Nauvoo and beyond...

Yesterday, the Columbia stake single adults took a day-trip to Nauvoo.  We had 13 individuals (which included Steve and me) in three vehicles.  
 
 Standing:  Walter Minner, Lizzy Crippen, me, Melanie Johnsen, Steve, Betty Stowe, Ted Devere, Natalie Johnson
Sitting:  Nancy Roark, Luana Harrison, Hollie Spencer, Betty McKinley, Yvonne Washburn

 We left at 8:00 am and didn’t return until 9:30 pm.  
 
  Some of us attended the temple while the rest took a wagon ride around Old Nauvoo.  We ate lunch at Grandpa John’s Café in downtown Nauvoo.  

 
 The flowers on the temple grounds were gorgeous.

 



 

 
 
 Look, they even had tablets in their schools back then
 


 
 I love this desk from the John Taylor home

 
 Potty training, 1800's style


 This shaving stand actually belonged to John Taylor

The rest of the week was fairly typical – I got a haircut, did some visiting teaching stuff on Thursday, I worked on doll clothes for Lucy’s birthday gift.  I had RBHS on M-W-F...we are working on our final concert scheduled for April 30th.  I substituted in seminary on Wednesday and Friday.  

 My Netflix this week was “Ghandi”.  I must have put it on my list when Richard Attenborough died and I read all the movies to his credit.  Steve truly had NO interest in watching it but I found it quite interesting.  It is a long film and it took me two days to get through it. 

One of the several private students I teach in exchange for work (like cleaning) had a lesson on Friday afternoon and she helped me with a project I had been wanting to do for several months:  pull down some old stored items from the very back of our over-the-garage attic.  It is a challenging attic because you can't stand up in it and there are beams every two feet or so to crawl over.  Plus, there are nails poking through the ceiling (they are holding down the roof shingles) so one really has to crouch-crawl all the time while up there.  Erneisha and I must have hauled about 10 tubs and/or boxes out.  Tubs and boxes that contain children’s clothing, toys, games, home pre-school packets, dress-ups, an unused violin case and cello case…It was dirty, dusty, and somewhat warm work.  And, now the task of sorting lies ahead of me.  Yay.  

Steve spent his spare time this week working on a talk he had to give today in Linn.  I was assigned to speak in Moberly.  Steven was assigned to the Highlands ward.  Lambsons were all over mid-Missouri today.  So was spring rain - which made for some beautiful cloudscapes above a landscape of redbud, dogwood, and all kinds of trees in all shades of green. 

blooming fruit trees

Have you ever smelled apple blossoms????  Wow.
This tree has never bloomed before.  It is just loaded with blooms this year.
 

This is our Granny Smith tree

And here is our little Lodi apple that we just planted last year

Finally, our pear tree next to some purple phlox

More spring joy!

The redbud are in their glory this week.   

 It is so beautiful to see splashes of purple everywhere.  All the fruit trees are blooming – and, for the first time this year, all three apple trees have blossoms. 

I have started to do yard work again – this week, I transplanted two blueberry plants and checked on my strawberries that are beginning to have blossoms!  Steve has begun harvesting asparagus. 

We both worked ourselves into exhaustion over the Clean-up Columbia project yesterday.  It started, though, on Wednesday when we walked all around the Oakland Manor neighborhood (60 houses!) and taped invitation flyers to help pick up trash along the Bear Creek between Blue Ridge and Northland from 9-11 on Saturday.  We also walked the trail to see how much trash we might find.  That was a lot of walking!  Then, it took the whole two hours to do the trash pick-up Saturday morning.  Steve took the creek and I took the trail next to it. It is amazing how tiring it is to bend over and pick up stuff.

 

 

Sadly, no neighbors took up the invitation to join us but we did meet a family along the trail from the Derby Ridge neighborhood picking up trash.  They have actually “adopted” the exact portion of Bear Creek as part of a stream-team and they helped us by taking our trash bags from the trail to the street in their wagon.  By the end of the two hours of trash pick-up, and the thank-you picnic for all the volunteers at Twin Lakes, we were so tired. 

Friday night, Steve’s colleague at the law school, John Dethman, took us to dinner at the Sycamore Restaurant in downtown Columbia.  It is a very nice place with incredible food.  John insisted we not worry about the cost so I had an amazing roasted beet and current salad followed by a delicious beef filet, mashed potatoes, and brussels sprouts.   Steve had ham and corn chowder and then trout with horseradish sauce on potato lattkes and spinach. For dessert, I enjoyed a flourless chocolate cake with a scoop of Sparky’s rocky road ice cream.  Mmmmmm. 

We came home to watch Steve’s April movie “Taking Chance”.  Boy, you gotta watch that film.  It is so good.  I watched “Alexander and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day” Saturday night.  It was surprisingly funny and had a good message. Monday, for home evening, Steve and I watched "Hundred-Foot Journey".  You can now find that title on my Amazon wishlist.

Thursday evening, I provided a student string quartet to play prelude music for a school award banquet at the Tiger Hotel.  These kids are SO good.  

 

 I had a school meeting right afterwards with all the instrumental music teachers from Gentry, Jeff, and Rock Bridge.  I really didn't need to be there, since it was to discuss schedules next year, but I was curious as to who had been selected to take my place.  It will be the Jeff teacher, Alison Schmidt. Boy, she has a big learning curve next year.  I stuck around and made a baby hat and when I was finished, I left.  We all will get paid for our attendance.  

It was fun to return to CCO rehearsals this week after taking a break to be in the Easter cantata.  We are playing and Americana concert this time - Lincoln Portrait, Fanfare for the Common Man, Stars and Stripes Forever, and Barber's Adagio for Strings.  Love it all!