Farewell to July

On Monday, I had the opportunity to meet some of my virtual string students in person for the first time!  I started teaching Jackson (bass), Audrey (violin) and Savannah (cello) Steele over a year ago when Jackson met Erik Lucas (my student since our mission) through a north Phoenix youth orchestra.   The whole family came to Missouri for Bible quiz competitions - the three youngest were in Branson for their competition and the oldest three - my students - got to compete in St. Charles!  They were able to break away and come to our house for lunch on Monday and we had a great visit.  Such a nice family.  

And, TALL!  You can see how tall in this photo.  (Jackson, Audrey, me, Savannah)

After they left, I caught a very quick nap and then was joined by my friend, Karen Brandt and we went to the Goodwill Outlet.  She had never been and I was needing more t-shirts for another rug.  We both found lots of stuff we could use.  I was so worn out after a full morning of preparing food for the Steele family and an afternoon of standing on my feet that all I felt like doing that evening was to watch A Man Called Otto again!

Tuesday we were in the temple as patrons in the morning and in the evening, Steve and I went to the church for temple recommend interviews and I worked on choir music while waiting for Steve.  Wednesday we shopped for groceries and stayed indoors the rest of the day because it was SO HOT!  While Steve was at youth activities in the evening, I cut out zippered bags to sew (for Happy Hookers) and watched Wedding Season - a cute, fluffy RomCom.  Thursday morning was Silver Sneakers yoga and more excessive heat.  I had to resume watering the yard.  We watched The Zookeeper's Wife that evening.  Friday we were temple patrons again.  Steven was to have joined us but he caught Covid and, even though the Paxlovid was greatly helping, he wisely decided to not come to St. Louis.  In the afternoon, I worked on choir music again (getting geared up for fall and Christmas) and made a three bean salad and a strawberry pie (pie making contest) for a ward Pioneer Day activity on Saturday.  

Saturday we were at the temple AGAIN - as baptistry workers.  In the afternoon there was an outdoor wedding reception for a friend in the ward.  I am sure when they planned everything, they didn't count on an excessive heat warning during the celebration from 1:00 - 3:00.   Later in the day, there was a planned ward Pioneer Day activity at the same park but, thankfully, the night before, it was wisely moved to the church meetinghouse.  Happily, at the wedding reception, we were in the shade of a pavilion but it was still HOT!  We gave Sam Carpintero and Emily Hughes a ride to both events.  And, they hung out at our house in between since there was just a two hour gap between the two activities.  We watched Encanto because Emily had never seen it.  

Sam (sitting) Emily ( standing)

Tim and Cinnamon

Steve chatting with Elder Houle (a senior missionary) at the start of the ward Pioneer Day event at the church.  

The ward party ended up being very well attended and it was SO good that it was moved indoors because, instead of the high temperatures of earlier in the day, we had a wild and crazy thunderstorm that dropped an inch of rain and blew over many trees throughout the city.  I am happy to report that my mother's strawberry pie recipe won "Best Fruit Pie".  

 

Quite the unusual week

A few months back, Danica Hill reached out to me to inquire about Nauvoo.  She is the granddaughter of Beverly Martin who I met through Family Search.  Beverly is a Fraedrich and a member of the Church (which is unusual for that line).  She and her husband live in Eager, Arizona and Steve and I got to meet her while we were on our mission.  She was a lovely woman who sadly passed away about a year after we met.  I believe Danica met me through FaceBook?  Anyway, she and her family were in St. Louis visiting her in-laws and Steve and I met them at the St. Louis Zoo on Monday morning.  What a nice family - too bad they live in Queen Creek, Arizona.

Monday afternoon, I drove down to the Mehlville School District main offices to talk more about this string teaching job.  Throughout the week, I also visited with the other string teacher and the former string teacher (who I knew through Civic Orchestra cello section) and I believe I am going to give it a try this year.  That evening, after dinner, I attended a Holly Hills beautification committee meeting and, because it was in the neighborhood, I rode my bike to and from.  That was very enjoyable whereas the meeting itself was kind of over my head as they were discussing different landscape company bids and I was completely clueless.  Oh well.  I was a warm body there, at least.

