Glen and Alex are at Scout Camp at Camp Fleischmann this week. Glen texts me every night to fill me on what they have been up to (there are lots of merit badges and some swimming happening). It sounds like they are having a great time.
As for me, I've mostly been playing this week (company came!) with just a little bit of work (I painted the front door--the color is called "Sweet Tea").
My sister Denise, our friend Martha that we've known since we were children in Massachusetts, and Martha's daughter Jamie came up from Vegas for a visit. Although it was super hot for their visit this week, it wasn't as hot as Vegas, so it was all good. We had a great couple of days together. Talking. Eating (way too much of that on my account). Playing games. Going to the movies (Star Trek Beyond--we loved it!). It was a very enjoyable few days. Wish they could have stayed longer. Hopefully we can do it again soon.
Our front door:
The tom turkey spent a little time hanging out by the window where the swamp cooler was allowing a cool breeze for him.
Before Glen went to scout camp, we used the "Vegetti" tool that Hannah gave Glen for Christmas to turn our zucchini into spaghetti. Here we have olive oil, butter, garlic, artichoke hearts and zucchini plus some parmesan cheese. It was so delicious that I made it again while company was here.
I love July. I've decided that I think it's my favorite month of the year.
Wednesday was the quilt block of the month at the museum. This month we sewed a hen:
It was Heather's birthday on Thursday. Happy Birthday Heather! Hope you had a wonderful day!!!
And congratulations to Alicia and Dallin on the birth of baby Peter on Friday! Very exciting.
Big goal for the week: painting the outside of the house. First hurdle: choosing colors. It took a while but we finally settled on Winter Sky Grey for the house and Connecticut Blue for the trim. Winter Sky Grey is a blue-grey. We are still deciding on the color for the doors.Very dark blue? Black? Grey? Tan? What's opposite blue-grey on the color wheel? Anyone have any suggestions?
Next hurdle: prepping the house. Glen took care of that. He spent 3 days prepping the house. Then we started painting. Last hurdle (besides painting the doors): it still needs a bit touching up, but the job is mostly done!
just getting started
not exactly Tom Sawyer, but that's what I thought of with him sitting there
mostly done
looks more blue in the sunshine and more grey when in shadows
Zooloretto--So I went to a few thrift stores the other day looking for nightstands. Didn't find any of those, but Alex was very proud of me for getting the game Zooloretto ($40 on amazon) for only $1 (all games were 50% off!). It's a Rio Grande Game (we usually like those) and it won the Spiel des Jahres award in 2007. Anything that wins that is great in Alex's eyes. We've played it twice (and Alex won both times, of course). Not very complicated, but a lot of fun. There are animal tiles and you try to fill the enclosures in your zoo for points.
And our garden is finally producing food! We had our first tomatoes and zucchini this week. There's nothing like the taste of a home-grown tomato. Fabulous. Too bad it looks like we'll be getting more zucchini than tomatoes (at least for a little while).
Glen and Alex had a great time camping in Twin Lakes, California with the scouts. They hiked and biked all over plus swam in freezing cold water (ok, Alex says he didn't swim, but "more like jumped in and got out").
While they were gone, I painted a few walls. I painted the front entry (formerly sage green) and the wall in the middle room (formerly blue). They are now "City Loft." It's a warm gray color. Glen didn't even notice. He came in, dropped some things off, went back out, came back in (using the front entry, of course). He only started looking for what I had painted when he noticed the ladder and a can of paint in the living room (dang, I wish I had put them away. I wonder how long it would have taken him to notice then). He looked and totally missed it. I had to turn him around and show him what he had walked past a few times. More painting planned for this week.
not quite the right color in this photo
I think this looks closer to what's on the walls
Andrew has joined the world of bloggers and made his first post!
We went to Kathy and Gary's for our Fourth of July celebration. Didn't have my camera, so there aren't any photos to share. Just picture us eating good food and playing lots of games all day long. Hannah spear-headed some skits as well. It was a wonderful day. What a great blessing to live in America (in spite of all the craziness going on in the nation right now) and to be surrounded by family.
The wild turkeys are out and about. Alex (and others) saw 9 babies on the 4th. I've yet to see them. The daddy hangs out in our yard sometimes. Poops on our porch. Poops on Glen's car. Makes some weird noises (listen to the video clip to see what I mean--he doesn't gobble). Just as long as they don't eat our garden.
Now, Glen and I had been told that the St. Vincent's Thrift Store in Reno was a great place to buy cheap ties. Glen loves cheap ties, so after we went to the temple on Thursday we headed to downtown Reno to find the store. Turns out the bargain bin was full of flip flops and not ties this week. Glen got a pair for him and a pair for Alex. We bought clothes (including a few ties but they were $1.50 each and not 5¢) as well as some other random items.
I really like the picture frames and the mini-muffin pan I bought. But I would have to say that my best purchase was a Jim Shore item--a Nativity Storybook. I got it for $5 and guessed they might be about $30 new. Turns out it was even a better deal than that. They sell for $46 on Amazon. I'm really happy I found it.
Hannah went through a work evaluation recently. She would have had a perfect score, but 1 point was deducted. Seems her schooling gets in the way of her job because she is limited in the number of hours she can work, so she can't be a supervisor; therefore in the category of living up to her potential she only got a 4 instead of a 5. Way to go, Hannah!
