! So I’m looking forward to the unveiling of the robotic pantry one day and am ready to offer up mine as a beta installation.

Touring Yale--Jason with Danny in the stroller,
Mahon behind Cindy Lynn in her wheelchair holding Kate

Jason, Ruth, and Danny (19 months) are having a mostly grand old time in Connecticut! Jason is finishing up his final year of his Chemistry PhD and is VERY ready to get out of the "hell hole" that is grad school and find a job in biotech where they "treat people like people." We are excited for him to have that too! In his non-school time he loves video games, board games, his new calling as choir director, and painting mini figurines that go with one of his games.

Ruth, Danny, and Jason

Ruth on the other hand absolutely loves her job leading the marketing team at Cogstate. She has recently taken up embroidery as a hobby, loves reading, a good Zumba workout, and all things Disney+. Danny is ALL toddler and an adorable "agent of chaos"! He aggressively loves books, singing, and dumping all items out of any container in his path. Jason is my favorite child, as he came and rescued me in NYC, and let me hang out with cute Danny while I was recovering. And by hang out I mean lay on the couch and watch him play mostly, since at that point reading him one book was enough to wipe me out for a whole day!

Josh, Jared, and Jason

Josh is working at Intel and sharing a house with a friend about 20 minutes away from us. We love that he comes over for Sunday dinner every week and several times during the week to spend time with Tiger. He still loves snowboarding as much as he can at Mount Hood, and surfing at the coast. Mt Hood has one of the longest snowboarding seasons, and Josh was able to snowboard and surf in the same month last summer! Josh is my favorite child because he comes to hang out with Tiger and clean the litter box several times a week.

Josh & Rachel after a day of surfing at the coast

Rachel is working on her final year of classes at BYUI. She'll walk at graduation in April and then student teach in the fall. In the summer she taught swimming lessons in the neighborhood every morning and worked at Jersey Mike's in the afternoons. She enjoyed surfing with Josh over the summer and she and Jenna got together with one of their high school friends regularly to twirl their rifles. She has better roommates this year which we're enormously grateful for. Rachel is my favorite child because she's always happy to watch a chick flick or Christmas movie with me.

Rachel

Jenna switched her major to software engineering in 2022. She was such a good summer employee at Jersey Mikes that the whole place basically fell apart when she and Rachel left! Jenna has had great roommates she connected with through Instagram this school year, and they’ve become some of her favorite people. She enjoys playing guitar, volunteering at the cat shelter, and taking pole dancing classes (but not, she adds, “in a stripper way”). She got to see her favorite band, Greta Van Fleet, in concert, and painted a cool jacket to wear there. Jenna is my favorite child because she's always happy to go hiking with me, and hiking is definitely one of my love languages.

Jenna

Jared loves snowboarding and has been able to teach snowboarding at Sundance for the last two winters. Last winter, he went snowboarding more than one hundred days! He also spent a lot of time rock climbing, as well as hiking and camping with his wife Ashley, this summer. They built a bed into the back of their Ford Escape for a great camping setup. Jared worked at a physical therapy clinic for a lot of this year. He’s still at BYU, but hoping to graduate in a little over a year with a degree in exercise science. Jared is my favorite child because he sends me beautiful pictures from the snowy mountains.

Ashley & Jared

Speaking of Ashley we're so happy to be able to report that her leg has healed and she is back to normal. Being hit by the car in the first half year of their marriage added a lot of stress to that first year, and they have loved being able to do fun things together this last year. Ashley is going to school at UVU studying recreation management and also working in the office at Sundance. She loves houseplants, makes cool original embroidery, and is always practicing her snowboarding.

We hope you've enjoyed the picture-heavy version of the annual Ray family newsletter! We love keeping in touch with each of you and love when we get to hear what you've been up to. Thanks for being a part of our lives,

Russ, Cindy, & co.

Jared, Cindy Lynn, Josh, Rachel, Jason, & Jenna

Contact info:
Russ russray@gmail.com
Cindy crayz2sew@gmail.com
Cindy Lynn storygirlcindy@gmail.com
Mahon (and his robotic pantry ideas) mbbaldwin@gmail.com
Russ & Cindy's photo organizing business:
RCphotosolutions@gmail.com or RCphotosolutions.com

taco cat goat cheese pizza

I would like to tell you about ordering this game Rachel who wanted it for Christmasthis year:

1) not available on Amazon (what is EVER not available on Amazon??)

