Out of town guests allow us to play tourist

On Tuesday, my sister Juli and her grandson (my great-nephew) Kason flew into town for visit.  Juli arrived from Arizona at around noon and Kason came from Maryland just after dinner time.  On Wednesday, we took them to the Gateway Arch and met up with Emily and her four kids.  Juli, Kason, and I rode up to the top of the Arch.  Aside from some Covid restrictions - like only being able to look out of one set of windows at the top and wearing a mask - it was pretty much the same as when I rode it years ago.  

Before our scheduled ride, we toured the new museum that opened up about three years ago and Steve and I decided we need to come back a couple of times just to go through all the exhibits

this is Larkin pretending to be a kitty in one of the exhibits

 the view is just spectacular!  And, the day was somewhat breezy and I could feel a bit of swaying at the top.  Eeeeee!  

On Thursday, we met Emily, Lucy, and Noah at the zoo (Larkin and Quinn were at summer day-camp).  Temperatures were mild as the sun was behind clouds (we carted around umbrellas to ward off any rain 😁) so it was a perfect day to be outside.  

Steve matched the penguins...

That afternoon, we drove to Ballwin and brought pork steaks for Joe to grill for dinner.  Beckie came and Elise drove over from Columbia so we had a really nice little family gathering.  Later that evening, while Beckie stayed to "babysit" the youngest three, Juli, Kason, Emily, Joe, Noah, Elise, Steve, and I did proxy baptisms at the temple.  It was our first time inside since the pandemic.  It was pretty neat.

Friday morning, Juli and Kason had tickets to a new aquarium located downtown at Union Station.  They were kind of pricey so Steve and I opted to not go.  Instead, I took Linus down to the Open Door Animal Rescue facility (a thirty-minute drive one way) to have blood drawn to check on his heartworm condition.  Only, when I got there, they were short staffed couldn't do it so we will have to go down next week to get it done.  And, on the way home, Juli called to say they were finished at the aquarium.  In spite of Covid concerns, the place was packed with people (St. Louis is hosting the Olympic gymnastic trials this week and downtown was full of young girls and their mothers - most likely competitors) and Juli and Kason could hardly get to see much of anything.  Even the soda fountain that touted super-duper fancy milk shakes had an hour wait-list so Kason was disappointed about that.  

Friday evening, though, we had tickets to a Cardinals game!  

We decided to ride in on the Metro to avoid the downtown parking hassle and that went pretty smoothly.  It was only after we got at the stadium that we experienced some hiccups:  the small one was that our purses were too large so we had to pay $5.00 to store them in a portable locker trailer.  A bigger hiccup was that our digital tickets were for the wrong day!!!?!?!?!?  We bought them in early June and requested the June 25th date but somehow, they changed to Saturday June 26th!  Happily, we were able to buy new tickets - at half the price - and we got in to see the game.  I called our credit card company to dispute the purchase so I believe we will get our money back on the more expensive ones.  Fingers crossed.   Early on in the game, temperatures were warmish and muggy but as the sun went down, a nice breeze kicked up because it was bringing in a major storm front.  Happily, the rain held off until after the 9th inning.  And, darn it  - the Cardinals didn't win - they lost by one point.  The final hiccup of the night was that we got on the wrong Metro to go home!  Thankfully, Kason was not the typical teenager with his nose in his phone and he caught the error.  We should have transferred at a certain point but didn't and if Kason hadn't been watching, we would have ended up at the airport!!!  But, because trains don't run as often at night, we had to wait longer to catch the correct trains and we didn't get home until 1:00 am!   Which made getting up at 6:00 am Saturday to get Juli and Kason to the airport all the more difficult.  I dropped them off at 7:30 and went home and took a nap.  I took a second nap after lunch.  In between naps, I taught a virtual cello lesson and I did some glazing at the pottery studio.  We had Gary and Thomasina Filmore, an older couple from church, over for dinner.  What a day!  What a week!

Some nice little side notes about Juli and Kason's visit:  The downstairs shower does not leak, happily!  Kason is a movie fan and he was just in awe of our DVD collection.  We haven't added much to it in the last several years but we have quite a few from the 90's and early 2000's and those were the movies he was excited to see.  We ended up watching "The Truman Show", "What About Bob?", "The Man Who Knew Too Little", "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" (the Ben Stiller one), and "Apollo 13".  

Today is Emily's birthday and her family is coming for dinner.  I have cold BBQ chicken wings in the refrigerator (I cooked them yesterday) and a potato supreme casserole to pop into the oven.  Emily is bringing a cake.

