Silver Dollar City- Temple-Youth Conference

Rebecca left us for the week.  For the few days before she departed, she’d been communicating with the siblings.  She’d planned to go to Silver Dollar City on Monday on her way to visit Jonathan and Kristy.  Did anyone want to come with her?  She got a kind of Meh response… and was thinking about skipping it.

This mattered to Tom and me because we thought we’d go to SDC with her.  Then we decided we’d go on to St. Louis and go to the temple. So by Saturday night, we’d decided there probably would be no SDC trip.  Then Deborah called… she was going… and it would be nice to have someone help with the kids.  Okay.  I guess we’re back on.  Then Kera said that Charlotte was better (she’d had pneumonia) and she was coming.

And on Monday, as we were heading out, Deborah let us know that Ian had the day off and he was coming, too!  So we had a fun, low-key day at SDC.  We went on kiddy rides.  We went to see the Harlem Globe Trotters.  Callie convinced me to go on a fireman’s ride where they shoot you up into the air and you kind of bungie fall back down—bouncing along the way.  But it wasn’t as scary as it sounds… well, it was scary.  You were seated on a machine around a square that thrust you up.  So you didn’t feel like you were dangling without support.  Anyhow, it was more fun than I thought it would be.

We left about 3 pm.  That was before the slight incident with Simon bashing his head on the stone wall and the first aid responders. Apparently it was more if a scrape.  But heads bleed a lot. He is fine now.

Tom and I drove up to St. Louis and got there about 8 pm.  We got up pretty early to go to the temple.  Marian, Isabelle, and Katie had done baptisms for this side of the Walder family on the last trip up.  Tom and I did about 18 initiatories and two endowments. We planned on doing one more endowment… but things were a little interesting at the temple that morning.  Apparently a motor burned up and shut the power down.  So we were on auxiliary power.  The lights flickered periodically.  The film ran with the lights on.  There was no air conditioning so the endowment room doors were open, but it still got a little warm.  Nevertheless, it was a great session. However, they were not going to run another session until the power came back on.  So we headed home.

It was a quiet week without any children or grandchildren here.  Fortunately there were enough shoes collected by the door and a few toys left out that we didn’t feel we’d been totally abandoned.

When we went to our family reunion at the Cottage Resort, the first night the noise in the Reunion Hall was overwhelming.  We thought, what if we have 100 or more people in here. It will be impossible.  We talked to the owners about using the other two rooms in the Reunion hall as well.  One is a for-sure yes.  The other…. Not sure. So Miranda talked to someone and her family went to a place near Joplin.  In checking that out, we found some other possibilities.  While Rebecca and Miranda were at Jonathan’s, they went to the George Washington Carver museum and then stopped by the Joplin retreat center.  FANTASTIC commercial kitchen.  Large meeting area… only chairs, no sofas or relaxing chairs.  Cabins with A/C but walk to bath.  Not a good trade off.

We found that by searching for “retreats” we get other options.  But do families want to be squished into one room… or put teens into a bunk room… in exchange for better play areas and a larger meeting place?  Or do people want more comfortable lodging and a ho-hum meeting place and kitchen.  Ah the dilemma of reunion planning.  I did find a monastery…. One person rooms anyone?

Our garden is starting to come on.  We are getting plenty of beans and cucumbers.  The tomato crop is a bit irregular.  Some cherry tomatoes, stunted roma tomatoes, and a few HUGE beefsteak tomatoes.  Our pepper crop is pretty good with the useless hot peppers but not so good with the bell peppers.  The zucchini and crookneck squash and winter squash and watermelon have HUGE leaves. If you judged by the leaves, we should be seeing a plethora of squash.  Right now, its a few every few days.  And the gray squash bugs have appeared. I’m surprised; perhaps the huge leaves keep the plants alive even with these buggers gnawing on them. So far, they are still alive.

I froze some beans, gave away some cucumbers, and Rebecca is planning meals with zucchini and tomatoes. She made a great roasted tomato soup.

I’ve been working on some publicity with some of the start-up companies. It will be interesting to see how it goes.  I also worked on a Relief Society Newsletter this week and finally ordered pictures from the family reunion to put on our wall.  We have a family display in the dining room so everyone who comes in sees our family.  We get lots of comments on it.  Rebecca will help us duplicate it with updates.

