This week was a work week.  Our duplex in Midway was empty on the bottom.  We checked it out.  It had been purchased shortly before we left on our mission.  We’d not done very much to it, and on inspection, it looked like a hodge-podge.  It has 4 rooms and an entry way—and everyone seemed to be a different color.  Some trim was primed, some painted, some wood.  The countertops in the kitchen were two different colors.  There was no baseboard.  So Monday Tom changed the sink countertop to match the other.  

Tuesday he patched holes and such and I primed the wood trim. Wednesday we hauled out new baseboard and all the trim got painted along with the bedroom, living room and entry. Bath is paneled and the kitchen would need the cupboards painted if we tackled the walls.  We decided that would be phase 2.  Tom went out Thursday and installed the baseboard, new blinds, old washed valiance, and calked around the a/c.   The upstairs neighbor said there had been a problem with leaking on one wall.  We checked it out.  Yep, just plywood on the little entry wall.  So Monday Tom will go out and take off the plywood, replace the insulation, and put up vinyl siding. (Actually continue the same siding along the wall to cover the entry wall.)  It looks much cuter.  Tenant is due to move in on the first, so we need to be done soon.  Photos: Below Entry way.

 Living room looking from the patio deck.

 Kitchen, looking from the living room.

 And here is the cheery sight we get to see as we turn into our drive.  I love the blossoming crepe myrtle! They just bloom and bloom.

Tuesday after we’d been home a bit, Tom went out.  AKKK!  Something had attacked the chickens.  Feathers were everywhere!  One dead chick—the speckled Sussex—lay near the gate. A hole had been dug near the gate as well.  Two chickens (the old red rock and my favorite favorili) huddled in bewilderment at the edges of the play area. Two were nowhere to be found. Except for a bit of tan fur on the fence at the whole, we had no idea what had caused the mayhem.  When Tom was out in the field a bit later, he saw a chicken outline.  Ahah! The younger red rock.  Still alive!  We shooed her back into the pen.  Then we wandered the fields calling for the Americana.  No luck. 

But the next day she turned up wet and bedraggled under the porch.  Each of the living birds had bare patches and punctures on their backs.  We doctored them with essential oils.  Alas, the favaroli had ones under the wing as well and torn skin and maggots got into them.  Ugh!  I really liked her.  So I put oils on and plucked the maggots off with tweezers as they crawled out.  Alas, she perished anyway.  On Friday, our neighbor’s dog was out.  They hadn’t been out for a while.  I sent him back home.   Later that afternoon I saw him in the chicken area, circling the chicken coop.  Close inspection showed brown fur.  The culprit!  He’s not a bad dog; he just loves the thrill of the chase.  We’re working to help her keep him better penned.

I had been doing a cleanse for the past 10 days.  I actually had been feeling pretty good and having more energy in spite of drinking only 2 tbsp fresh lemon juice, 1-2 tbsp grade B maple syrup, and 1/8 tsp Cayenne pepper in a 14 oz glass of water.  But I could have it every 1-2 hours and I drank water in between.  Friday was my last day, and I have to say, I was excited to get back to food.  I lost nearly 10 pounds.  Tom and I have been walking every day, too.  And my new goal is to not eat sweets until I lose another 10 or I think my belly’s downsized enough.  It’s hard.  I find I eat when I don’t want to do something else.  I’m at the computer and hit a tough spot and think… Oh, let me get something to eat.  I was a good girl and planned healthy menus for the next week and went shopping and bought everything I needed on Friday.

Saturday we finally got to the garden.  I’d wanted to plant a fall garden. It’s not a lot, just peas, beans, broccoli, beets, lettuce and spinach—a short row of each.  I will be interested to see if they actually produce before winter.   Some won’t produce until the end of October or November.  But the chart still says they can be planted…. Hmm… it’s put out by the seed company… if they sell them, does it matter to them if they grow?  No, I won’t allow negative thoughts.   They’ll be wonderful!

Sundays offer their own entertainment.  I sit behind the 3 year olds in Primary.  One little red-headed boy is SO CUTE!  He’s on his chair… and off… and half on.  He screws up his face or claps his hands over his eyes. On the other side, a visiting brother and sister were batting one another with her pink flip-flops. .  It’s probably less fun for his teacher to see than for me, but she seems very placid, too.  I did help escort the younger flip-flop wearer to nursery where she really belonged. 

