Family!

This week was the precursor to the family reunion.  Miranda came up on Monday with Camden and little Ethan.  It was so nice to see them.  Monday Rebecca and family and Dad went to the Turpentine Creek Wild Cat sanctuary.  They enjoyed the big cats—lots of tigers.  It was a long drive.

I stayed home with the goal of sending off the last of my MyChoice401k web pages and auto responders. I did manage to get all the pages reviewed and sent off. It felt good to have it finished.  I should do some work on my www.TeenStyleU.com site, but I probably will not do as much as I should.  These next weeks are family weeks.

Tuesday Deborah and Ian and family arrived.  They are such cute kids.  Of course, the noise level in the house increased and the pandemonium and the joy of play.  Kids zipped down the zipline. Played in the water. Ran around in the little car.  Carried buckets of water to water the trees.  And they played with the dog, walked the dog, petted the dog, dragged the dog off on walks when he would rather have been resting.  All in all a good time was had by all.

The kids loved the chickens.  Miranda typically kept a good eye on Camden.  This is what happens when Miranda gets in the shower and asks us to keep an eye on him.

I think Wednesday we went to Cranfield "beach" and played in the lake. The kids had a really good time. We tried to get laundry done and packing. Mostly we got packed by Thursday night. Friday was the last of the odds and ends.  Trying to get four cars packed and 12 kids loaded and all the food necessary with shopping lists and all--- AKKK!

We stopped by Deborah’s house so she could check it out.  Then we drove to Harrison and stopped at Aldes with a shopping list.  Here was the stressor.  We needed to get to Branson and get checked in by 4 so Tom and I could drive to girls’ camp and get there by 5pm.  That meant we had to get the shopping done quickly.  We got 98% of what we needed and got to Branson by 3:30.

Our unit was ready, but it took some time to get checked in.  Rebecca’s unit wasn’t ready yet. Nor was Deborah and Ian’s so they all piled into our unit.  We tossed food and belongings into it and left Miranda and Rebecca to sort it out.  We arrived at girl’s camp at 5:30 which was in plenty of time.  I think they ran late the whole week.  They had an Olympic theme with different years being from different “countries.”  Apparently they had fantastic food from all over the world—including homemade fortune cookies with scriptures and great quotes inside them!

We watched the skits and the Bishop’s Olympics what included flip-flop toss and a hula hoop toss.  Tom made it to the second round.  Then President Chandler spoke and we broke into wards for the bishops to talk and testimony meetings. We left about 11:30 and made good time back to Branson.  We got in a little after 12.  Jonathan and Kristy arrived from Iowa before we got back to Branson.

Andy and Kera and family came on Saturday.  The kids had a great time at the pool and play ground.  They ran from condo to condo popping into units with clamor and enthusiasm.  Game playing takes place after the kids are in bed for the adults—Five Crowns, Wacky Six’s. Then there is much shrieking and hilarity from the adults.  Stories are told of childhood or other events.

Sunday we needed to be ready to change rooms.  We moved to a lock-off which gives us more room.  It’s just that we’d be at church when it was time to move.  So we had to have everything packed and located in the Kitchen.  I moved all the food for dinner over to Rebecca’s.  That thinned out the frig a bit and Tom was able to pack all the rest of the food into bags and coolers.  

They did move us while we were at church.  Adam and Savannah and family arrived in the early afternoon.  As soon as we came back from church we all pitched in.  To unloaded and unpacked in our room.  Kristy, Rebecca and I worked on chopping for Taco Salad.  We all met in the pavilion to eat.  It just seems quieter when we are outside.  Must be the sound has more places to go.  The kids have been good and seem to be having fun.

I had a seminary meeting tonight at 6pm at the Branson ward meeting house.  It was a productive meeting.  However, it’s been a long day!  I will finish this and go to bed.  The wild wacky six players are slowing down a bit, too, I think.

Wild Week

It’s been fun having Rebecca and kids here. Aaron really flies under the radar. He’s content playing with others or playing by himself.  He doesn’t complain.  All in all, it’s worked out well.