Friday Tom left early to go to a 4 stake Youth Conference.  Jonathan, Isabelle, and Joshua came with the Monett stake, Tom took the youth from our ward up.  Everyone seemed to have a great time. Josh seems sweet on a girl from the Monett Stake. One of our boys likes Isabelle.  I love these long distance romances!  Here's a photo of Josh and Isabelle at the Youth Conference.

We learned Friday that a ward member passed away.  She had not been to church in years, and Tom contacted the funeral home to let them know he was available to assist the family as needed.  A friend was the executor. No other family involved.  So I am to give the eulogy. Except I only knew her for a year or so about 12 years ago…  I called the friend and got some information. I guess we do the best with what we have.

Saturday I went to a wedding shower for a young woman in our ward. I also checked out a small house that has some good potential.  Saturday afternoon Rebecca returned home and later that night, Tom and Josh got back from youth conference.

Today was a good day at church. We had a great lesson in Sunday School about Alma 30-31 and how to recognize the lies and evil spread both then and today.  How an anti-Christ is really a counterfeit and tries to look very much like the real thing in order to deceive.

This weekend has also been a Worldwide Indexing Event.  I indexed some files on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.  Tom indexed today.  This is where you take photographed images of records and record them into fields so they can be searched by people looking for their family history.  I did some Kentucky marriage records and some Alabama draft records.  I was surprised that there was a “bride price” back then.  The husband-to-be posted a bond for the marriage—like $100!  That was a lot of money back in the 1880’s.

 Below are random photos.  The top is Marian with her cotton candy mustache at Golden Corral at the family reunion.

When we went to Andy and Kera's the kids enjoyed the large corn snake.

Singing in the Rain

We've had a good week.  It's been a bit quieter with just one family here…but we still had some "add-ons."

Aaron stayed behind to do some work with Tom.  He painted the floor of the shed that Tom and Isabelle replaced.  He mowed the lawn.  Josh went next door and did some yard work for the neighbor.
He may have helped Tom clean up the garage.  Tom thought it might be a 1-2 day job.  But we wisely tackled it one section at a time and even working parts of each day, there is still more to do.  He's done an amazing job sorting, cleaning, organizing and replacing.  It truly looks lovely... or as lovely as a garage can look.

 Tuesday I finally got my hair cut.  It's needed it since about the time of the reunion. But I was gone that week, too busy the next week, and she was on vacation the week after.  Actually, not taking a vacation. Her husband was in the hospital and not doing well. When I got my hair cut, he was home, but still doing very poorly. She was in need of a friend, so I'm glad we had a chance to talk.

Dan and Delaney left Saturday and drove to Tennessee to visit his sister and meet up with his parents. Delaney was also meeting a good friend of hers and his family.  Dan drove his parents back to Mountain Home and they arrived on Tuesday.  We enjoyed having Dan's parents over for dinner each night they were in town.  The kids went to the hotel pool and played there a few mornings.  One day they went to a cavern in Harrison. One evening after dinner, Steve White shared the history of his father who was born just before the turn of the century.  It was very interesting.

Friday the adults-- Tom and I included went to see Independence Day 2.  In spite of some negative review I'd heard and a slightly disjointed plot line, I liked it.  After the movie we collected the little kids and drove to my potter friend Marian's house.  We had some "frogs" for her Ikebana vases to deliver.  And the kids wanted to see the peacocks.  They got to see them and collect some feathers. They also got to pet the burro, the pony, and three of the seven cats.  I think everyone had a good time.

 One day one of my friends stopped by.  Her daughter works for a blackberry farm.  She gets all the overripe berries she picks-- gallons per day!  They brought us two fresh flats and two gallons of frozen berries.  Joy!!!!  We ate a ton of the fresh berries and then froze several gallons.  Rebecca also made us a delicious blackberry cobbler.  She made another one for Tom's Bishop's Youth Discussion this Sunday where a dozen teens quickly devoured it all!

 I had some samples to write this week.  One was an interesting project in creating a persona for a "bot" an online interactive interface that sounds like a person but is automated.  It was for a company that works with insurance companies.  I did a trial to see if we are a fit.  I hope so.  It would be fun to create that fictional character.