On the more spiritual side, it’s fun to hear the children sing the songs.  And we have a great music leader.  Last week she had kids put teaspoons with powder into water glasses.  The glasses all turned a color—that represented the song we’d be singing next--except for one that made a fizzing “volcano” for the wiggle song.  This week she had a green frog made from paper plates.  It had a pipe-cleaner tongue with a magnet on the end.  The song names were folded small and paper-clipped.  So kids came up and “fed” the frog by picking up one of the clipped songs to sing.   The music leader was so cute.  She kept saying, “The frog is really hungry!  What will it eat next?”  One kid answered, “Ravioli?”

Tom is off to a Stake Priesthood meeting tonight. Then we're off to another fun filled week.

Time to go to work

It's time to really settle in and start moving forward.  No more trips... well maybe a few.  No more grandkids visiting.... well at least not for a little bit.  It's time to get serious about life.

I'd started walking with Rebecca.  Tom agreed to walk with me and we started again after the reunion and are enjoying it.  We've been getting a bit of rain now, and one morning it was rumbling as we began our walk.  "Do you want to turn back?" Tom asked.  "No." I didn't mind if we got wet, and I didn't want to break my routine.  A few houses down the road, just before we turned off on the dirt road, the sky got darker and a few drops fell. "Sure you want to do this?"  "What's some rain?"  I found out.  It began to rain in ernest. Big, fat drops pelted. Soon the road had rivulets we had to avoid. The thunder rumbled and Tom matched it with a running commentary: "It's really raining."  "There's a lot of thunder out there." "Do you think we'll get struck by lightening?" "It's really wet!" "It's soaked through to my skin now."  While it really was a lot wetter than I thought it would be... and hard to see with rain drops all over my glasses, how could I complain?  I'd chosen it.
We got the front side soaked, than turned and walked back home, getting the back side soaked.  And a chilly wind picked up.  And I did have concerns about the lightening... although I figured there were taller trees than me around.  By that time, I was doing more weightlifting.  I figured I had an additional 5 pounds in rain-soaked clothing.  My shoes were sloshing along, totally soaked as well.  The good news is that we DIDN'T get struck by lightening.  We did, however, go in by the kitchen so we could unload the wet stuff before the wood floor.  It continued to be almost dark as night inside for a good part of the morning.

Tom got a fancy new bathroom scale for his Birthday.  It had ugly numbers on it when we arrived home from the reunion.  Something had to be done.  I'd been contemplating a cleanse for a while. People say that toxins build up in the body and when they can't be discharged, they are stored in fat.  They said, don't try to lose weight until you've gotten rid of the toxins.  So I started on a lemonade cleanse-- fresh squeezed lemon juice, maple syrup and cayenne pepper in water drunk every 2 or so hours-- plus some Young Living supplements.  Tom started on the Young Living 5 day nutritive cleanse.  We'd read about being really washed out by the cleanses, but we have not felt overly fatigued. I think it helped us get over sugar cravings.  Tom ended is cleanse today with an 8 pound loss.  I have 5 days more to go.  I'm really surprised that I don't feel all that hungry.  And it really saves time on food prep! I've lost about 8 pounds as well.  I hope I can continue in the face of Tom eating.   I did tell him  I wasn't cooking food until I was done.   He kindly waited until I was out of the kitchen to eat the grill cheese sandwich he made.

We have enjoyed the rain.  It's greened things up.  We spent a cooler morning weeding, mowing, trimming.  The tomatoes are finally producing --fat lot of good it does me while cleansing. :(   The chickens are laying a modest amount.  On the way home we bought 2  24lb boxes of peaches.  They were small seconds, but tasty.  I accuse Tom of buying too much-- He often collects more of what he likes: stone hippos, books, chocolate chips (well, okay, I can see the chocolate chips) and then we have a stack of things we don't use.   Alas, I fell into that trap.  We had ALL these peaches.   They really were too little to can, or at least that was my excuse.  I didn't want to have to peal them all.  I did want to have lots of frozen peaches for smoothies.  Well, I kept slicing and freezing and slicing and freezing and there were still tons of peaches.  We made jam and more jam.  I finally gave some away, and put a few in the frig for when our cleanse was over.  At last, my countertop is clean of peaches.   Ah, they did smell good.

Saturday we went on a date to see "The Help."  It had been recommended and I thoroughly enjoyed it.  It was a captivating view into a different world.  It held suspense, intrigue, well rounded characters and a satisfying ending.  I highly recommend it.  This is the day we also attacked the house-- dusting, vaccuming, and straightening up.  We found things to toss and things to file and things we still didn't know what to do with.  I think I'll mail them to Rebecca, as she's been so effective in organizing her new house. :)  The reason for the mandatory scourge was that Sunday was the Bishop's Youth Discussion (BYD) and it was being held at our house.