2) not available at my local Target

3) available at a Target an hour away, so I order it, I'm going to be in that city in 5 days

4) Target says it's ready and must be picked up in 3 days 😬

5) I call, cancel my order, set a reminder to order again in two days

6) In 2 days, game no longer available at any Target in the state of Oregon

7) I googled to see what other stores sell this game: Barnes & Noble

8) Of course not my Barnes & Noble

9) I give up, order from B&N online, pay almost as much for shipping as for the game.

🤷

She was excited. 😉

Christmas thoughts

I just typed out a big response to a Facebook post, and then thought that I would keep it because it contains an evolution that is important to me.

Our family used to be in the unequal category--I took care of all of the Christmas things, and Russ didn't do anything except help with some decorations. While we didn't have huge Christmases, I grew up poor and it was very important to me that we had "enough" Christmas.  I'm not a huge gifts person, but my Russ isn't at all.  Then I did two things that really helped our family, and a third later.  

First, I told Russ that he was on his own with his parents.  If it's not important enough to him to do something, that's his deal.  Second, I pointed out that we were creating selfish Christmas kids because they weren't giving any gifts, just getting them.  (We both come from large families so there wasn't gift giving between families by the time our kids were old enough to really take part.) He started taking them to the dollar store to choose gifts, and for several years we received truly terrible gifts.  😉 (Because the kids were young and picked terrible gifts, not because it's not possible to find a decent gift at the dollar tree.) When our kids were older they decided to do a random gift exchange and we have done that using elfster for many years now.

When our youngest kids were about 15, I decided I couldn't do Christmas the same anymore. For us, once our kids were that age the things they really wanted were things that were outside of our Christmas budget.  It bothered me for a couple of years, and on this particular year it just all came to a head. I felt like I was almost randomly buying things just to hit some imaginary gift quota, and it was really not in keeping with some other values that I have. I told our kids after Christmas that year that I was changing things from that year forward, and that instead of spending money on things that were fairly meaningless, we would spend money on things like experiences instead. I've made sure that everybody has something to unwrap on Christmas morning, and this year (2021) because experiences are a little iffy still 🤣 everybody had two. We had to work on being very intentional with our Christmas morning so that everything wasn't over too fast.  It's had the lovely side effect of making the kids gift to each other even more important.  Anyway, all of that has helped me not feel like I'm a stressed out one woman Christmas show! 

Answered Prayer

So, pandemic.  I keep thinking I should write about this here so that it's part of this record too, even though I haven't blogged in so long.  (What can I say, Instagram really is faster.  😢)

When President Nelson called for a worldwide fast in April on Good Friday, someone formed a Facebook group so that people could invite their friends (of different faiths or no faith) to join with us.  Reading the comments there has really been a highlight of this hard time.  It's also been challenging, though, as so many people post their difficulties and prayer requests.  

When I read a post asking for prayers I usually say a prayer right then.  But tonight after I prayed for safety for our family, I thought about all of the people in that group in distress or need, and all of the people in the world struggling right now.  

This is highly unusual for me, and not something that was anywhere near my mind.  But as I got ready to close my prayer I truly heard these words in my head.  

"...will ye not now return unto me, and repent of your sins, and be converted, that I may heal you?" 3 Ne 13

Always a favorite scripture, right now it's our only hope.  

♥️

The Zen Snorkeler

Many years ago we laughed at a line from a movie that said that Mormons could be Buddhist too.  Over the years I've come to see that there is a lot of wisdom in Buddhism that I could benefit from.

The first day Jenna and I went snorkeling we got in the water, went to the right, and almost immediately saw a turtle!  What were the odds?!?  (I mean they weren't terrible because of where we were, but it was still a surprise.)  After we snorkeled for a while we got out, had a snack, and warmed back up.  Then when we got in again and went to the left, we saw even more turtles!  So awesome.

The next morning we got up and went to a different snorkel spot.  (Dumps, henceforth to be referred to as Konahena to pay tribute to it's beauty!) I knew that we would see a lot more fish there since it was part of the marine preserve, but I also knew that if we were set on seeing turtles, all of the fish in the world wouldn't be satisfying.  So I told Jenna before we started that we needed to be a little Zen about our snorkeling, and appreciate whatever we saw each time rather than deciding that we weren't going to enjoy it unless we saw something specific.  (Meaning turtles, of course.) She agreed with me that it would be smart to think about it like that. 

Happily, we saw turtles most of the times we were snorkeling.  But we were also able to enjoy the other things because we had decided that we were going to be happy with whatever happened.

Whatever we saw was going to be amazing, which I think is a pretty good way to live.