Monday I went with my Pottery friend Marian to Nixa to a pottery shop. I am having fun with her and learning a lot. It was fun to see the glazes and the tools. I came home with some basic pottery supplies and 25 lbs of white clay. I’m not sure why oxide—used in red clay-- is added or is desirable.  I think it reacts with the glaze to create interest. After shopping we lunched at a good barbecue place.  Then, on the way home, Marian asked if I’d had Andy’s frozen yogurt.  No.

So we went a little out of the way for that… except Branson is busy now, so the “little” took over an hour.  It was great frozen yogurt though!  And we got to watch a guy bungee jump!

I left at 8:30 in the morning and got back a little before 6pm. The missionaries were coming to dinner at 6.  Good thing my faithful daughter Rebecca was here to save the day (again!)!  It was a tasty dinner, too
.-- What missionaries do while they wait for dinner:

Tuesday I had visiting teachers come at 10.  And I had a phone meeting with the other supervisors of Seminary and Institute that are under our regional coordinator (3 Stakes).  It was informative.  I imagined that seminary and institute would slow down during summer.  Not so.  There are teachers to get called and training to run and a new WISE program that I need to get teachers signed up for.  And daily scripture reading (which I’m doing anyway) but now needs to be recorded for S&I.  But it’s all good.  I know our teachers will be better prepared to teach in fall as they go through this summer training.

Tuesday night we went to the Havners to watch Dennis fly his model airplanes.  These are not your average remote control planes.  They are about 4-6 feet long!  You need a license to fly them. He’s got a long grass runway for them to take off on, and the kids enjoyed the show.  It got more dramatic when the wings ripped from the plane during a roll and the plane tumbled from the sky!  We watched another do rolls and flips and all kinds of maneuvers.  It was so maneuverable on the ground—it chased Aaron and the kids as they ran after it.  On landing, however it came in a little fast and flipped over a root.  While we munched on cookies, mosquitoes munched on us. -- Oh.  did I mention they also have motorcycles?

Tuesday Tom drove to Blanchard Springs Cavern to help Nathan’s scout troop reposition a car.  They were going to hike 15 miles or so and then go through the cave on Thursday. Apparently it took about 6 hours to go through the spelunking cave tour.  Lots of crawling, climbing, sliding, etc.  I guess a great time was had by all.  Wednesday Tom was supposed to help them by taking canoes to the put in site, but the spelunking took so long, Tom had to go to his bishopric meeting.  So they took the truck and canoes and van and headed to Calamity Beach.

On my end, we finally got all the condos straightened out for our family reunion. It was a bit confusing, but Kathy did a great job, and Sharon, at the resort was also very accommodating. I spent a good part of the day on seminary stuff—emailing teachers, updating lists, etc.  And I went with the missionaries to visit our neighbor for a missionary discussion.

We came home one day to find the kids had captured a bunny.  We admired their stealth and had them release it behind the barn.  It will probably return to raid my garden (something it has not yet done).

Thursday we went to Silver Dollar City with Rebecca and children.  It took two cars, one stroller, a huge lunch and a slathering of sunscreen.  First we went to the kid’s play section.  They had rides more geared to little ones.  A lot of the adults went on these rides because the smaller ones needed to be accompanied by an adult.  When it got hot, we went to the wet rides, and true to their name, we got wet!  Finally, Aaron wanted to go on roller coaster rides.  Fortunately one was closed.  Unfortunately they all weren’t closed.  Fortunately Rebecca decided to accompany him and Marian and Callie on the one that went from 0 to 60 in 1.9 seconds.  Unfortunately they didn’t know it did that and had belly-dropping falls.  Callie was especially distressed to learn all this. Fortunately the ride came to an end.

