February 27, 2006
Dear Family,
Well, our weekly post has turned into a monthly post lately, so if you were wondering why you weren’t getting our family letters, don’t worry we haven’t been sending them. Now that the Olympics are over I can get my priorities straight again and start sending out the family post on a more regular basis. Three weeks have passed since you received our last letter, so we have a lot to catch up on. Instead of trying to tie everything together in chronological order, I am just going to write about a modicum of main events in random fashion. So here it goes.
Dr. Chad Ford and his family are some of the nicest people we have met on the island. In the past many of you have heard me talk about Dr. Ford. He is Melinda’s professor for one of her major classes in conflict resolution. We had FHE with his family the other night. It was definitely a highlight for us this month. He talks about his kids as if they are all basketball players. When one of his kids declined to say the prayer on the food, he quickly turned to one of his daughters and asked her to offer the blessing. She consented, and then told us that she is definitely the “go to” kid in the family. When his eight-year-old boy successfully explained a verse about the Holy Ghost in the Doctrine and Covenants, Dr. Ford praised him by thanking him for bringing his “A Game” to family night.
As many of you know, February 9th is a special day for Mel and me. Four years ago from that day Mel gave her first kiss to me! If it would have been up to me the special day would have been a few months before that. You see, I tried to kiss her several days before, but Mel quickly dodged the attempt, and whispered in my ear, “Don’t ever try that again Jonathan Frandsen.” Needless to say, it was pretty humiliating. Anyhow, this February 9th was special for us as well. That night we found a dump on campus where we acquired some good firewood and dropped by Foodland to pick up some biscuits to cook some dough boys over a romantic fire on our private beach. Melinda didn’t know what to think of cooking biscuits over a fire and eating them smothered in butter and brown sugar. She insisted that we should buy marshmallows as well, and of course I acquiesced. The tide was low, the wind was blowing, and the moon was shining just enough to create a sweet reflection off of the water. What a way to celebrate February 9th.
Although we had decided that our celebrations for the 9th would qualify as our Valentine’s Day celebration, I couldn’t let the 14th go by without doing something for my Valentine. Mel has been completely swamped with homework the whole semester, and some nights she goes without any sleep. The 14th turned out to be an especially busy day for her, so the candle light spaghetti dinner I surprised her with after she got out of the testing center at 10:30 PM was warmly welcomed. I secretly cooked the dinner for her while chatting with Sister McMurtrey in her kitchen. I am sure Sister McMurtrey found it odd that I was planning on having our Valentine’s Day dinner in Mel’s office. However, it turned out great. We had planned earlier that day that we would retire to her office that night to do our homework. When Mel walked into her office only to find the furniture rearranged with candles glowing over a freshly cooked spaghetti dinner she burst into tears. Okay, so she didn’t burst into tears, but she did shed a few. It was a special moment. You would have been proud of me Mom.
The 10th of February also marked an exciting day for us. This day marked the arrival of our good friends the Ficklins. We spent the whole afternoon with President and Sister Ficklin gabbing about Tiffany on her mission. It sounds like our little Tiffers is freezing literally, but warming others figuratively with the Good Word. We are proud of you Tiff. J The Ficklins called us around lunch time and invited to go to the North Shore to visit the best burger joint on the island for lunch. Having eaten there before the offer was too good to turn down. We quickly got in the car and happily drove the 45 minutes along the beautiful coast to meet the Ficklins. After eating our burgers we went down the street to the ever famous Motsumoto’s for snow cones. After snow cones we drove to the Polynesian Cultural Center and remained there for the rest of the night. Terry bought us the best tickets you could get, which included a personal tour guide, front seats at the Luau, front seats at the night show, and best of all, two pineapple delights. We had a great time with the Ficklins. We are truly blessed to have friends like them.
Well, it’s getting kind of late, so I am going to speed things up a bit by leaving out the details.
Yesterday we forced Sherry Howell to go snorkeling with us at sharks’ cove on the North Shore. It was incredible. We saw hundreds of fish of all different shapes, colors and sizes. We were in awe for hours afterward.
Melinda and I both received callings. Mel is the visiting teaching coordinator, and I am Elders’ Quorum pianist and in the Sunday School Presidency.
We have officially finished season four of 24, and we started season one this week. We have finished the first two disks, but we won’t be able to rent any more movies until the 6th of March because we already used up all our rentals this month at the local Clean Flicks. Our 24 addiction will have to wait for a few weeks until our membership renews itself.
We had two encounters with large bugs this week. The first was a large brownish cockroach that crawled onto Mel’s clothes that were sitting on the hamper in the bathroom. When Mel saw it she jumped up on the tub and screamed at the top of her lungs. Husband Jonny came to the rescue and ended the poor guy’s life. That’s what he gets for messing with my wife. The second encounter came while we were watching a movie late at night at the McMurtrey’s. An extremely large spider crawled down the wall behind the TV and once again Mel jumped up, but this time onto the couch. We both sat there in awe as we marveled at the size of the bugger. Finally, I got up the courage to smother it so we could get on with the movie. However, after seeing the spider, we left the lights on for the remainder of the movie.
Most of you know that Mel is in the process of applying for grad school. She is working diligently on getting her applications done. Everything needs to be turned in by Wednesday. We thank everybody that has been instrumental in helping her with this.
Last but not least, we ordered our airplane tickets home for DJ and Libby’s wedding. I can’t believe how fast the day is approaching. We can’t wait to see you all again. We love you all, and we think and pray about you often.
Love, Melinda and Jonathan
PS Dad, I promise we will meet your cousin before we leave the island.