 Saturday Dan and his parent left.  They decided to visit Branson on their way to the airport.  Dan will fly back to Japan, the parents to Utah.  That morning Tom, Rebecca, kids and I went to the lake. It's the first time I've been to the lake this year.  The water was warm and easy to swim in. Everyone seemed to have a good time.

 Tomorrow Rebecca, her kids, and Aaron will leave.  We'll all go to Silver Dollar City and Kera and her family will join us there and depart with Aaron. Not sure how all the meeting up and exchanging suitcases will work... but I'm sure it will all work out.

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!

Family Reunion

This week was consumed by the family reunion.  We had such a fun time... in spite of the heat.

Sunday afternoon, I got the beginnings of Poison Ivy on my cheek, chin and left hand.  I battled this poison ivy all week... using oils, Ivarrest, and finally the prescription medicine given to me for a rash/inflammation/flakiness similar to psoriasis. by the end of the week it was finally showing signs of healing up.  The problem is that my poison ivy doesn't just come and go... it spreads. All through the week, even as the original places started to heal, new bumps would pop up either nearby or in random other areas on hands, neck, face, etc.  I've decided my poison ivy goes systemic.

Monday morning was a crazy time trying to get away. We packed.  We pulled all the food out and organized it. We worried that it might not all fit in the car, but Tom is a master packer and we had room. We did last minute shopping on the way up to get cold stuff from Aldis.

Jonathan and Kristy decided to have Emily's baptism on Monday afternoon. Deborah decided it would be better to have it earlier (2:30) instead of later (4:30) so dinner would not be too late. That meant we had to get there a little earlier than planned. We wanted to be able to put the cold food into the frig and freezer before going to the baptism.  We barely made it... but we got the keys to the Reunion Hall and one of the rooms at about 1:45.

We unpacked and put away food stuff.  Miranda called... she and Rebecca were running late and wouldn't be there until about 3.  Jonathan and Deborah's families came to the Cottage Resort and changed clothes and Deborah set up for dinner with her crock pot.  Then we headed over to the chapel and met Andy, Miranda, Rebecca and Adam and their families there.We had a total of 41 family members there (only Dan and Joshua White were absent).

While it was a bit exciting and chaotic with cousins reuniting, it was also a sweet baptism. We returned to the Cottage Resort about 4 pm and checked in. Everyone carried bags in and then went to the Reunion Hall for dinner.  There was plenty of space there, but the din was deafening!  People were so excited to be there and running around... well... mostly the kid were running around. Once we moved the piano to a smaller room, it quieted a bit.

We had tasty Cafe Rio Chicken. Tom and Kera made Birthday/Anniversary cakes to celebrate Callie and Rebecca's birthdays and Jonathan and Kristy's anniversary.  I think we all crashed pretty early that night.

Tuesday we had family pictures in the morning. We'd scouted out some places with good backgrounds the night before... but in the morning the sun was in a different position and we kept having to move into a smaller and smaller area to keep in the shade.

Then most people went off to White Water waterpark for the day.  Marian and I worked on a jigsaw puzzle for a while, then napped, then helped prep for dinner. Rebecca made a chicken and rice casserole. She had the same problem as Steven-- when you make a huge batch, it's hard for the inside rice to cook at the same time the edge rice is done. But all was very tasty!

We had game night at Rebecca's cabin. We found there were too many of us to play the same game, so we split into two groups.

Wednesday was a "free day."  Some people went to the outlet malls.  I went with a group going thrift shopping. Tom hung out with kids doing games and playing in the pool. We brought a big roll of white paper. It was quite a hit.  Callie, Delaney and  Sarah... and maybe others, made aprons out of  the paper.  They found a cart on wheels and made up a menu and offered lunch service.  I'm not sure they made sandwiches, but they brought around napkins, drink refills and other useful things.

Then they drew ice cream cones and other fancy deserts on the paper and offered those to anyone who wanted.  The nice thing about them was they were low cal. Kera brought Lincoln Logs and Mr. Potatohead.  The Lincoln logs were a great success.