And, of course, I saw more butterflies (a monarch this time) and flowers.
Not too bad considering it was taken through a dirty window
There are a few things I forgot to put in last week's post:
Strawberry moon
The first day of summer had a full moon which was known as the strawberry moon. Alex and I interrupted the game we were playing to go down Perazzo Ln. and watch the sun set and the moon rise. Beautiful.
The sunset just before the strawberry moon came up 20 June 2016
the strawberry moon
Rolling with it
While with some friends, I had to lie
down and pop my back. My friend brought out this nifty foam cylinder
that I rolled my back over. I went home an ordered one for me. Divine.
I have tried a few times on facebook to contact Bruce Neilson, a man who, I was pretty sure, was the one who taught and baptized my sister and then me. He finally saw my message and contacted me! It's kind of a neat story. This is part of what he said in his first message to me:
You may not believe this but I actually thought about you by name earlier today and wondered what your life had been like. For some reason I had to check my Facebook account (which I hadn't done since January) today and saw I had a message-yours.
And then in an email he said:
On the day of your first message in February, I was in the hospital
recovering from quad bypass open-heart surgery resulting from a heart
attack a couple of days earlier. I was recovering nicely for the next
couple of months, however, at the end of May, around the time of your
second message, I had a second heart attack and was hospitalized, due to
one of the bypass grafts failing. I did not see either of those
messages at the time you sent them, but I was recouping from the second
second heart issue and checking on classmates on June 12 so I saw your
messages. It is interesting they were sent when they were. I am doing
much better now, back working [he's an attorney] and working with the scouts (no hiking
yet!). ...hearing from
you really changed my disposition and I appreciated it.
I haven't been successful in finding his companion, Brad Barlow, however.
I don't have a photo of Bruce that I feel I can share, but I have one of his photos he took of the Fresno Temple (did you know you can upload your photos of temples to the church's website?):
Fresno Temple by Bruce A. Neilson (Fresno has the same design as the Reno temple)
And that photo led me to others on the church website that I liked:
Reno Temple by Aaron Nuffer
St. George Temple by Rick Satterfield
OK, the news of this past week.
A facebook post from November
So a video clip that had been posted last November showed up in our feed again. It was a clip from a Celtics basketball game where a guy in the audience (who looks and moves just like Eric) was dancing.
I love Eric's comment on this clip this week: I've never seen a Celtics game in my life and I'm STILL not entirely certain that this isn't me.
And since we're talking about Eric, here is a picture of a piece of art
work he did for one of his classes. I rather like it and I do find it
pleasing. I give him an A.
I asked him about the assignment. This was his reply:
Acrylic paint on vellum bristol
board- paint the background separate from the foreground elements, cut
the foreground elements out and arrange them until the composition is
pleasing.* Then glue them to the background.
*Part of the
assignment was to get atmospheric perspective in, so I knew I needed two
trees in the background, but I didn't know how to arrange the second
one until I did it.
Andrew's job
Andrew, Heather, and Henry were originally planning on joining us this week, but then Andrew had a job interview, so they couldn't come. The good news is that he now has full-time summer employment. I don't know yet exactly what he'll be doing, but he was hired on by the City of Provo. Congratulations Andrew!
Family Get-Together
We had a mini-vacation with Glen's family this week and it was so much fun.
Alex in our hotel room--almost done with his Brandon Sanderson book
Wednesday afternoon we went to the temple and did family sealings and baptisms and then went out to eat. Hannah had a final the next day so was studying, but she was able to join us for dinner. We (well, minus Hannah) were all spending the night at the Nugget Hotel. On Thursday we got up, played some games, checked out, and then had breakfast at an IHOP. We spent the rest of the day at Wild Island, our local water park, with Hannah joining us after she aced her final.
It was a gorgeous day and it was a perfect day to go as it was supposed to be 100º. I liked the slides and wave pool, but I really think just gently floating down the Bahama Mama river is my favorite thing to do. And can I just say how grateful I am that someone invented sunscreen? We were in the water under the sun from about 11:30 am to almost 7 pm and I didn't burn. Joy.
They have a special deal at Wild Waters that on Thursdays with 2 admissions you get 2 free tickets to the XD Theater Adventure. So after we were done with the water park, we went next door to use our free tickets.
The adventure itself lasts just a few minutes, but it was such a blast! You choose from 3 adventures--fighting bandits, monsters, or zombies. Alex chose the zombie adventure for us. You buckle into your seats, put on 3-D glasses, grab your gun, and watch the story play out on the screen. Of course you are trying to rack up points by shooting the zombies and not the people. It had us driving through a dark forest while being attacked. Afterwards you can see what your score was (Alex was 1st and I came in last), the top 5 scores of the day (Alex was in 5th place!), and the all-time top 5 scores. We'll have to do it again.
Alex is the one on the lower right--in 5th place with 44,000 points
Butterflies
I saw some monarch and swallowtail butterflies in the milkweed and day lilies today. Of course when I got my camera, I couldn't find the monarch anymore, but took a few pictures of the swallowtail. And the flowers.
the rough edges of her wings make it seem like she's been through a lot
So, another good week. Another week that went by very quickly. Now we're looking forward to the festivities on the 4th!