Tuesday morning, I drove Linus the 30 minutes down to Open Door Animal Sanctuary to have blood drawn.  He is apparently a hard stick, though, and the vet couldn't find a vein!  I had to drive him about a mile further down the road to a veterinary practice and, happily, they were successful.  I was not with him at either location so I don't know how old Linus took all the poking but I did not hear any loud yelps so I think he did just fine.  The blood tests show that he has a low functioning thyroid.  The sanctuary will mail me pills to give him twice a day and we will bring him back in about six weeks for re-testing.  That evening, Steve and I did a shift at the temple baptistry. The couple who usually works on Tuesday nights took our Saturday morning shift back on the first of July when I was returning from Judy's funeral in California.  

Wednesday morning, I was one of six women who helped serve lunch for a missionary zone conference.  I was hands to help shuck corn, set butter on plates, fill salt and pepper shakers, and then to serve out chicken.  It was nice to be among a bunch of young missionaries again.  It brought back many wonderful Arizona Phoenix Mission memories.  Steve did the grocery shopping while I was occupied but, on the way home,  I did stop by a Wal-Mart to get some additional items.  I got home SO exhausted that the rest of the afternoon and evening was me just doing anything I could while sitting.  I sat at my sewing machine and finished hemming Elise's t-shirt quilt! 

 

All week in the early morning, I have been pulling down bindweed and violets from the fence between us and the Alarcons.  It was slow going and by Thursday morning, I still had a few sections to go.  It was a rainy day and Sergio Alarcon and his son Edwin were not able to do their planned job (they do construction) so they and their crew worked on tuckpointing their house and Sergio sent Edwin to finish the fence weeding!  He not only finished the west fence but he also pulled down all the bindweed growing on the back gate.  Wow, what a gift!  Speaking of the back gate, one morning, as I was returning from dumping weeds into green dumpster, I snapped this picture of the flowers behind our garage. 

Thursday morning, I brought Steve and Emily Hughes (a woman in our ward) with me to the Rec Center.  Emily did her own exercising but Steve joined me in the Silver Sneakers yoga class.  That afternoon, Steve and I visited the Field House Museum located in downtown St. Louis close to the Cardinal's baseball stadium.  Eugene Field is an American poet who grew up in St. Louis and his house is now a museum.  There was a Charles Shultz exhibit that we went to see and it was delightful.  An added bonus was another exhibit on the St. Louis Browns baseball team - who later went to Baltimore and became the Orioles.  Steve really enjoyed that, too.  We fed the sister missionaries for dinner and, after they left, we really enjoyed watching A Man Called Otto.  

We each posed next to our favorite Peanuts character.  Steve's first photo of me also included Schroeder and, rather than delete it, I am keeping since he is my second favorite character.

Friday, I taught two hours of music lessons and baked some gluten-free zucchini muffins and I tried to clean but I was just worn out.  Maybe from Thursday!?!?  We did attend the temple that night, though, even as weary as we both were.

Saturday dawned cool and sunny and Steve's and my energy was restored so we took another long bike ride (long for us is about 45 minutes!) along a new section of the Great Rivers Greenway.  We crossed the Des Peres river and saw many turtles sunning themselves on rocks.  

 

Our energy levels continued the rest of the day allowing Steve to rake grass and take out trash and clean the kitchen  and bathrooms.  I was able to clean the floors and water plants and work on family history throughout the afternoon.  That evening, we attended an open house for a young woman leaving for BYU-I and we finished the night with frozen custard at Ted Drewes.  

We don't usually take trips to the zoo, a museum, drive down to Open Door and I don't usually work at missionary zone conferences so, it was for us, a rather unusual week.

Second week in July

Elise was with us on Monday, the 10th, and we took her to see the beautiful Basilica.  It is always just breathtaking.  That afternoon, Elise and I went to the church to take advantage of two folding banquet tables side by side to lay her t-shirt quilt on so we could tie it.  I put together this quilt clear back in August of 2020 while we were biding out time in Marcia's duplex waiting for our house-signing papers to go through!  Elise finally found some backing fabric a few months ago and we finally had the time to do something about finishing it.  I still need to bind the top and bottom together and I plan to accomplish that this coming week....a finished photo will be taken.

On our way home from the Basilica, we saw two cars with ridiculously out-of-date temporary plates!  I mean, TWO AND THREE YEARS past due, for crying out loud!!!!