Tom left in the afternoon to take the three oldest girls to girl's camp, 2+ hours away.  Wednesday evening is bishop's night and he took ice cream and root beer for the girls to enjoy.  It was HOT, but the girls were having a great adventure and enjoying the activities in spite of the heat.  We have some awesome young women and leaders.  A good time was had by all, but they didn't return until 1130 at night.

We enjoyed a potato bar for dinner with a tasty salad.  After little kids were down, the bigger ones babysit and watched TV while the adults gathered at Miranda's cabin for root beer floats and fun conversation.

Thursday we went to Silver Dollar City. It was impossible to keep the group together. Still, batches of cousins went off to have fun.Some hit the roller coasters, some the water rides.  We went on the water rides first.  Then, I actually went on Thunderation Roller coaster as a way to dry off. The little kids went to the kiddie ride area. Most of us gathered for the 11:30 magic show.  Then we gathered at 3:15 to go to Golden Corral for an early dinner.  We wanted to be out of the heat of the afternoon. Some folks returned to Silver Dollar City for the last few hours.  Some of us bailed and headed back to the cabins and the pool.  Later we gathered in the Reunion Hall for general snacking, puzzle working and game playing.

Friday was another free day.  While families were responsible for their own breakfast, Kera brought great cinnamon rolls the first day. Miranda made french toast another, Deborah made pancakes one day and Andy made quick caramel/nut rolls on Saturday.

Friday after breakfast we went on a hike near the river.  It was a wooded area with a pretty rugged hike.  We went down hundreds of steps toward the river.  Then we followed a path along the side of the ridge to a waterfall area and some caves and then hiked on a switch-back trail back up.  Had we left at 8:30 as announced, it would have been a pretty cool hike.  Since we left closer to 9:30 the day had warmed up and it was a pretty hot hike.  Still, everyone had a good time and no kids fell off the trail and rolled down the mountain.  It reminded me of the trails we took near Mt. St. Helens.

Later, Tom and I took two if the granddaughters to go to Harry and Davids and to Andy's for an ice cream lunch. That afternoon, I went to look at the Marina and Hunter's Friend rooms for the Swarthout Family reunion. We discussed the larger family reunion.  The consensus from the kids was that the rooms were fine, the pools would be okay.  The Reunion Hall would seat everyone for meals, but with lots of people in it, it became very noisy.  There are two rooms off the main hall.  One will definitely be available for the 2017 reunion with chairs/sofas and places to visit in a more quiet atmosphere.  The second room currently has gym equipment stored in it... and it may or may not be available, although I requested that it be available. We will have a dozen or so of the cabins that are 2-3 bedroom that have gathering areas for 10-14 people. So we may have to plan some areas for quiet conversation and other areas for kids to play in.

Saturday morning the focus changed.  We packed up and said said good-byes-- especially to Adam and Savannah who are not close enough to see often. Rebecca and Miranda and family came to spend some time with us. Deborah, Jonathan, and Andy's families went to their houses.  Tom apparently pulled a muscle on the hike.  His leg bothered him Friday evening... but by Saturday, he could hardly walk.  Grandkids helped haul our stuff to the car and he was able to pack it.  I drove home.

Saturday was the beginning of Stake Conference for us. Dan Mc and Tom drove got to Mountain Home about 11:30.  They needed to leave for Stake Conference by 12:45.  We threw laundry in, unpacked, returned the ice chest we'd borrowed and ate lunch. I needed to leave about 2:45 to get there for my presidency meeting at 4pm.  Tom actually borrowed a cane to take with him to help him walk.

The counselor in the Stake Presidency is a doctor.  He checked Tom's leg and suggested--strongly-- that he take some anti-inflammatory drugs.  He also gave Tom a priesthood blessing. That night, Tom did take some ibprophen.  And today his leg was much much better and he was walking without a limp.

The Mountain Home Relief Society was responsible for the between priesthood leadership meeting and general evening session dinner.  They ordered hoagie sandwiches from Walmart. They were surprisingly good. They had chips and cookies to go with it. The president and I had debated quite a bit about quantity.  I didn't see how a 6' sub could serve 25-30... except with 2" slices of sandwich.  They actually did cut them in about 2" pieces, even though she asked for 3-4 inches.  But 4 would have served about 100.  She got 5 as we thought there would be closer to 125 people.  So there was quite a bit left over.