Ever since Thursday, we have had rain on and off and everything is just soaked.  I am grateful, though, as we went almost three weeks without rain until then and that is kind of unheard of here in Missouri.  I found a lilac, a forsythia, and a false cypress golden mop on clearance at Walmart on Monday and got them in the ground Wednesday morning so they are very happy for this rain. 

 (from bottom left clockwise:  blue hydrangea, forsythia, white hydrangea, lilac, rhododendron.  The golden mop is in the middle and there are three stella del oro plants in front of it and to the right of the hydrangea)  I also harvested my first cherry tomato yesterday - it was delicious!  Looking forward to many many more.....   

 

Too many little dark clouds - I am glad this week is over

The week started with a dark cloud hanging over my head - and not a rain cloud, which I wish it was.  I had a colonoscopy scheduled for Tuesday morning.  That meant a light diet on Sunday, a liquid diet on Monday, the disgusting prep to drink, and then the procedure.  With that dark cloud, I just had a hard time feeling motivated to do much of anything on Monday and, on Tuesday, I really couldn't do much.  My brain was just too foggy from the anesthesia.  I watched a lot of "Manifest" on Netflix which reminds me of "Lost" from the early 2000's.  I watched the first episode of "Loki".  Happy news is that the two polyps that were removed were "hyperplastic" meaning I don't have to have another colonoscopy for ten years.  HOORAY!  The other happy news was that I could indulge in a 710 calorie Dairy Queen peanut buster parfait after I left the hospital.  

Another smaller dark cloud at the beginning of the week was our car air conditioning.  Steve and I had noticed it phasing in and out of cool for the week before and on Sunday, as I was driving home from another long string quartet extra rehearsal, the cool never kicked back on.  So, it was time to take it to the shop but that was rather complicated because it is our only car and I had my Tuesday procedure and Steve had a doctor appointment on Thursday and we needed to go grocery shopping.  I tried to rent a car but that was a joke!  No Enterprise cars available for rent anywhere in the metro area for a whole week and it would cost $100 for just one day!  Holy cow.  (I have listened to a podcast since then and evidently, rental cars, used cars, and even new cars are hard to find right now thanks to Covid and a few other natural disasters that shut down semi-conductor plants around the world).   Happily, Beckie came to the rescue.....I scheduled an appointment with the mechanic down the street for Wednesday and she dropped her car off Wednesday afternoon for us to use until the car was done.  Thursday morning, we were able to do grocery shopping around Steve's doctor appointment.  The very sad news is that the car needs a whole new compressor and, at $1,100, we just can't justify sinking that much into an 18 year old car with over 200,000 miles (we actually don't know how many miles it has because our Carfax report stated that the odometer was turned back at some point in it's life!).  So, we are going to try to make it with just open windows and doing as many errands in the cooler morning hours.  

Dark cloud #3 was a UTI that I developed mid-week.  It came on quickly and might have been because of the colonoscopy?  Happy to be on antibiotics now.  

Now, on to some good news.....our handyman has got the downstairs shower up and running.  He was able to re-use the faux-tile plastic panels (keeping us from having to buy a fiberglass shower stall) and he discovered and replaced the reason for the leak - it was a cracked drain.  He also put up the two walls to enclose our guest sleeping area.  He still needs to put up trim and hang the door and then I get to paint but we are making major progress. Below are some before/after photos

 

 

My string quartet, the Carondelet Quartet, had two performances this weekend - both at 3:00 in the afternoon.  Saturday's was at the historic Lutheran church in our neighborhood where we regularly rehearse and today's was at Intersect which describes itself as a place that combines all the arts together in a beautifully restored Lutheran Seminary building built in the early 20th century deep in the city (you can Google it).  You can see that the space where we played today is also an artist gallery.

We performed the "Lark" string quartet by Haydn and a five-movement Fantasie by Samuel Colridge-Taylor, a British/African composer from the late 19th/early 20th century.  I think we sounded pretty good.  Noah, Lucy, and Quinn came to Saturday's performance.  Steve, Beckie, and Kyle came to today's concert.  Overall, we had about 30 people each day.  

Saturday morning, I drove to Ballwin to help Emily with her yard sale.  Although the forecast was for temperatures in the upper 90's, we awoke to some cloud cover which really made things pretty pleasant and, when the sun was out, there was still a nice breeze when we sat in the shaded garage.  You can see that Quinn and Noah helped to promote the sale.  And, they actually brought in some business.  At noon, I drove back home with Noah, Lucy, and Quinn so they could attend the concert and have their music lessons afterwards.  We fed them hamburgers and corn on the cob for dinner and then I drove them back home.  