Tuesday was a BIG DAY!  Sam Carpintero, Genie Monzon, Steve and I went to Nauvoo for the day.  Our friends from our mission, the Lucas family, were performing in the Nauvoo Pageant which was why Steve and I were going and we invited Sam and Genie along since they had never been.   We arrived around 1:00 and ate our packed lunches while visiting with the Lucas family at the house they were renting for the two weeks they were there.  It was so great to see them!  We left around 2:00 and let Sam decide what sites she wanted to visit and she chose the Joseph Smith homestead area and the Brigham Young home.   

We went to the Family Living Center next (which was wonderfully air conditioned!) and Genie and Sam went to the brick-making station and Sam also made a rope.  Steve and I just sat and rested our bones and enjoyed the cool air.  (Genie on the left, Sam on the right)

Sam was just recently called to be an assistant secretary in the Relief Society so she wanted to visit the statue gardens and the Sarah Granger Kimball home (where the Relief Society was founded)

Sam wanted to see the Nauvoo temple up close so we went there on our way to the Casey's for ice cold drinks to have with our picnic supper.  We set up the food at a shaded picnic table north of the visitor's center only to have a sprinkler come on so we scurried to a table out of it's range.  Then, a second sprinkler came on by our new table.  We moved to a third table and, guess what?  Another sprinkler!  We ended up finishing our dinner on a shady curb in the visitor's center parking lot!!!

After we ate, we had about two hours to kill before the pageant started.  All the historic sites closed at 5:00 and the visitor's center closed at 6:00.  SO, we went to an outdoor presentation by the Nauvoo Brass Band followed by an hour-long show called "Sunset on the Mississippi" on the same stage.  Both shows were performed by specially auditioned young college-age people.  And, they were super talented!  They sang and danced and played with so much energy that, by the end of the show, they were drenched with sweat.  They must consume gallons of Gatorade every night!

Finally, it was time for the pageant.  Sam has a handicapped sticker which was very useful throughout the day and particularly for the evening's show.  We were able to park right next to our seats and Sam got a golf-cart ride from the car right to her seat.  We were able to reserve our seats in the afternoon and we did pretty well, considering the numbers of MASSIVE youth groups that were in town to see the show!  And, it seemed like all the groups we ran into were from Texas (Houston, San Antonio, Tyler)  

The evening was hot and humid and, while it was fun to see the Lucas's perform, I honestly don't ever need to see another Nauvoo pageant during my lifetime.  However, should we come again to bring someone who has not seen it, we certainly will NOT drive home right after the show.  Nauvoo is 3.5 hours away from St. Louis and that drive home from 10:30 to almost 2:00 was brutal!1! Thankfully, Genie was able to drive the last half!  

Obviously, Wednesday we took it pretty slow and easy.  I purchased plane tickets for our Christmas trip to Utah and I finished up and submitted a job application for a part-time string teaching position with the Mehlville school district.  It is a before/after school job teaching 3rd - 5th grade string students.  I know, I know, I am retired BUT, I really don't love the idea of paying down the small mortgage we had to take out to get this house until I am in my 90's!!!  If we can knock it off in 5-10 years, this job would hopefully do that.  

Thursday, I checked out a Silver Sneakers yoga class at the Rec Center.  I was kind of worried that I would feel out of place but I needn't have worried.  I walked into the room full of people mostly older than me, each one sitting on a chair.  So, it was chair-based yoga and definitely geared to the aged body.  I did the reconnaissance this week and Steve will join me going forward.  In the afternoon, I took Linus to the vet for the skin condition on his back - he is balding with a brown, scaly skin underneath.  Not particularly itchy or smelly, thankfully, but the vet thinks it might be an endocrine problem and wanted to do bloodwork.  Well, that would have cost over $200!!! Thankfully, Open Door, where we adopted the dogs, will do the same tests for half the cost so Linus and I will be driving down to House Springs this coming week for his bloodwork.  Here he is at the vet waiting room....

Friday, Beckie joined us for lunch.  I tried out a new recipe - peach fritters.  Oh, my, they were delicious!  Saturday was a temple baptistry morning.  At the Southerlands afterwards, for piano lessons, there was a mother deer and her two fawns in their backyard!  I have never seen baby deer this close.

Not much movie watching this week.  I watched Cruella over a couple of days and Steve and I watched two episodes of Strange New Worlds.  It is fun to be back in a Star Trek universe.   

The garden is doing well - I pick a basket of green beans every other day.  Linus has discovered our tomatoes so we are keeping him out of those.  The squash are struggling but the cucumbers are just starting to produce.  And, my corn patch is beginning to tassel.  Humidity has returned - ugh - but that also brings rain more regularly - yay.  I haven't had to water all week.  