There was one other roller coaster type ride.  I’d recalled it from our first trips to Silver Dollar City—that it wasn’t too bad.  I was just going to take Aaron over to the ride and let him do it himself.  But two teenage girls said, “Oh! Go on it. It’s really fun.”  What am I doing getting advice from teenage girls?  I went on the ride with Aaron.  It actually wasn’t all that bad.  Much more twists and turns than stomach lurching falls.  We left about 6pm.  Tom and I stopped at Aldis to shop on the way home.

We’d dropped Levi off at the Arndt’s to be dog-sat while we were gone.  Levi is a cute and sweet dog.  He’s very tolerant of Rylee “pat-patting” him and grabbing him.  He now will pee on command outside.  However, he is still learning you don’t pee (not on command) inside.  Once he gets that learned things will be well.

Friday morning we went and picked up the truck and canoe trailer and van and brought them home.  I also wrote in the morning and then went off to Marian’s to do pottery in the afternoon. Sometimes we chat more than we work. She is so fun to visit with as we have a lot in common. But my goal is to do both at the same time.  This time I made clay test pieces. They are bent pieces of clay with an imprint on the side and bottom.  They’ll be fired, then glazed with 1, 2, and 3 coats of glaze and maybe a combination of glazes to test how they’ll look with this type of clay.

Saturday we picked all the onions and dug up the potatoes.  We pulled up all the beets and cooked them.  The  potatoes and onions we will allow to dry a little and then put in a cool place.  Tom rototilled the weeds.

We also went to pick up Nathan and his troop and canoes.  Fortunately they decided to put in at George’s Cove so it was only a few miles to go to pick them up.  The boys did a 50 mile combination hike/canoe and were victorious but tired.

In the afternoon, I did the final revisions on my landing page for MyChoice401k—a solo 401k website I’m working on—and sent it off.  I got this reply: “You are so good it's scary. Like, it'd be DANGEROUS for the public if you ever decided to sell 'high fructose corn syrup' or 'cigarettes' for example.”  I was pleased he liked it and really glad to be done with that page.  The rest of the pages are much easier.

In the evening, we went to a wedding.  This couple contacted Tom on Thursday, he interviewed them on Friday and they got married on Saturday. It was at Gaston’s and the river views were lovely!  It was fun to drive in and see 4 small planes on their landing strip.  People fly in to fish and spend the night.  It was a small, simple wedding.  I hope they build a wonderful marriage together.

Today we had good talks on Fathers for Father’s day.  They got little goodie bags made by the Relief Society and also the Primary kids colored paper ties and gave them hand sanitizer.  I spent most of the meetings in the nursery as they were short-handed.

Interesting story:  One of our friends drives a truck.  He’d had bypass surgery two years ago and when he had a required stress test he didn’t pass it.  They called on Friday and said, “You didn’t pass, come in on Monday.”  So the family stewed all weekend.  On Monday they said the lower chambers aren’t working, the stents are failing, you’ve got big problems.  He had a priesthood blessing.  On Thursday they did an angiogram to check out the damage and see what needed to be done.  It all looked just fine.  The stent was in place.  The bypass was holding fine.  Even the partial blockage in the back artery hadn’t changed in the last two years.

I said, “What about the stress test?”  He replied, “All I know is I got a blessing, my heart is fine and I can go back to work.”

A Dog!

It seems a long time from the beginning of the week to the end.

Our neighbor, Barbara, wanted to clean out two storage sheds to save on rental costs.  We hauled out some last week, and then on Monday Tom built her some more shelves for her garage and we emptied the larger unit.  Lots of stuff stacked in her yard looking for homes!  Tuesday I went over hand helped her move boxes.  Our neighbor Ernie has also helped her arrange boxes and she’s gone through and consolidated some 20 odd boxes as well.  We are trying to order them.  She has lots of yard sale items and we stacked the Men’s winter together and the Men’s summer, the women’s and the kids—so she knows a little more where things are.