And, last evening, we actually had some GOOD dark clouds in the form of much needed rain.  My little rain gauge registered almost a half inch.  So grateful!

 

Summer is here

Even though it is not "officially" summer until next Sunday, it sure felt like it this past week!  It has been HOT!  And, Grandparent Day Camp, summer's main event, started on Tuesday.  Joe dropped all four grandchildren off at 8:30 on his way to work and he picked them up at 5:00 on his way home.  We had a somewhat rocky start and finish but the middle activities were great.  One of the dogs, we think Sally who has had some diarrhea this past week, left a plop of poop on the entryway rug and no one saw it until we had poop footprints on the living room floor.   Immediately, all the grandkids were ushered back outside and on to the driveway by the back door where they took off their shoes.  While they waited back inside in their socks, I cleaned off all the bottoms of their shoes.  Only then could we officially start the day with a walk around the block with the two dogs.  All four kids brought magnetic cube puzzles they had just received from Grandma Vicki and when we weren't doing our own activities, they entertained themselves with their inventions with the puzzle.  

Right as they were leaving for home, Noah couldn't find his.  So day camp ended in a frantic search.  Happily, it was discovered back in Ballwin in one of the bags.  The main morning event was to decorate cupcakes.  Each one got six.  And, they had specific instructions for decorating them to practice various techniques.  They all did very well....

(clockwise from top left:  Larkin (I helped her a little), Quinn, Lucy, Noah)

After lunch it was an hour of quiet time, each child in their own area, while Steve and I took turns napping.  Then it was music lessons, screen time, and then Joe picked them up.  Throughout the day, tables with Legos and a puzzle were always available downstairs.  

And, six DVDs were chosen by the oldest three with the plan to watch one of them during afternoon lessons.  Toy Story 2 was Tuesday's selection.

Elise finished her Utah trip on Tuesday and I picked her up from the airport at midnight and brought her back to the house.  She stayed until after dinner on Thursday.  Steve and Elise visited the Missouri Botanical Gardens Wednesday afternoon and we enjoyed dinner with Beckie that evening.  For dessert, we drove a short distance to Clementine's for ice cream and thought we were just meeting Emily but the whole family came (minus Noah who was bowling with the church youth).  It was a nice surprise and a fun time.

Thursday Elise, Steve, and I met the Southerlands again to visit Grant's Farm which is just a short fifteen-minute drive away from us.  How to describe Grant's Farm?  Well, it is 273 acres of nature right in the middle of St. Louis -  originally owned by Ulyssis S. Grant and later purchased by the Anheiser Busch family.  The main attractions are a tram ride around the park where you can see deer, bison, elk, and other wildlife; assorted animals in cages, goat and parakeet feeding, camel rides, a carousel, and, for the adults - Busch beer. The camel rides were pricey so we didn't do that.  And, we passed on the beer 😁 But, Noah and Quinn fed the parakeets.  And all but Lucy fed the baby goats.  It was hot so we enjoyed snowcones under the plentiful shade trees.  We had a great morning.

The carousel had the usual horses and a few unique animals to ride.  The dragon was extremely popular and Lucy actually waited an additional time for her chance to be first in line to get the dragon. 

I had a string quartet rehearsal Friday morning and we fed the missionaries that evening for dinner.  Steve and I helped do some cemetery clean-up Saturday morning (oooeee, it was such hot work) after my Covid test in preparation for my upcoming colonoscopy.  I trimmed at the pottery studio in the afternoon and we enjoyed dinner with Eric and Tracie Downs, friends from Columbia who were in town for the day.  Steve got to try out the "new" used gas grill we bought from our neighbor, Fred.  The chicken turned out perfectly.  And the strawberry pie I made was delicious, as always.

Saturday morning, I finished putting in the last of the plants we had purchased for the yard.  We now have two more hostas in back and three hydrangeas, a rhododendron, and three stella del oro in the front.  Most of the seeds are in the ground.  Going forward, there is still so much to do and I have to keep reminding myself that landscaping our yard will be a multi-year project.  

This week, Steve and I watched the end of season 3 of the Great Pottery Throw-down, Temple Grandon, and Clue.  