First week of July

July 3rd, Monday morning, after a wonderful night's sleep from my airline kerfuffle (I DID get a $200 voucher from Southwest, however), it was business as usual.  Emily and kids drove over and they helped Steve and I collect and start to spread new mulch on the back driveway out to the alley.  Our morning efforts covered about one third of the length.  It is chore that is hard on Steve's back which is why I recruited helpers.  After our work, I gave Lucy, Quinn and Larkin piano lessons and trimmed Lucy's hair before they left for home.

Tuesday morning, the 4th of July, I picked green beans and tomatoes.  I must have picked over five pounds of produce!  

The rest of the 4th of July was spent watching Civil War movies.  We started with Gods and Generals that lasted into the early afternoon.  After a nap, we ended our day with Gettysburg.  They were created by the same writer/director and were mini series on Turner Broadcasting several years ago.  Fireworks are not allowed within the city limits but no one pays attention to that law so, as we were hearing the canons and gunfire on the television, the sounds were echoed outside.  Linus and Sally were with us as we watched so I think they thought all the sounds they heard were related to the movie.  They did NOT like going potty outside, though, because of all the firework ruckus going on. 

Wednesday morning, it was time for another Happy Hookers meeting and I spent the afternoon working on orchestra business in preparation to hand off the administrator reigns to Jennifer in August.  I went grocery shopping in the evening while Steve attended youth activities.

Thursday morning, our two missionaries, Elders Stokes and Horning, came over and helped us finish the mulch on the driveway.  We made two trips to the compost site and were able get the remaining two thirds all done. That afternoon, I continued working on orchestra business.  We went to the temple that night.

Friday morning, I went myself to the compost site to fill tubs of finer mulch (the kind to go on flower beds).  I had an appointment later that morning with the orchestra president who lives in Ballwin and we worked on orchestra business.  Because he lives a stone's throw from Emily, I visited the Southerlands afterwards and dropped off half of the compost I collected for her dahlia bed.  I will use the rest for my dahlia and lily bed.  Steve and I enjoyed dinner at Culvers, compliments of Charles Tabor, the fellow that Steve does grocery buying for, and later, we watched 8-Bit Christmas.  The movie was a cross of A Christmas Story and Princess Bride and it was pretty cute, even though it had too many false climaxes.  

Saturday morning dawned cloudy and cool - rain was forecasted - so Steve and I loaded up the bikes and took a longer bike ride.  We explored a new section of the Great Rivers Greenway. 

 I picked another basket full of green beans, taught a make-up cello lesson, and, while Steve shopped for Charles, I cleaned floors that hadn't been touched for over two weeks.  We attended a baptism mid-afternoon and ran to Walmart afterwards for a few things and we were reminded to NEVER shop at Walmart on a Saturday again.  It was just crazy.  Elise arrived early evening for her birthday weekend and we enjoyed homemade pizza for dinner.  She and I then watched the new Shazaam movie.  It was cute and sometimes even laugh-out-loud funny.  The forecasted rain never fell so I also spent the evening watering.

Today is Elise's 44th birthday and we celebrated with a mid-day meal of grilled hamburgers, corn on the cob, watermelon, chips and dip, and Edy's rocky road ice cream with a gluten-free chocolate cake topped with my mom's fudgy chocolate icing.  YUM!  I was so stuffed that I didn't want to take a sack dinner to Emily's outdoor choir concert in Webster Groves this evening.  Her choir has been invited to sing at the Missouri Choral Director's Association summer convention in Springfield, MO in a week and this was their preview concert.  The evening was mild, we sat in foldable lawn chairs in the shade, the Southerlands had their picnic dinner, and it was a great time.  You see Elise wearing a mask in the background.  She has a cough that started with a sore throat so she is being careful not to spread her sickness.  Happily, she is not feverish or achy.  She is headed to the Muny this evening to see Chess on stage.  Southerlands will be attending tomorrow.  

Elise "blew" out her candles via the fan so as not to spread her germs on the cake....😂

I will close with a photo of Noah from his recent trip to New York with the Sheldon All-Stars Choir as he was preparing to go on stage with the group.  How did he get so grown up??????

Quite a week!

