Bad News

Bad News!

I passed "Carolyn's Discount Grocery" yesterday and there was a sign out front that said, "Going Out of Business".  That makes me sad.  I liked going there every couple of weeks to stock up on some of their bargains.  Oh well, I guess that's life.

 

Three Things

 I must have forgotten I had a blog page.  Better put something on it so it stays active. 

First of all, I had a doctor's appointment yesterday with the doctor in Rolla who did my abdominal surgery last year.  I just do follow-ups with him.  This is a picture that he has hanging in his office.  I was really impressed with it, as am I with Dr. Voight. If you look carefully you'll see that Christ has one arm around the surgeon's shoulder and the other guiding his hand.  Pretty cool, huh?

That tiny baby is growing up.

A couple of days ago Alan needed to drive the elders to Springfield, MO where they were to attend a meeting with the mission president and one of the 70.  He was to attend the meeting with them.  I figured if he was driving to Springfield I might as well take advantage of the situation and go along so I could stop by and see Karen & her family.  Here is Henry pulling up to the toy box and choosing something to occupy his time.  It won't be too many more months before this little guy will be walking all over the place.  Or if he's like his brothers & sister he will be running all over.

Amy, this one is for you.

The meeting was held at Karen & Mike's church building. Before we left Springfield we stopped off at another LDS church in Springfield.  They were having a Creches & Carols program inside, along with a live nativity outside.  This nativity is made by quilling paper. Amy & I were discussing quilling the other day, so I thought she'd be interested in this.

A Place of Peace

When I went to St. Louis earlier this month I was touched by the beauty of the temple surrounded by trees that have been changing to their Autumn colors.  I had a few minutes before needing to be inside so I tried to catch the look of it in a few snapshots.  Here is my favorite.  I love this place.

I liked that Moroni was sort of framed by the limbs.

This shows more of the trees. Unfortunately they cover a lot of the temple.  I'd rather not have the cars in my picture but I'm glad these people were there.

Snap Dragons

Snap Dragons -- You gotta love 'em.

Last Week or So

I've been on the road the past week or so.  Toward the end of July I drove to Jeanette & Jason's to watch the kids while they took a little time out for themselves.  It was almost their tenth wedding anniversary and they so rarely have an opportunity to get away.  Even though this was only for a little while I hope they had a good time.  The kids were fine and behaved well.

The boys really like to look at books.  Here they are all comfy with their blankets, sharing a pile of books.

 

I was pretty happy with this one.  They were still reading, but took a quick break to react to one another.

Noah & I played Mr. Potato Head while Sawyer was napping.

Then on to Amy's for my temple week.  While there Hailey decided to make us all some earrings out of smiley face stickers.  She stuck two of them together to make dangley ones.  Later I got a smiley face bracelet and giraffe earrings.  Sorry I didn't get a picture of those.

 

 

 

 

Just in case you missed this on Facebook, here is Mr. Bean as he appears in famous art.  He was in several pictures, but this is my favorite.

Pioneer Day Activity

This past weekend Salem Branch had a social based on Pioneer Day.  It was also a reunion inviting those who had been members in the past but had moved elsewhere.  We had a good attendance, but not many people who fit into the reunion part of it.  I guess that makes sense, as most of those people don't live close any more.  Here are a few pictures from the social.

The stick pull was a lot of fun.

 

 

Getting the grill ready

Here is the chef, waiting for the coals to heat up.  He wore a white shirt and managed to keep it clean all day.  That's probably better than I could have done.

Some  of them found a good place to eat and hide from the hot sun.

This was Elder Wilson's last day with us. (on the left)  He was temporarily located here while he waited for his visa to come through.  He left that afternoon for the mission office -- and then off to Australia!  We get to keep Elder Naef.  We're very glad of that.

There was lots of visiting in the shade.  Did I say it was HOT?

Another Pioneer game

And another -- the sack race was popular.  I didn't get a photo of the three legged race.  I did get a video, but I won't post that.

This little bulldog was a popular addition to the picnic.

Have you ever held a butterfly on your hand?  This girl walked around with one and it just stayed with her.  Oh, and yes, it was alive.

Moving the Library

Yesterday was a very busy day for many members of Salem Branch.  We have all been advised to get busy and serve our community, so several of us volunteered to help with the moving of our Public Library to its new building.  We boxed books, dismantled shelving, loaded trucks and transported lots of stuff to the new location.  It was actually fun.  Somehow when a group of people get together and work for a common cause it brings out the best in them. We got quite a bit done; the librarians were very appreciative.  Boy, were we tired when we got home.  We were there from 8:00-4:00.