My goal on Monday was to get the landing page and order page finished on my Cheap 401k plan.  I did and sent it to my peers for review.  I got good comments back.  I had wanted to work with the MoldRX4U.com website and had a dialogue with the owners.  It had moved from distant to cordial and I send my proposal to them.  They got back to me this week.  They liked a lot of it, but were really too busy to take up this project.  But, maybe they’d like to buy the promotional piece, even if it needed some changing to make it more accurate.  So I sent a nice email back saying so sorry it didn’t work out, maybe later, and yes, I’ll let you use the promotional for this price.   They agreed.  And, I think they will someday come back and we’ll figure out a way to make the joint venture work.

Rebecca arrived Tuesday evening.  We got kids settled down and went on Wednesday morning to pick blueberries.  I’d frozen most of my first picking and discovered I just love being able to go into the frig and grab a handful of fresh blueberries.  So we picked nearly 2 gallons again and anytime the kids want some we say, Sure!  It’s a nice healthy snack.

Wednesday I finally got my LinkedIn profile set up.  So if you’re on LinkedIn, I’d be happy to link with you.  Wednesday evening the youth had a service project.  They did an amazing job cleaning up the yard of an older couple with health problems.  Tom had ordered Mormon Helping Hands t-shirts and they looked great in them.

Thursday Tom left with other leaders and youth for a Youth Conference in Kansas City.  The youth went to Liberty Jail, and Independence Visitor's Center and also went to the new temple there.  And of course they had dances.

Thursday afternoon I went to our North Arkansas Electric Cooperative annual meeting.  It’s in Salem, about 40 minutes away.  Each year I think, do I really want to drive that far, but each time I go, I’m glad I did.  They gave each co-op member a free folding canvas chair.  We had a great BBQ dinner, loud music for entertainment, and a short business meeting. Interesting things learned. The EPA wants to ban all coal fired plants.  When these coal fired plants were built, the government had rejected gas fired plants because they thought we were running out of natural gas.  Now, they want to have people switch to more expensive natural gas.  One environmentalist said they also want to ban natural gas plants.   “What will people use?” he was asked.  “We want to make electricity so expensive it hurts and people will have no choice but to conserve,” the environmentalist replied.  I guess he doesn’t live here.  There are many people for whom it hurts now to pay the electric bill.

Friday I went visiting teaching.  We also celebrated Callie’s birthday.  Rebecca wanted to make a “kid wash”—like a car wash for kids.  It’s a water play structure built of PVC pipe with sprayers and sponges to wash and toweling to dry so kids run through it like a car wash.  She had the plans and had checked out comments and modifications.  They went to Home Depot and came home with a bundle of PVC pipe, a bag of fittings, and all the accouterments.   Rebecca’s busy in the house, and I look outside to see Joshua busily constructing the thing!  He did 95% of it all by himself!  I was quite impressed.  The next day they finished it and had a ball playing with it.

Rebecca had talked about getting a dog.  I had a friend, Janet, who extolled the virtues of her Australian Shepherds and had some puppies.  So I got the two together.  We drove out to her place and saw the mama dog, the grandma dog and the littermates. Levi had never seen children before.  He was overwhelmed.  But he was cute.   We watched Maggie, the grandma dog do tricks.  One was Janet gave Maggie treats.  “This one is from Mama.”  Maggie ate it.  “This one is from Daddy.”  Maggie ate it.   She went through other names.  Each time Maggie ate the treat.  She said, “This one is from the dog catcher.”  Maggie turned her head away and wouldn’t eat it.

So we brought little Levi home with the understanding that if Rebecca or kids were allergic, we could take him back.  We got his crate and he was happy to stay in it most of the evening.  He is a smart dog. In just a few hours, he learned to walk on a leash and to sit when I stopped.  He is Rebecca’s dog.  His joy is sitting at her feet.  She took him out to the old dog kennel area to let him run while she read for a while.  No.  He curled up by her feet and stayed there for an hour. Since Saturday was Rebecca’s Birthday, this is her Birthday present.  If we can get the potty training done quickly, I think he’ll be a great dog.

It’s been fun to see the kid’s responses.  Delaney was terrified of all dogs.  She wanted nothing to do with the dog at Janet’s house.   By night time, she was holding the leash while sitting on a stool.  Today she is touching the dog.  Joshua said, “I don’t want a dog; I don’t want anything to do with it.”  Now he is taking him for walks.