I thought they would be shared with the missionaries and I wanted some to feed the speakers after the Sunday session of conference-- those traveling several hours back home.  But my secretary put all the sandwiches into my car and I took many of the left over chip bags.  In the middle of the night, I decided I needed to make lunches for the missionaries as well as the three speakers who came from afar-- Mission President, and Temple President Counselor and wife.  So that morning Katie helped me repackage the sandwiches, put lettuce and tomatoes in packages and mayo and mustard packs into a lunch sack along with chips and cookies and napkins.  The speakers got sandwiches made from bread, cheese & ham and Miranda helped by making a mixed fruit salad for them.

Tom asked the older granddaughters to make cookies for him.  They put them on plates with saran wrap and he had the girls hand them out to random families at Stake Conference.

The speakers were really great.
      * The Presidency Counselor talked of how as a new intern he was thrown into doctoring.  Early in his internship there was a code blue and he was the only Doctor there.  He came in and everyone looked to him to solve the problem and he felt insufficiently prepared.  With study and practise, he now feels prepared to address these life and death situations.  He said we have so much greater responsibility. We don't deal in lives, we save souls.  We need to be prepared to do so.

     *One man spoke of home teaching this man for years and years. He said home teaching is like getting all these parts and assembly instructions.  But the instructions don't make sense and you don't know what to do with the parts.  You don't know why you are assigned to this inactive family that seems unresponsive.  What will help them want to change?  He was assigned to this one 70+ year old deacon who was not interested in the church. For years he tried to stay connected. Finally, there were a series of events and the man started coming back to church.  He talked about how great Tom was as a bishop.  Anyhow, now this man is receiving the Melchizedek Priesthood and going to the temple.  Then the brother who was activated spoke about his change of heart. It was very touching. He also spoke of the love and influence of Tom as bishop.

     *One speaker talked about standing in Holy Places-- temples, churches, homes. But also said that we create holy places out of moments in time. When we have answers to prayers or stand up for right or testify of truth-- places become holy because of what has happened there. In these holy times and places the Spirit can give us an extra measure of courage and faith.

It has been a joy having family here.  I love that Marian, Katie, and Isabelle are here together. (We got to take the older girls home with us.)  They are so helpful and it was fun to show them off to our friends at Stake Conference.  They have fun playing together... and even got stuck in the HUGE oak tree in the front side yard.  It took a ladder to get them down.

Psudo-Routine

I don't know...do we have a routine?

Monday I did some writing. We will be having house sitters while we are gone and they came over Monday for instructions; we want to ensure the continued safety of the chickens and hope this will enhance their survival rate.  We had heard that a Casey's convenience store was planned for the empty lot across from Adam's rental house while we were in California, so a visit to building inspector's office was necessary.

 I was able to visit the building department on Monday to make sure the exit was not going to have car lights shining into the house windows.  Actually it seems to be set up pretty well, with the exit facing toward another street and some commercial buildings.  I don't know if this is a good thing for Adam's house or not. Certainly it will be convenient if they want to go for a pizza.

Monday night was Empty Nesters Family Home Evening.  I took a salad with lettuce from the garden and we had a good meeting.

Tuesday we finally got a quote on the septic system we've been waiting on for a couple of months.  I think it
is good news.  It could have been worse.  They need to wait for things to dry out, so it will likely be July before they get started on it.  I wrote a sample 2 page Video Sales Letter for a job and am waiting to hear back from them.  I also did another interview for FastPass.

Each morning we've been getting up early and going out to weed the garden.  We spend an hour or so out there, and then come in and move on with the day.  Up until this week, it's been pretty cool most days.  But now we're up to the 90's and so we need to work early.  By Saturday we got it all weeded, and even went to the front and weeded and trimmed up bushes there.  Tom mowed and it all looks lovely.

Adam is taking some of the equity in his rental house here to start his dental business and buy a house there.  So we closed on that loan.  The rental income should be able to pay this off so he doesn't have to worry about repaying this loan.

There is a women who is a new widow.  Tom home taught the husband. She was a new wife and I've been working with her to help her get things organized.  He car was stolen so I've been taking her places.  She finally got the car back... and got a new key made for it.  But now it needs to be licensed (tags expired) and put into her name... but she can't find the old title. Sometimes it just seems like there's one problem after another.  Then we've been helping our neighbor get her business going.  I'm not quite sure how we are worthy of the position of business advisor.

