Family Night

Tonight Blaubeere came over and brought the little feller. For family night we did "toe painting". That's like finger painting only you use your toes. So we spread a big sheet of plastic, hoping to contain the mess (ha!) and got started!
Some also did the traditional finger painting but most of the activity was with the feet.
The little feller is growing up enough that he wanted to pour the paint himself. We concluded that "a little" is a relative term, based on age. His definition of a little was quite different than his mom's definition.
When all the painting was done those that survived were hung on the clothes line so they could dry and end up flat and straight. There were some that didn't survive. They would get so wet with paint that they would tear.
And then the other thing you have to watch. There were some hanging over the rail on the deck and a certain someone backed into one without noticing. Something of an occupational hazard, I guess.

A Delightful Dilemma

Our dear, sweet little Himbeere has this hockey stick that he plays with in the winter and often, using tennis balls, in the summer too. And then his friend went to a hockey camp, the same kid that got him interested in hockey and gave him the hockey stick. So Himbeere gave him the hockey stick and asked him to see if he could get it autographed; sometimes they have famous hockey players come to these camps. So hockey great Joe Pavelski was the famous hockey player at this camp. So now Himbeere has a hockey stick autographed by Joe Pavelski that he figures will be worth some $200 or better some time after Pavelski retires (he's only been playing in the NHL since the 2006-2007 season). Be that as it may, Himbeere is pretty excited to have this great piece of memorabilia! But the only problem is, this now leaves him without a stick to knock pucks around with. Pavelski signed it on the stick and on the blade. Bummer.

So Very Far Away

The long awaited day has finally come! Stachelbeere's mission call finally came. It actually came last Friday but his Mom, sister and brother were away at youth conference and really wanted to be there when he opened it. So he was kind enough to wait until Saturday when they got back. So we packed everyone up and headed to Perkins for a celebratory dinner. Blaubeere and her whole family came over and went with us. And his sister, Heidelbeere, had said she wanted to be on the phone when he opened it so we got her on the cell phone, on speaker phone, and then he opened it. We tried to get Erdbeere on the other phone but he was too quick. This was like waiting to hear the winner of a big contest announced; "and now the winner and luck country that gets to have Elder Stachelbeere serve for two years is . . . . . . " The Marshall Islands! Wow! Everyone's first reaction was, "where's that?" Fortunately the call came with a map that showed where it was. Its out in the middle of no where, out in the ocean; longer than wide by far. There are some spots where you can stand on one shore and throw a rock clear across the island into the ocean. The highest point on any of the islands that make up this small country is 30 feet above sea level. Pray there are no tsunamis there for the next few years. He won't enter the MTC until in October so he can get all his shots and papers lined up. Wow - Marshall Islands. Every body had their guesses in but nobody guessed Marshall Islands.

Opening the letter - the moment we've all been waiting for!

Ready to go!

Guess what?! One of the hardest parts of getting everything ready to submit was the picture. But we got it done and everything has been submitted. Stachelbeere has been working on this for a while, now. So now the waiting game has begun. We're hoping his date to enter the MTC will be in mid-August. That would be perfect timing. Then we could see everybody, see our new missionary off and be back in time for the beginning of school. Yeah, that would be great.

Stachelbeere has been working with our Branch President to go on a mini-mission before he goes on the actual mission. That will involve a couple of weeks staying with full time missionaries, doing what missionaries do. That will be an adventure.

A Small Water Problem

Almost a month ago we had a small water problem at our house. Water in our home is a very nice thing, as long as it stays where it is supposed to. We had some that didn’t. So we had three rooms upstairs and every room downstairs that got wet. Two bedrooms and the laundry room were unaffected. That was enough that we’ve made an insurance claim for it. So first, the day it happened, we cleaned up all the water (and it was a lot) and hauled out tons of wet stuff, out to the garage to dry out. Then the insurance had an outfit that came and dried the walls and floors out. We had eight or nine industrial fans and two great big dehumidifiers going for about a week. Talk about noise. You practically had to yell or be standing next to the person you were talking to if you wanted to be heard. These blowers chain together (i.e., you can plug one into another so they put some of them together on each other) and then just plugged them in to the closest outlet. Well, of course that would trip circuits so the first day or so we had to rearrange how they had them plugged in so we didn’t keep tripping circuits. That was an interesting experience. At one point our freezer downstairs went all night without running. Fortunately it never got opened during that time and everything in it was fine.

As things were drying out the service also began tearing out stuff that was damaged and ruined by the water. We did some of that, too. One nice thing about all this is that the insurance let us do some of the work and considered it compensable so we were able to take care of our deductible that way. Anyway, carpet, paneling and ceiling tiles went out. It was like moving again to pack up all the stuff so we could move furniture and stuff out of the way to be able to get all the wet stuff out. Because the dining room got wet flooring had to come out. That meant our kitchen table went out to the garage. So we’ve been without a kitchen table for almost a month now. I had never realized how central a kitchen table is to so much of what goes on in a home. We haven’t been able to have a comfortable sit-down meal at home for almost a month now. Or think of all the other stuff that gets done at the kitchen table; homework, other study, family games. All kinds of stuff. Downstairs everything got ripped out pretty much clear to the studs. So you could stand over by the fireplace and see clear into the back corner of the back bedroom. Nice wide open feeling.

