2019 Is Upon Us Already!

What does a mature married couple do on New Year's Eve when they are home alone?  Not much. No late night celebration, wild partying or even special treat making. And we didn't do anything special for New Years either.

I spent a couple mornings early in the week working on rental repairs identified last month when we did the home inspections. The afternoons were spent in raking up the wet leaves along the fence line and dumping them in the burn pile for later cooking.

Andy's family arrived about noon on Wednesday and stayed until Friday about noon.  It was great to have a break from our otherwise mundane routine and a very productive visit.  Kera and Andy organized the game closet (thank you!).  Andy and Aaron assisted at one of the rent houses with an electrical problem, which due to Andy's expertise we think we resolved.  We found a bare wire shorting in the kitchen ceiling light fixture. Aaron, Katie and Kera prepared two delicious evening meals for us. Aaron, Katie and I were able to haul previously cut branches to the burn pile and get most of it burned. Thursday evening Andy and I went to cut up a tree top that had fallen onto the neighbor's yard.  Aaron threw the cut branches over the fence into our side while we cut it up.  We tried notching the tree and pulling it over with the tractor, but the tree top was hung up on another tree. The damaged tree was on one side of the fence and the one holding it in place was one foot away on the other side of the fence.  We did not have time to get any further that day on this project. And it rained Friday morning, so nothing more was done.

However, on Saturday, I was able to cut both trees at fence height and pull them over with the tractor.  Now for the fun of cutting and splitting the wood.  Not to mention hauling the branches to a burn pile.

Since it was raining Friday morning, a lot of game playing was engaged in.  We had spent the previous two evenings playing games, making fudge (which did not last 24 hours) and having a good time.

Saturday we met with the sister missionaries to plan a meeting we had later that day with a part member family.  Both meetings went well.  The husband had previously agreed to be baptized and they are mainly reviewing the principles he has already been taught.

Church was great, again.  This was our first Sunday with the two hour block time for meetings and it flowed smoothly; the meetings even ended on time! We are trying to use the extra time for personal and couple study.Hopefully we can be productive.

One important item on Sandy's bucket list was to take an Alaskan Cruise. With a lot of research and input from family members she was able to identify the best option and book a cruise for us, our children, and their spouses.