Neal, our handyman, has returned (we made it up to the front of his queue again) and so far, he has installed a ceiling fan in our bedroom, stabilized the toilet in my bathroom, and hung a door knocker on our front door.  He is now in the middle of getting our basement shower to not leak and he will finish with the addition of two walls to close off the guest area downstairs.  The door knocker is one we bought in the 80's for our house on Route Z.  For some reason, we never installed in all the years that we lived on Parker Street.  But, Steve polished it up again and it is now back in service.

And now it is June

We bid goodbye to Julina and Alex Monday morning, the last day of May and had none of the traffic issues we encountered three days earlier.  When we arrived home, Steve changed out our front door flag to honor Stratton (and all the grads- including our next door neighbor, Edwin Alarcon who also graduated from high school)

That evening, Beckie, Steve and I drove to Ballwin to enjoy a Memorial Day cookout with Emily and family.  Joe cooked marinated chicken breasts on the grill and Beckie brought beef and veggie kabobs as well.  I made cheesy grits and marinated carrots and we brought a watermelon and s'more fixings.  The weather was just perfect and it was a lovely finish to a really nice holiday weekend.  

Larkin came for preschool on Tuesday and she practiced riding her bike again.  Her legs are getting stronger and she did quite well going up and down our driveway.

Beckie came for dinner that evening and we ate yummy leftovers from the night before! Afterwards, we played a couple of rounds of dominoes before she left for home.  Then, Elise arrived since she had an early flight to Utah the next morning.  She and I left for the airport at 6:00 and after I dropped her off, I  went to check civic orchestra mail at the P.O. box in Creve Coeur. That was when I saw a text from Elise....she couldn't find her driver's license!!!  Happily, she had her passport to allow her through TSA but renting a car in Utah would not be possible without that license.  I called Steve and he checked all around the house.  I drove back to the airport drop-off site to see if it had fallen out of her cell phone card pocket and no, it hadn't.  Steve called lost and found at the airport.  Nothing.  It wasn't until two days later when I had the thought to check the bedding down in our guest room and sure enough, there it was lying amid the bed sheets.   I texted Elise to ask if we should overnight it to her but, by then, she had figured out work-arounds for getting her from place to place.  

Thursday was on-line cello lessons and the piano tuner came in the afternoon.  Friday was a trip to Menards in the morning to buy a ceiling fan. Hopefully, our handyman will be here first thing next week to start work:  install the fan in our bedroom, put up a door knocker on the front door, make my toilet not wobble, fix the leak in the downstairs shower (by installing a whole new shower stall), and build two walls to finish off the guest area.  Steve and I had teeth cleanings at the dentist mid-day on Friday and it was so nice to just walk the three blocks to the office.  

Saturday was a "do something" day:  Steve mowed and I pulled weeds and planted marigold seeds in the front yard.  We supported the ward art show mid-day.  I brought some stuff to share including some of my most recent pottery creations; the mug and matching bowl that I made for Steve, the little rainbow striped bowl and the white one with the holes.  I didn't bring the tiny blue hole-y pieces which are our electric toothbrush holders nor the tiny bowl next to them.  THAT one was supposed to be pink on the outside but the color is quite washed out.  

 

I went to the pottery studio later that afternoon and threw some more things; primarily more little bowls that will become small boxes with lids for Noah, Quinn, Lucy, and Larkin.  I also threw a vase in a shape I had never attempted before.  

Then, I went home and cleaned myself up and Steve and I drove to Ballwin to pick up Emily and we three attended a wedding reception in Frontinac for Rebecca Reid and Justin Goodson.  The evening was just perfect, the outdoor setting was gorgeous, the food had many gluten-free options, and it was just nice to sit and relax and chat with Emily since neither Steve nor I knew many of the guests.  We did chat a little with some of Rebecca's siblings (LaDawn, Sarah, and David) although parents John and Shanna had already left for home.  

We watched more of season 3 of the pottery throwdown and we watched "That Thing You Do" and I have had that song in my head ever since.  With summer weather and temperatures, we are shuffling up our daily routine to do bike riding and dog walking in the evening when the sun in lower.  We are also getting up fifteen minutes earlier each morning to give us that much more time to do yard work in cooler temperatures.  All that means that movie watching might be in the afternoon and also not as frequent.  Sigh.

Today will have all the regular activities:  church at 10, missionary coordination meeting at 2, choir practice at 3, dinner at 5, phone calls with kids at 9.  The only change today is a string quartet rehearsal at 6:30.  We have a performance in two weeks so some of us are starting to worry that we are not ready (not me).