We have new neighbors across the street.  We watched last winter as a barn-- LARGE barn went up.  Now the house is going up.  But the couple is living in the barn as the house goes up.  And they brought the mother and she's living in a travel trailer.  We invited them over for dinner on Thursday. The wife was a military brat.  Her husband flew C-141's with the Air Force for 20 years, then moved on to fly for American Eagle. They seem like good people and will be nice neighbors.

We've spent part of the week amassing things for the Fox reunion next week.  Tom and I went shopping and bought him a Father's Day gift of a more comfortable stool in front of his computer. He bought kid's toys for the reunion.  We'll need to get more food on Monday.

Tom has been trying to run each day.  He's signed up for the Red White & Blue run on the 25th.  I'm looking forward to the great fireworks display that night.

We continued to catch raccoons. We caught a particularly big and aggressive one and Tom texted our friend  to see if he wanted it.  He said "Free Raccoon pelt.  Comes with live racoon. Want it?"  He did.

 However he didn't quite see the live part.  When he picked it up he had his young grandson with him.  He said, "Grandpa, you're not going to shoot it, are you?"  So HE ended up driving it out into the boonies to release it.  No pelt for him. Two days later we caught another raccoon; the tally is now 2 possums and 3 coons - oh and 4 dead chickens!

My very creative friend had this lovely "necklace" on.  It's made from a man's t-shirt sleeve.  She had another one on this Sunday with the strands tied in an X pattern. I thought they might be fun to make at the reunion.

Happy Birthday Mom

This is a two week recap.

Monday May 23rd, Tom was in charge of Elmore S's funeral. His children came and they were nice to his new wife... which was also nice. It will be difficult for the widow moving forward. I'm so grateful for the plan of salvation.

We were trying to tie up all the lose ends before we left to go to Mom's house for her birthday. We finally got the plans for the septic system and sent them out to two companies for bids.  They have been slow in coming back to us... but that's okay since we've been gone and the ground has been too wet to install.

We also had an air conditioner that needed to be put into one unit.  The city is widening the street in front of one of our rentals.  This means putting in a new driveway.  We had a semi-circular drive that went from one street to the side street.  They are kind of replacing that... except there are setbacks from the corner that need to be met... making more slanting drives than we had in the past.  We had several calls with the contractor to make sure it will turn out as agreed upon in the plans.

Tuesday we drove to Miranda's.  Tom and Miranda went out shopping for a refrigerator and to check out Costco for reunion food and supplies. I watched the little kids while they were gone. Wednesday we flew to Santa Ana.  Cynthia and Jim picked us up.  We settled into their house and then went to visit Mom. She was well enough to fix a nice dinner for us.

Thursday we got up and went to the beach for Starbucks hot chocolate. (Cynthia and Jim got their regular coffee.)  We ate cranberry nut bread and bananas and watched the surf and the people there.  Then we walked along the beach for a while.  It was very relaxing and lovely.

That afternoon, we picked Steve S. up from the airport.  Kathy had surgery earlier in the week for a hernia.  She was ready to be sprung, so Steve went to pick her up.

Tom started collecting all of the 95 plus birthday well wishes and greetings that children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren... and applicable spouses... had sent over the past three months to wish Mom a happy birthday. Cynthia donated binders.  Kathy bought clear plastic sleeves, and we organized the letters, cards, drawings, and notes into the sleeves and then into the binders.  Cynthia wanted them in a variety of binders so many people could look through the well-wishes at the same time.

Friday Sue and Steve arrived to join the group. They had planned on being there on Wednesday, but got into a fender-bender in Utah that slowed them down a bit.  So now we were nine at Mom's.  Sue and Steve had an Air BnB that they stayed at.

Saturday was all about the party. We could not get in to decorate until noon.  Then we had a group blowing up balloons, hanging up streamers and creating other festivities.  We had 60 people at the party-- and they were all family!  Most of Susan and Sally's families came with their children and grandchildren. Aunt Ruth came.  And then it was Cynthia, Steven and I and our spouses.