Sunday went well for both of us, I think.  Tom had a financial audit at church and people to see and meetings. I had prayed hard for the spirit in my primary class and the 4-5 year olds were the best ever!  I was so grateful.  They actually seemed to listen to the lesson.  And the leaders had a magnificently creative sharing and singing time.  I visited for a bit after and got visit taught. I wore a bright yellow dress with my lovely new daffodil purse.
 When Tom arrived home, we tried to move the computer and modem to the living room.  He wanted to show a church video on purity and it was only on line.  We tried to down load it to a disk, but it seemed impossible.  So we could get in through the internet, but our wireless doesn't work with our laptop.  So we hauled the modem out to the living room and thought we'd finally got it to work. Er, except it didn't when Tom needed it to.  I'm sure the BYD went fine just the same.  He did the object lesson with the lovely cake representing purity, and certainly got their attention as he just grabbed a chunk to serve with his hands. (Moral: Misuse of your body destroys the beauty and appeal and distances you from Heavenly Father.  or clothing does matter.  When you wear trashy clothes, people think of you differently.)   I visited with a mom while the BYD went on.

So it's been a good week.  We are settling back in and want to go to work.

Home Again, Home Again, Jiggity-Jig

Friday morning it was time to say sad good-byes to all at the reunion. We took Mom and Christina to the Portland airport and then joined up with Deborah and Ian to carpool across Oregon and into Idaho.  For part of the time Sarah rode with us.  For part of the time we listened to a book on tape.  We spent the night in Bosie.  We'd booked he hotel at Expedia and it was pretty nice.

Saturday we got up early and headed for a long drive to Cheyenne, WY. Warren AFB is there and we'd tried to get reservations there, but to no avail.  Finally we called about 6pm to see if they had any cancellations.  They DID!  I love that place!  Living room, kitchen, bedroom, comfy bed. We stopped at the mini-mart on base and bought a sandwich and burritos for dinner and milk and cereal for breakfast.  The next morning we ate, started driving, and stopped for church in Ft. Collins (actually Loveland), CO.  They had a great Sunday School lesson.  Here were some of the things that impacted me.
1. Acts 6:2  As the church grows, things need to change and there is more delegation.  The apostles say: "We need to be preaching the word of God.  Call others to serve tables."  Both are necessary-- the spiritual and the temporal.  Yet, not all callings need to do both.  Bishops can and should delegate some things.
2.  Acts 7.  Steven gives a good history of the Israelites looking to past prophets and not accepting current ones. One class member said, "People today are like the Sanhedrin.  You give them a living prophet, and they want to get rid of him and focus on the old ones."
3. The story of Simon in Acts 8.  I always thought Simon was greedy and wanted to get the power of the priesthood for money.  But this reading, it occurred to me-- he was a new convert.  He'd gotten "power" of sorcery through money.  When people join the church, often they bring their own traditions into the church until they come to understand the traditions of God.  Then, if they are spiritual, they leave behind their own ways of doing things and do them the Lord's way.  Simon simply hadn't learned what the Lord's way of getting this power was. Peter then explains that you don't get priesthood power with money and that if Simon didn't repent--didn't change and leave behind the wrong thinking of the world-- he would perish.  It looks like Simon was humble and teachable as in verse 24, he asks for help in changing.
4.  In Acts 8 when Philip was told to go to the man of Ethiopia, in the past I'd focused on how the Lord sent someone to the Ethiopian when he needed it most.  But this time, I thought of the faith of Philip as a missionary.  The Ethiopian was rich and the socioeconomic difference between Philip and him was huge.  He had guards.  He might even have been traveling-- since Philip ran to him.  There were many excuses or reasons why a person might not follow through and do what the spirit said.  But Philip just went and did... and as unlikely as it might have seemed to Philip, the Ethiopian was ready and waiting to be taught.

We headed up the road after church. We decided to take the more southern route-70 as opposed to the way we'd come on 80.  That way we'd miss some of the detours from the flooding in Council Bluffs and we'd have a chance to see new scenery.  There was indeed, miles of scenery! I think the city folk who talk about over-population need to drive across country occasionally.   There are miles and miles and miles with no people in sight.  Sunday night we clipped a coupon to stay in an American Value Inn.  The plusses: locking door, out of the elements, wi-fi, and CHEAP.  The duck-taped ceiling tiles I could overlook.  But the minuses included a cement hard bed, and the temperature swings between Dante's Inferno and the ice age, made sleep a little difficult.

We were glad to finish up our trip on Monday and sleep in our own bed.  We did stop in Springfield for food at Aldes and I grazed through the 1/2 of 1/2 store.  There was a daffodil yellow purse there that called my name!  So I decided to cast off the boring bone colored one and go wild.

