Oh the Joy of Family!

June 19-July 3

Oh the Joys of Family!  We have continued to be surrounded by family- albeit on a smaller scale for the past two weeks.

After the family reunion Rebecca and Miranda and family came to visit. Miranda was to go on a pioneer trek and we were to watch her children later in the week. But the weather was so hot and several of the pioneer treks at that place earlier in the week ran into heat exhaustion and heat stroke. So they canceled the trek… and suddenly Miranda had no planning, no packing… nothing to do!  So she stayed with us and hopefully had a grand time.

Katie and Isabelle also came to join in the fun and work. Those two, plus Marian and sometimes Callie had such fun together. At night, when the little kids were going to bed… the big kids were out raiding the chicken coop. They took out the hens and petted them, carried them around and, ahem… even took them into the tree house, down the zip line and on the trampoline. We invited them to tame down the chicken festivities. So hopefully the zipline and trampoline are now out.

Katie and Isabelle helped Tom fix our metal shed in the back yard. I had some termite damage. We’d had the area treated so the termites were gone… but the damage lingered. They emptied all the stuff in the shed, took off some walls and removed most of the floor. They needed new joists and flooring. Then all the stuff needed to be put back inside before it rained. Even the week after the reunion was beastly hot- in the mid to high 90’s. So they worked early morning and late afternoon and took the mid-day off.

I did some work… although not a lot. Since I’m working to earn money to spend time with family, it seems to make sense not to work a lot while they are here. One of the projects I had worked on some in the past revolved around Brexit. I had studied the pros and cons. Staying meant security. Leaving allowed the British to regain their sovereignty. Right now 16 unelected leader of the EU make laws and tax and Britain must comply. What started as a simple trade group morphed into more and more control over members. I was pleased that Britain voted to leave—that they choose freedom over financial security.

It was interesting to see the stock markets TANK! As Everyone Said, “I told you so!  England will DIE if they leave the EU.”  Then, just a few days later, the markets recovered back to pre-Brexit levels. So, I guess England will not die after all. I figured they had more ingenuity and backbone than that. I was able to take some advantage of the stock market drop, but some good deals escaped me.

Friday night Marian, Delaney and Katie came with me to the firework display on the college campus. We got there about 8pm thinking the fireworks started at 9pm. But they didn’t start until 9:30. They lasted until close to 10 pm. Delaney was a bit concerned about how CLOSE they were. They covered the sky above us and looked like they were raining down on us. It was lovely! Watching fireworks like that is one of my favorite things.

The reason you didn’t get an update last week was that immediately after church, we all got into the available cars and drove to Andy and Kera’s house for Emma’s baptism. Actually, we drove directly to the church. It was a lovely event. She had about 25 family members there.

Ian drove down with his family. Deborah was to come in another car to take Miranda and family back to Springdale so Dan (who had a meeting there that night) could take her home to Oklahoma. But the baby had strep and Deborah was getting her medicine. We convinced her not to make the trip just to pick up Miranda. So early Monday, Miranda’s father-in-law drove to unite with Dan and head home. We hung around part of Monday and headed home. Tom had been somewhat under the weather. So he napped most of that morning. Rebecca and family stayed an additional day.

Rebecca came home on Tuesday—adding Aaron to the mix-- because Dan and Josh were flying in from Japan. They ended up with a series of delays and didn’t arrive until early, early Wednesday morning. In the meantime, Baby was better and Deborah came to visit with her gang.

I did get some writing work done. I wrote a document for Breathtec, a company that uses breath analysis in a high powered gas spectrometer to detect cancer, TB, Alzheimer’s and other diseases. Very interesting technology. I reviewed an article and then went to lunch with an 82 year old writer friend. We mostly talked about the Gospel. His mom was Mormon, but he has no religion and does not think much of organized religion. Still, we had interesting conversation.

Friday Andy, Kera and family drove up for the weekend. We squashed 23 people into the house for the day and night. We decided to have a 4^th of July picnic that night with potato salad, coleslaw, watermelon, chips, hotdogs, and hamburgers. It was delicious. And the mess was mostly contained outside.

Tom has continued to trap some opossums and raccoons. The raccoons are so cute I have to remind myself they are serial killers. Thus far we have not lost any more chickens.

Saturday afternoon Deborah extracted herself and her clan from the house quite masterfully. I’ve only found one set of extra clothes here. They were in the washing machine when she left, along with sheets she’d kindly removed from the beds she and her children used.

Dan and Delaney left on Saturday as well to drive to Tennessee to see a cousin return from his mission and to connect with Dan’s parents. They will return with Dan to Mountain Home and visit with the rest of the family for a little bit before flying home.

We did some garden weeding this week, but probably not enough. We have onions, broccoli, cucumbers and zucchinis to eat. We should pull the carrots and beets too. Tomatoes and beans are soon to arrive.

This Sunday it was nice to take up a whole row of family and to see Aaron and Joshua passing the sacrament. The entire Mountain Home ward Relief Society was traveling, so they asked me to teach the lesson. I pulled thoughts from scriptures I’d been studying over the past week or so in Helaman.

Tomorrow Andy and Kera and family will leave and it will feel pretty quiet with just Rebecca and 4 children for a few days. We love her. Especially since she feeds us so well!