Things were starting to clear out even before we started to work.

It starts to look bigger when you take out shelves and computers.

I can't even imagine how many boxes of books moved out of this small library.  We scoured the community for boxes and even ended up creating some of our own out of mismatched cardboard pieces.

Packing books and taking down shelves.

Here I am leaning on my dolly.  Maybe I could get a job working on the highways?

The new building will be much nicer but, still it's sad to see the old familiar library emptying out.

 It was a VERY humid day.  Apparently when we took the camera outside there was condensation on the lens.  I worked with it and got rid of much of it, but this was the best I could do.  In this picture our elders are loading up one of the trucks.  We drove four of them at a time to the new location two blocks away.

Happy Birthday, Emily! ---- (Still)

Emily's birthday was on June 22, which we celebrated here.  We had lots of balloons and the kids enjoyed playing with them.  They discovered that if they put a balloon over the air conditioning vent it would fly up and bob around until the air kicked off.  When they left for home this little balloon was still over the register.  Today is July 19 and this balloon has been over the register since June 22.  It goes up and dances around, then falls back onto the register until the air starts again.  We have left it there, wondering how long it will take before it stops this interesting little game.  I've been trying to upload a video of it, but with no luck.  You'll just have to take my word for it -- this balloon is in the air even though the picture doesn't really show it.

Volunteers

Since I was going to be gone so much in the Spring and early summer I opted not to plant flowers in my window boxes this year.  I just wouldn't be around to take good care of them and I hated the idea of buying all those bedding plants and then having them dry up and die.  One day I noticed several little familiar looking seedlings coming up, so I pulled the weeds around them and let these grow.  Some of the snapdragons I planted last year had placed seeds in the soil and they came up on their own.  We've had a pretty mild Spring and Summer so far with a fair amount of rain.  I don't expect that will last, but I'm pretty happy to have the flowers that are there, even though it's not as many as I usually have.  Good ole Mother Nature.

Alan Goes to Girls' Camp

Here is the fun activity for today.  Since Alan is the branch president now, he has been invited to attend Girls' Camp on bishop's night.  He said they fed him a "bag lunch".  They dumped Doritos into a Ziploc bag, followed by some taco meat, cheese, corn, black beans, salsa, sour cream, etc.  Then you got a plastic spoon so you could eat this out of the bag.

There were games set up for each of the eight Young Women values.  The girls had a really good time with that.  Finally they had paint in the value colors in squirt bottles.  When the whistle blew they ran to the paint table and "went to war", seeing how much paint they could squirt on their friends.  Here are a couple of pictures that go along with this.

Alan and the Salem Young Women had a good time at Bishop's Night.

Aren't they cute?

Grandchildren Were Here

There was good and bad to this visit.  The good is that it's always a happy thing to spend time with family.  The bad was the reason for the visit.  Mike Jacobs' dad, Ken, passed away on Tuesday, May 19.  Mike, Karen & family had come here and spent a week with us when Ken had a car accident on the 10th.  They went home for basically one day and then came back because Ken had taken a turn for the worse.  He was gone by the time they were able to get here.  All of the Jacobs "kids" and many other family members were able to be here for the funeral.  It was planned very well and was a very uplifting meeting.  Ken would have been proud of his family.  We know that he always was.

Amy came down and watched children while we went to the funeral.  It was nice to get the grandchildren together too.  They love their cousins.  Here are a few pictures from the visit.

Henry wasn't in the mood for a bath this evening.

Charlie is a blur in this picture, but I thought it actually showed Karen's life better that way.  Note his hand around her neck.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Emily loved drawing with the markers.  Notice the cute little feet.

 

 

I love the way babies sleep with their little short arms up by their faces.

Henry posing with his grandma.

He looks SO much like Charlie in this one.

Henry loved it when his Aunt Amy sang to him.  Notice Hailey's little hand petting his head.

Khoen & Andrew liked relaxing on Grandpa's big chair to watch Netflix.

My iris began blooming while company was here.  We had some rain that morning; I thought the drops looked pretty on the petals.

Emily & Hailey watched Netflix too.  I think Emily got more "into it".

Khoen & Hailey used sidewalk chalk on the front porch --- and on their faces.

I just thought this was a particularly pretty one of Hailey.

Like mother - like son.

Babies look so darn cute when they stretch.

Charlie is a good smiler - like his mom.

A Few More

Here are a few more pictures of Henry.  

I always loved yawning baby pictures.

This is the slightly confused expression we normally see on a small baby.

This was a picture that I got sort of as a fluke by just taking a series of quick snaps.  I don't think he was really smiling but it looks like it.