I really haven’t been taking pictures at the various stages of all this uproar. I have had no desire to do that. This week they began the reconstruction. The first thing that happened was our stair well got patched and painted. Right at the foot of the stairs a little bit of drywall went clear to the floor and so it got wet. A chunk not quite a square foot had to be taken out and patched. And to have it all match the entire stair well had to be painted. That matching principle is working to our favor in all this. Now they have started putting up paneling in the family room. We got to pick the paneling, ceiling tile, laminate flooring and carpet. That was nice. They did some analysis on the stuff that had been taken out and gave us the price range, based on the quality of materials that was damaged. So we got to pick the new stuff. We went with lighter paneling in the family room. The stuff that was in there before was pretty dark so this new stuff will lighten up the room quite a bit. The new carpet down there will be a little darker, too. I think the ceiling tiles will be next and then probably the carpet installation.

At one point I had hoped they would do the dining room first so we could get our kitchen table back but if the downstairs gets done first that’s okay, too. That room has been the most work because it’s so big and has the most stuff in it. Once they finish that room and we can put everything back it will really reduce the chaos in this house. The kids whose room is down there have basically been living out of suitcases all this time. It will be nice for them to be able to get back to some sort of normalcy again. And while the carpet has been out some ladies from church offered to come help paint our bedroom since we’ve never been really happy with the green walls in there. So that got finished yesterday and it looks so much nicer in there. We’ve been very blessed by several of the people at church who have been willing to come on short notice and help us at various stages of this mess. It’s been amazing. It’s really true what they say, “Many hands make light work.”

It’s so nice to see the reconstruction finally getting started. They are not moving at a real fast pace but every day they do work things get looking better and it just cheers the soul to see the house getting put back together. In some ways this actually has been worse than moving, if you can believe that. But this has been another example of the Lord helping us thru the adversity. It’s unrealistic to expect the Lord to spare us from all adversity but time and time again He shows his mercy by giving help to get through the adversity. It’s a marvelous principle once you begin to see and understand it.

Summer Time's a Comin'

This morning it was rainy and cold when we got up so I wore a jacket to work but by the time I got off work and left for home it was 79 and sunny. Niiiiiice. So when we got home I cooked hamburgers (nope, not on the grill, just in the oven) and ate out on the deck. That was nice; very pleasent. Afterward, after the food was cleaned up, a game of catch got going out in the back yard.

Look whose still got it! Note the hunt for the ball going on over the back fence.

Everybody was in on it

Yep, everybody.

Bop It, anyone?

A few years back we got a little toy called a "Bop It" for Christmas. It's innocent looking enough but it has proved to be a great source of fun around here. So last weekend we had company over for the weekend and the Bob It was out. We actually have two; a regular Bop It, which has three actions you have to do. The other is a Bop It Extreme, which has six actions. When you turn it on and start to play it will tell you which action to do and you have about a heartbeat to do it. Otherwise it yells and the game is over. Then it will tell you your score. Very intense. The highest score in recent memory is 252.

People can get pretty serious about playing it. They will find a position that allows them to do all the actions quick enough and then start. You can set it so it either says the actions you need to do or just makes a noise for them. It makes a noise back when you do the right action in time. It can be a noisy game. Maulbeere here didn't need it in this position to be able to hear, its plenty loud enough. This is one of her playing positions. Note the look of concentration.

Our grandbaby and his mom were over and he had to get in on it, too, tho his scores were a little lower than some of the others were getting.

Blaubeere was playing and guess who was watching oh so closely.

Everyone was getting into the act.

Then the grandbaby decided he had shared enough and was ready for another turn.

Patience triumphs in the end!

A Few Birds

We were out gathering up bags for the second half of "Scouting for Food" this morning and saw these two ducks. We would call them "puddle ducks" as they were standing in a puddle at the end of a drieway.

A little later in the day today Maulbeere took my camera out and just wandered the yard, looking for stuff to take pictures. She saw this little bird sitting in a bush out back, near where we have a bird feeding up right now. I thought it was a cool effect how the camera focused on the buds right in front of the bird.

This cardinal was sitting on the fence out back, too. We have seen qutie a few of these this spring.

Some of the pictures she gets are pretty cool.

Some days are harder than others

As you may have guessed, Sweet little Himbeere has a penchant for sleeping out in the back yard. I'm not sure I understand this. After all, we provide him a perfectly good bed in a bedroom all by himself inside the house. Nevertheless, he likes to sleep out in the back. And some days he's harder to get up than others. So yesterday morning, everyone else was up and about and he was still in bed. Time to leave was drawing nigh and he was still sawing logs. So we formed a committee and undertook to get him up. Hollering out the back door hadn't done anything up to this point so we got a little more intrusive.

The shake and the rattle didn't do much, either.

But the roll proved effective.

Ta da! He was out of bed!

Oh, Happy Day!!

You know how it is? You have a son get a mission call and you steel yourself for two years of not having him around, not being able to see him any more than letters, emails and a few phone calls on special holidays. You tough yourself for two years to be able to get thru it and then suddenly, its done! Amazing! Whooooa, he's home! And home he came! So we had almost everyone there at the airport, a welcoming committee, if you will. It was way cool.

Then came the hugs and tears. Two years can be so long and it feels so good when its over.

Soon as we were done at the airport we headed up to the stake center so he could meet with the stake president and have his "exit interview".

This at the map that is on the wall at the stake center. He's pointing to his name. He said that was an unusual experience. That was when the release came. When that was over he was no longer a full time missionary.

The "welcome home" cake, courtesy of his two younger sisters.

Lots of signs all around to help him feel welcome. But there was one that said it all.

So now his calender is booked with speaking appointments; stake conference and two sacrament meetings. He'll be speaking every weekend until he heads out west. Its so good that have him home!