Emily had a birthday Tuesday, June 27th.  Steve and I joined them for dinner where I brought her requested cold BBQ chicken wings.  I had cooked the wings Monday night and we ate some of them hot with Beckie who came over for dinner.  She had to work on Tuesday so she could not join us. 

Wednesday was a day to shop for groceries and for me to pack for my upcoming funeral trip and go to a civic orchestra cello sectional rehearsal early in the evening at Jayne Hanlin's.  We played the Villa- Lobos Bachianas brasileiras No. 5 that features a soprano solo so we invited Emily to sing with us.  The changing time signatures make it a rather difficult piece of music to keep together.  Our first time through was kind of a train wreck so I ended up leading the music the second time around.  We might see if we can actually perform it...

    

It was an early bedtime since Thursday morning, I had to be at the airport for a 5:30 flight to Phoenix.  Happily, getting through security at that time of morning was fairly easy. 

I had a layover in Denver and arrived in Phoenix at about 9:00 am.  I caught some lovely morning sky photos from my window seat on the plane out of St. Louis.

I was picked up by my sister, Juli and niece, Amy and we immediately headed westward to Mojave California, stopping only twice, first at a rest stop and again to get gasoline.  Below is a scene from the rest stop.  It was hot and windy!

We stopped in Lancaster to pick up a borrowed cello from Antelope Valley Community College.  It took several days to pin down a cello but happily, the string music instructor finally replied to my email and was gracious enough to let me use a school cello.  When we left his house, and although all three of us were road weary, we stopped at the church to practice the music (Juli on piano, me on cello), set up photos of Judy on a table display (Amy did that) and get the programs printed.  I need to digress a bit to explain that Jill (Judy's daughter) and I thought that the funeral program was being put together by Doreen, the local Relief Society sister helping with the funeral.  It became very evident, however, from a text I received Tuesday morning from Doreen that she was NOT doing the program.  Jill is kind of a hot mess right now because she has a memorial service for her husband, Carl, who passed away in March, to prepare for on July 8th,  so I ended up doing the program on Tuesday.  Happily, I had photos to pull from and a funeral program from Jerri's funeral a year ago to use as a template and I managed to put it together.  I had the full-color front printed at an Office Max Wednesday morning and brought the sheets with me to Mojave to have the inside black and white printed on the church copier.  After all the business at the church was completed, we finally got on our way to Tehachapi and our Holiday Inn Express.  Evidently, it was difficult to find a hotel in Lancaster or Palmdale (Amy made the reservation) so we had to go the extra twenty-two miles to get a room.  The entire Antelope Valley is huge and the distances between Mojave and Lancaster and Palmdale and Tehachapi are so great that driving around takes not a couple of minutes but an hour between everything, it seemed.  It was so nice to catch dinner at a Thai restaurant, get out of our travel clothes, take a shower and hit the pillow.  

Friday morning at 10:00 was the funeral.  It went smoothly.  My cello number went well - I played 
Goin' Home - and I also had to deliver the eulogy.  "Little" Judy, Judy's daughter, gave the life history.  Most of Judy's family came which I was happy about - even Nick and Rhiannon from Ohio and Kendra from Colorado.  The service was rather short and it was followed by a luncheon provided by the Relief Society.  I visited with and took pictures all of Judy's family.

back row:  Sandy Worth, Nick Fischer, Rhiannon Fischer, Kendra Kabel, Noah Cross, Calvin Cross, Kevin Cross, Luke Greenelsh

middle row:  Kaylin Frank, Kristen Frank, Judy Cross, Jill Vidstrand, Soleya Greenelsh, Rachel Greenelsh

front row:  Juli Davies, Amy Ellsworth, Jeanne Lambson

Kevin Cross, Luke, Soleya and Rachel Greenelsh (Kevin is Rachel's son)

Kaylin and Kristen Frank (Kristen is Joni's daughter)

Rhiannon Fischer, Kendra Kabel and Nick Fischer (Janice's children)

"Little" Judy's family.  Noah and Rachel are two of her three children.  

Judy Cross and Jill Vidstrand, Judy's two surviving children.  Jill is one year older than me and Judy is on year younger.