Tom got back late Saturday night from Youth Conference.  It might also be known as sleep-depravation conference, which seems to be a little more challenging for the adults than the youth.  Tom says that without his beauty sleep, he gets a little ugly.

Today things went well at church.  The choir sang and I think we even did a good enough job to please our choir director.  She sang with the Southern California Mormon Choir, and has high standards.  Sometimes it’s cute as she tries to think of gentler ways to say, “That wasn’t very good.”  Usually it’s, “Well, we certainly have a lot of work to do on that song!”

After church Tom had the youth over for Bishop’s Youth discussion.  Rebecca made “puppy chow” for snack. I made a chocolate cake and at dinner we celebrated her birthday.

The Manna of Zucchini

For the past several years, we have not had good success growing zucchini.  They got blossom end rot or borer beetles ate them up. Then, on our missions, zucchini was not always readily available.

So I repented of my past disparaging remarks about zucchini and began to value this valiant large-leafed plant a little more.

This year we planted two hills of Zucchini.  This year the borer beetles have not attacked.  This year our cup runneth over with zucchini.

We have found people surprisingly willing to take our surplus.  We have also tried to harvest the zuccs when small so there is less to eat and fewer seeds.

However zucchinis have a self-preservation instinct.  They are green and hide and look like leaf stems... until suddenly they look like clubs.

My Week

This week started with Tom and I going to Pat’s farm to pick blueberries.  Wow! It takes a lot of blueberries to fill a 2 gallon bucket!  Tom commented several times, “This must be why blueberries cost so much.”  We were out for about 2 hours and picked 2.5 gallons.  Then it started to get hot and we decided we were done.

Later that day we helped Barbara move her things from one of her storage units.  We also took the church printer in for repairs.  In the evening, while I listened to a webinar, I made a bowl from the clay Marian gave me.  I think it turned out pretty well.

Tuesday I went to my friend Marian’s house and then to her “clay-mates.”  I blogged about that just before this blog.   It was a fun afternoon. 

I spent the morning working on my 401k project.  Actually I’ve spent most of the week working on it.  It comes together slowly.  Tomorrow I will send it to my mastermind group for their critique.  I’d come up with questions or thoughts and email Joshua.  He was good about getting back to me quickly. I really appreciate that.

Because this project is a very low cost solo 401k plan, I’d nick-named it in my files as Cheap401k.   However, that didn’t exactly have a ring that would bring positive sales.  So I suggested a variety of possible names to Joshua.  He came back saying he bought the domain name 2Cheep401k.com  First I thought he was serious and I’m thinking, how am I going to talk him out of this?   But he was joking.  Choices:  Builder401k,  Value401k, Valt401k, MyChoice401k.   Okay.  Time to vote.  Which do you think would be the best name?  The site has lots of tutorials and an extensive FAQ as well as information about investment choices and suggested contacts for those kinds of investments.   What it doesn’t have is live support—unless you want to pay for that.  My take—if you invest in your education, you can be in charge and not have to depend on someone else.

Our neighbor, Barb, has been contemplating ways to make extra money.  She had these long tubes of fabric that she’d sewn for scented trivets before she got sick.  So I suggested she use them to crochet baskets.  She couldn’t catch the vision, so I asked if I could have some of the fabric.  Wednesday I crocheted the basket.  I did it off and on over the day as it was hard on the hands.  My hook was smaller than what they suggested so I suppose it came out tighter.  But I thought it looked cute!  Barb was impressed and I think maybe she’ll try it herself.  Both of our crocheting skills are minimal….but… it’s supposed to look “country.”

Thursday we went to see Men in Black III.  I thought it was a fun movie.  We did not choose 3D.  I don’t need monsters getting that close to me.  In the evening we went to the O’Brian’s for dinner.  It was his 65^th birthday.  He’s just a few months older than Tom and they rib each other about that.  Tom went and got some cute gag gifts and he appreciated it.