Sally's girls created five different kinds of birthday cakes for mom!  Lemon cake, chocolate layer cake, carrot cake, chocolate pound cake and a tall white fruit filled cake.  All proclaimed them delicious!

Mom had the energy to stay the entire five hours of the party.  She did better than I did.  Toward the end my stomach started complaining. I had a belly ache all that evening and all of Sunday.

 Aunt Ruth Stone and Mom

 Blowing out the candles with Lisa, Heidi, and Sarah in the background.

Sunday we went to an early sacrament meeting and then went to Mom's church to be there for her birthday recognition. Some of Sue's kids came as well so Mom had about 20 family members there.  After church everyone went over to Mom's house, then Sue, Steve and Tom went to Sally's for a Sunday dinner with all the kids in the area. Apparently a good time was had by all...except me. I went to Cynthia's and to bed.  I just slept for hours and seemed happy to lay there for the rest of them.

Monday I was a little better and finally had some dinner that night. Sue made a great quiche!  Tuesday Tom and I went to the temple. Then we went out to lunch at Olive Garden with Mom, Steve and Kathy, and Cynthia and Jim.  Sue and Steve left that morning to return to Brentwood.  I LOOOVVEEE Olive Garden Salad. [When I got to Miranda's a few days later, she had some Olive Garden Dressing in her frig!  Joy!!! and she let me take it home!! Yummmm.]

Tuesday we also did laundry and packed.  Cynthia and Jim try to watch something enjoyable in the evenings before bedtime.  So we've watched Family Feud most nights.  It gets you both thinking and laughing. I don't have a lot of contact with TV in Mountain Home, so I was struck by the increase of sex in so many areas-- advertising, questions asked, innuendos-- not gross, but just present.

Wednesday we flew back to Miranda's.  Miranda picked us up at the airport and we went to Costco's to buy all the refrigerated stuff we'd need for the reunion. Miranda had been having a McClellan reunion of her own this past week. They had initially gathered at Andy and Kera's but Wednesday a good bunch of the group descended on Miranda's house.  She had father, brother, sister-spouse-baby, and Kera's family with the youngest 4.  I was impressed that they managed to shoehorn us all into the house and we mostly had separate rooms and all went well.

Thursday we got up pretty early and headed home.  I forgot to say that while we were gone, an uninvited varmint got into the chicken cage and killed one of our 5 laying hens. Wally came over and secured the chicken coop run and laced every piece of fencing up tightly. Then Ernie called to say he thought Murphy (our orange cat) had been killed by a car in front of his house.  And finally, that morning Barb called all distressed.  Three more chickens had been executed-- even within the safety of the chicken tractor. She could not find out how they'd gotten in.  And one lone black hen was in the run... with all the chicken tractor doors closed.

We bought traps on the way home. When we got home and unpacked, we had dead chickens to clean up.  We did find a hole dug under the fence and a place where they pried the chicken wire away from around the door to the chicken tractor.  Thus the mystery was solved about how they got into the chicken tractor and run.

Tom has set the trap every night since.  We had to release a cat the first evening, but have caught two possums and a racoon.  The racoon looks to be adolescent, so there may be a family foraging in our area.  These three critters are now foraging in areas several miles away from us. The racoon spent most of the night trying to dig his way out of the cage.

 And the Saturday night Possom.

We let the black hen wander around the yard for a few days-- putting her in the outer part of the large coop at night.  Then we tucked her in with the younger hens and she seems to be doing fine.

Saturday morning Tom had his 5k Gassville in the Park race.  It had rained most of the week.  It was sprinkling Saturday morning as well. I was under a canopy helping to pass out numbers... but the runners got a little damp. Also, many of the vendors typically drive on the grass to their site to set up. Alas, a number of them got stuck in the mud.  Even a single heavy rain would not have been a problem, but we'd had inches that week and the ground was really saturated.

I got caught up on some of the writing work I needed to do. I'd planned on doing something in the garden-- weeding, picking, but with the rain, I escaped that job.  In the evening Tom brought in a huge bowl of peas.  So I shelled peas that night-- probably 6-8 cups worth.

Today was a lovely fast Sunday.  Great testimonies and good lessons.  A lot of people talked about how they joined the church and the blessings of temple work and family history.