After the luncheon, Juli, Amy and I drove to Judy's trailer to collect some things.  I wanted to collect a  small oil painting I had painted for Judy back in 1989.  Ray had all of Judy's photos on the dining table and Rhiannon and Kendra and we went through them to get what we wanted.  I took an album of old Young photos and a junior high yearbook and a photo album put together by a teenage Judy.  The Young photos I will distribute to appropriate people in the family, the yearbook went with Amy since it was more about her mom, Jerri, than Judy.  And the early photo album I will scan and distribute.  I also collected a quilt made by my grandmother Young.  It is damaged in places so I will have to take the good parts and make something of them.  I took some photos of one of the walls in the dining area that are just a sample of ALL the things that Judy collected!  Her two daughters will have their hands full when they have the time to go through everything.   

After Judy's place, we returned the cello and then drove the almost-hour-away distance to Tehachapi to eat a snack (the luncheon was rather meager on foods that we could eat.  Amy and I are gluten-free. Juli and Amy are dairy-free), take a short nap, get out of our funeral clothes and head into Tehachapi to see the sights.  Most of the stores close by 4:00 (???) but we found a cute toy store and a bakery and we took selfies around town.  Tehachapi is at a higher elevation so it is cooler.  It is a lovely little community.

We had such a late lunch, and the nearby Denny's had such a paltry offering for our various dietary restrictions, that we just went back to the hotel room and snacked, watched Jeopardy and HGTV and turned the lights out by 10:00.

Saturday, we left bright at early at 8:00 am per Amy's request and that got us to the Phoenix Sky Harbor by 3:00 pm.  I could have gone to Mesa to Amy's house for a couple of hours but that would have meant another 40 minutes in the car and I was so weary of driving that I had Amy and Juli just drop me off super early at the airport.  I had absolutely no line at the TSA check.  I walked right up to the desk!!!!  And, I found a nice area near the D Gates with plug-ins and a desks and chairs where I ate supper and watched movies on my phone.  I had started Esio Trot about a week ago and I was able to finish it (quite charming) and I started Lyle, Lyle the Crocodile on the way over from St. Louis and I finished it, too.  Lyle is a musical and written by the same fellows who did Greatest Showman.  It was cute.  I had so much time that I was able to take a walk all the way from the end of the D Gates to the very end of the C Gates and, if you know Sky Harbor, you will know that is quite a distance.  I finally boarded around 6:55 and was so far back in the queue that, to get a window seat, I had to take the very last row on the plane.  And that window gave me a ringside seat to the kerfuffle going on with the luggage loaders right below me.  Several of them were standing around with a couple of luggage carts full of large, flat-ish wooden boxes that apparently needed to be put on the plane.  But, it took them forever to do it!  Our flight was delayed by about 45 minutes.  After we finally got underway, I watched the Fablemans for almost the entire flight.  It ended just as we were starting to descend into St. Louis.  Outside the window, the full moon lit up scattered clouds with some lightning flashing in some of the more distant clouds.  I watched as we flew over the Mississippi River with someone shooting off large, expensive fireworks on the bank (at 1:30, I wondered???).  But, just as we got pretty low, suddenly, we were climbing again and the flight attendant announced that severe weather at the airport was preventing us from landing and we were heading to Nashville, Tennessee to hopefully re-fuel and return when the storm had passed!  Unfortunately, in the Nashville airport , everyone who loads fuel into airplanes had gone home for the night so all of us passengers were stranded from 3:00 am until 8:20 when we could finally fly back.  I spent my time on my phone communicating via text and email all the people who were expecting me to be at church on Sunday:  my co-Primary teacher, Sam and Sherri who were hoping for a ride, and the choir.  I watched the two released episodes of  Disney's new Marvel series Secret Invasion and tried to read a Mizzou alumni magazine.  Finally, I  pulled the old quilt and my bag of dirty laundry from my carry-on and used them as a pillow and I caught about a thirty minute nap on the floor of the airport.  Below is the line to get new boarding passes....

I managed to snag another window seat and it was on the left side of the plane which gave me a great view of the Mississippi River as we approached St. Louis AND of the Arch and Cardinal stadium!

Poor Steve also had quite a night - first as he awaited the plane that was supposed to land at 12:15 am and that never came, with no way to learn what was going on. When I was finally able to call him once we landed in Nashville, I sent him home to catch a few hours sleep.  Then, he had to return to the airport by 9:30 am for my arrival.  When we got home (30 minutes later), I ate a bowl of cereal and we both went to bed.  I slept until a little after 2:00 pm and spent the rest of Sunday showering, unpacking and putting things away, eating dinner, planning the upcoming week, and chatting with Elise and Kirsti in the evening.  What an end to quite an eventful week!