I don’t know if I mentioned that one of our friends from Kenya wrote and asked about writing for income. (My website is Writing4Income).  So I decided to teach him how to write case studies for charities.  I figured they had lots of charities in Kenya and could use someone on the ground to tell them how their dollars… er … shillings are being spent.   He’s a pretty quick learner.  Now he needs to research so he knows where to send the stories. 

Our garden continues to grow.  We’ve had pickled beets and snap peas.  We’ve been picking zucchini and not using it, so Friday I fried zucchini and onions (also from our garden) and tomatoes and garlic (not from the garden.)  It was tasty and went with a good turkey roast I had.

Saturday we went to Gassville in the Park.  There were booths and hamburgers and a car show. It was fun to wander.  My friend Marian decided to sell her pottery there.  The only things we bought were hamburgers and some cute soap.  But we ran into at least a dozen people we knew.  Some of the folks from OMART saw Tom and begged him to come back to work for them.

In the evening we went to Jennifer Steinman now Kenison’s reception.  It was truly lovely!  Beautifully decorated.  Gorgeous cake.  Tasty food.  And lots of good friends to visit with.  The bride and groom seem totally in love.  It was cute to watch.

Got my tablet back.  It seems to work better.  But I don’t think it likes Yahoo.  It doesn’t let me access my email very well.  Bummer.  However, I downloaded a bunch of free books and stayed up late Saturday night reading one.

Today was a good day at church.  Barb, next door bore her testimony and seems to understand more. A month or so ago, we were visiting and she asked, what are you not telling me?  I don’t know.  What aren’t we telling you?  She said, “I know I came from someplace before here.  I told Bishop Postalwait that and he just smiled and nodded.”  So we shared with her about the pre-earth life.  I guess it made more sense than her thoughts about coming from another planet.

Our training for Seminary begins 1 June with articles to read and report on every 2 weeks.  If there are any other seminary teachers who want to join in on the preparation, just let me know and I’ll forward the articles.

"Clay-mates"

Tuesday Marian, my clay friend, took me to meet some of her clay friends.

Helen lives in the old Bruno high school.  Its a rustic stone building... one of several.  She has her kiln and pottery area as a walk through into the rest of her house.

Helen was collaborating with Michelle on these pottery sculptures.  Helen does Riku.  As best I understand it, you take two incompatible elements-- clay that needs high temperature firing, and glaze that does low temp firing.  Then just after the temperature is reached, you open the kiln, take out the moulten glazed pottery, and stick it in some dry grass (on the driveway).  The too-quick cooling creates cracks in the glaze and the smoke from the brushfire (the grasses burst into flames) puts soot into the cracks.  It's all very unpredictable-- the cracks and all.

 Note the glaze pattern on this fish head.   The cracks look just like scales.   This fish has not yet found it's fabric body.... but it will.

 This is a dove wall hanging.

 Here you have a crane.  It reminded me of the crowned cranes we saw in Kenya.

 A dancing dove? I was told she was in 2nd position.

 Notice the book the hawk statue is resting on?  They have a sense of humor.

 Here is another dove.  I'm sorry i didn't get the face in profile so you can see the quiet eyes.

 While you can't see it well, the barbed wire "arms"-- wings? end in a yoga meditative position-- fingers curved into an "O".

 This bird was still a work in progress.

 You really can't see the crow's face on this dancing bird, but below are Michelle (l) and Helen (r).

Helen makes the bird heads, and Michelle does the feather and fabric additions.  There were several women there and we had a lovely time chatting, admiring the sculptures and munching.  Helen had lived in Okinawa in the mid 70's and then again in the late 80's.  She'd done pottery over there, too.

They were creating the sculptures for two shows coming up-- one in a gallery.

Before I left Marian's, I had to take a picture of her resident peacock.  When we drove into the carport-- or wanted to.  He was arrayed in all his glory-- strutting in front of the car and not anxious to move out of the way.