I think the chickens are happy to see us.  It rained while we were gone and the grass is green once again!  I love the green.  I'm not so in love with the scale.  It said the food was far too good at the reunion.   I'd been intending to go on a cleanse for a while. This seems like a great time to start.

Picture Day

Wednesday morning we took photos.  This is Great Grandma with all the great grands.. well, all that were at the reunion.

 This was all the photographers luring smiles from the kids.

 In the afternoon, Mom sketched the fantastic view from the hill top area.

 In the evening, we had a talent show.  All the kids sang a primary song.  Violins played--Madeline, Cynthia and Susan, Rhed, Brett. The Vermeerens sang and Wendy and Heidi acted a hobo song.

 And, there was always time for a short nap.

The Family Reunion

Here are our fabulous t-shirts, courtesy of Savannah.

 The first evening we had "A Minute to Win It" game put on by Wendy.  The teams had adults and children and the games were fun-- cup stacking, transporting cotton balls on your nose (held on by vasoline.) Bubblegum blowing, shooting empty cans with rubber bands, bouncing ping pong balls into containers.

 We hiked Lava canyon.  When Mt. St. Helen erupted 2000 years ago, there was a lava flow here.  Then it got covered with trees.  Then, with the recent eruption, a mud flow went down the same path.  We saw where the trees were all new growth.   A river etched through the lava and the rock flow.

 The kids had a great fun climbing up lava flows.  I had a heart attack.  At the edge of this flow is a drop off into the river far below.

 This picture was taken from the swinging suspension bridge we crossed.  It was high across the river and it did SWING.  I waited until everyone went across.  Then I crossed in relative stability.

In the afternoon we practiced some singing.  It was a cute song about a monotone angel who wanted to sing in the Christmas choir.

 In the evening, we watched a short slide show of  the history of Mom.  Then she answered questions that people wrote out for her-- where did you meet Walt?  What did you do as a child? Why did you decide to become a nurse?

 We all gathered in the upper lodge for this activity.  And, of course, we had some time for giggles and fun after dinner and before the activity.

Mt St. Helen's

The first morning of the reunion we had a tasty breakfast made by Tom with a lot of help from his children and Robert.  Pancakes, plain, blueberry, and chocolate chip.  Bagels.  Bacon. and all the cold cereals and fruits.  Mmm. Tasty.  We needed to walk it off.  So part of the group went to Jame's (Mayne) baptism.  It was not close by.  We cleaned up breakfast, and a group of us went to Ape caves.  This is a lava tube-- the third longest one in the nation.  We only walked a short part (3/4 mi) of it.  We had a short walk to the entrance, then walked down steps into the darkness.

We had to bring our own flashlights.  We the floor on the lower tube was reasonably level, but still rough enough the little kids had to scramble over rocks.

 Here it looks like a subway, but believe me, it was dark.  Sometimes the ceiling angled in or got some smaller.  Sometimes the bottom was a narrow track. And it was cold-- 48 degrees.  When we got into the humid, warmer air, everything fogged up, including the camera lens.

 Some of our fearless trekkers at the car.

 In the afternoon, in between "Crazy 6", jig saw puzzles and volleyball.  Some went back to do the rougher upper lava tube, those who went to the baptism in the morning, went hiking the easier tube, and the kids made beach cupcakes.

The jigsaw puzzle is courtesy of Susan.  It's a map of Switzerland.  At dinner, we celebrated birthdays-- James, Steven R. Cynthia.  At dinner, I mistook a full length window for a door.  BONK!  A lump on the head and a bruised ego, but fortunately the widow took the hit undamaged.

Traveling to the Reunion

I promised Rebecca I'd keep her up to date about the reunion, since she's so bummed she won't be there. 

We left early Thursday morning on our trek to Washington.  North of Kansas City, we ran into flooding.   We had to take a detour off the interstate for about 50 miles.  I assume part of the interstate was under water.  And we couldn't cut over to Lincoln on hwy 2.  That was also under water.  Why didn't anyone talk about all this FLOODING?

I think this was deliberate-- they breached the levees in the north so there would not be flooding in Memphis and New Orleans.  This was about 6 weeks ago, and they don't expect the water to recede for another 6 weeks or more.  The second day we drove through Wyoming and spent the night at Salt Lake City.    We passed great bluffs. 

When we got into Oregon we stopped by the roadside.  I love these "weeds".  We picked blackberries and munched on the the rest of the way.  Then when Jonathan's family came to visit the kids devoured the last of them.

Jonathan and Kristy and family also spent the at Adams. And Sally and Steve and Sara and some grandchildren came to visit Adam as well. Adam and Savannah babysat some of the kids while the adults (minus Zoe) went food shopping. This is only half the pandemonium at Adam's.