The Reunion (and the river)

The Ike and Florin family reunion was small in attendance but mighty in comraderie! Juli, my sister, worked very hard to make it happen and she did a terrific job. We gathered at 11:00 and played a Florin and Ike trivia game and viewed a table with artifacts from their lives and looked for ourselves on a chalkboard pedigree chart. Brent brought a huge poster he had created a while ago that included even more genealogy. Lunch was next and we enjoyed create-your-own sandwiches with plates of cold cuts and condiments and everyone brought sides to share. Juli baked oatmeal cut out sugar cookies that Florin used to bake all the time. Amy brought delicious gluten free cookies for me (and her) to enjoy.  We had a good family meeting afterwards and then it was time to take a photo and say farewell until 2029 where we are thinking we might have the reunion in California.

Back row:Cory Ellsworth (all you can see is his right arm),Emily Nicoll holding Jace, Amy Ellsworth, Parker, Brig, Evie and Brent Bowden, Jim Nowden, Anne Bowden Stokes, Steven, Steve

Middle row: Rob and JoAnne Bowden, Rose and Susette Bowden, Jesse and Kat Davies, Elise, Jeremy Davies

Seated: Jeanne, Jim, Juli Front row: Micah, Ben and Lucy Nicoll

Here is all that is left of Ike and Florin's children.

The pedigree chart and the artifacts table and two of Ike's paintings

After a little rest at our hotel, Juli, Jeremy, Jesse, Kat and their dog Tucker joined Steve, Steven, Elise and me at the Verde River to cool off a bit. It was a great time.  (p.s. Elise is not really fishing. She wanted to re-create something she did when she was a little girl visiting the Verde River with grandma and grandpa. And, look for the photo of the swallow nests way up on the cliff face.)

 

Trip to Arizona - the drive there

We started our family reunion trip to Payson, Arizona on Wednesday evening when Steve and I drove as far as Steven and Tamara's in Columbia. We had a mid-size SUV reserved at Enterprise Thursday morning at 8:00 and we hoped to be on the road by 9:00 am since we had a long drive to a hotel in Liberal, Kansas that night. Well, it was not a good week for Enterprise, apparently and they were severely low on rental cars all around. The "mid-size SUV" they tried to give us was hardly bigger than our Kia Soul and we said no way. They had a Nissan Rogue that had just been turned in but it had a low tire so we decided to take it after it had been fixed. And, so, we drove back to Steven's and waited, and waited, and ate lunch and watched an episode of Rings of Power and continued to wait!  It was finally ready at 2:00 pm!  We didn't pull into Liberal until midnight! And, along the way, we had a low tire light!  Seriously??  Happily, after filling it, we had no more indicator lights that day and we slept well that night. One "bonus" of the rental snafu was that we got to add Steven as a third driver at no extra charge. He did about 60% of all the driving throughout the trip. I got to drive through the torrential rain storm Thursday night, though. Lucky me....

The photos are:  Bacon trying to convince Steve to feed him; the beautiful bleakness of Kansas' Flint Hills;  Steven contemplating the beautiful bleakness; picnic dinner on the Kansas Turnpike - notice the black birds in the background. Great tailed grackles!  I thought they just lived in the west!; cool cloud formation with the approaching storm; and a goofy gas station name in Oklahoma. 

 

Not much to report

 With the beginning of June, we have had un-June-like weather with cooler than usual temperatures. I understand that is all to change later this week but it has been nice up to now. I finally got all the volunteer violets and other weeds pulled from my zinnia bed and have planted the seeds I have saved and transplanted volunteer plants from the driveway to the actual bed. My schedule last fall, with all the string teaching, prevented me from properly taking care of the bed so I am paying for it now. I planted pie pumpkins again across the driveway from the zinnias and they are up but I have not had time to tackle that weeding project....it will have to wait until I am back from our family reunion trip to Arizona.

Our deck re-do is stalled. Steve and I put wood filler in all the screw holes but we have not seen Ken for over a week. He won't answer his texts. I am pretty frustrated with him. 

We invited Ed and Mona, our sometimes next-door neighbors, over for vegetarian pizza on Saturday. We played three rounds of dominoes afterwards. Fun

I made homemade chocolate ice cream Sunday evening and the Southerlands and Beckie came over to enjoy it. I was requested to make raspberry for July. I am so tickled to have an ice cream maker again....

I have added a few strings students from my Mehlville teaching gig who are coming for summer lessons.  But, a few of my regulars are taking off some lessons during the summer so it all evens out.

Mondays with the Afghanistan women during the summer are a series of "field trips" with their children so, the last two Mondays, I have been driving families to and from the zoo. I am not personally going into the zoo but I find things to keep me busy while I wait. The first week, I just went back home. Yesterday, I did some shopping. 

Steve and I both had our yearly physicals last Friday and we both passed with flying colors. Steve has a new doctor whom he met and liked. I saw the nurse practitioner and really liked how thorough she was - way more than my doctor. She believes that my foot neuropathy could be due to the slip in my lower disc.  Interesting...

Here is that photo again. I sure wish I knew how and when that happened. It was probably painful? 

 

 

FInishing up May

On Wednesday, May 29th, we got to have Lucy, Quinn and Larkin for most of the day. Emily dropped them off in the morning before she headed off to her part-time job of medical record extraction at a nearby physician's office.  The first activity of the day was to collect mulch from the Carondelet mulch site to spread on our turn-around. Not so much fun but the kids were very helpful!

After the work was done, we took a fun "fieldtrip" was to visit the nearby Carondelet Historical Society Museum. It is a true treasure house of  so many things. First of all, it is housed in an old school that hosted the very first kindergarten in the United States. Below are photos of a re-creation of that classroom located on the main level.

We next went upstairs to see displays of all kinds of artifacts from the community of Carondelet through the years. (Carondelet is the second oldest community in the area - St. Louis being the oldest) Music boxes and musical instruments, Victrolas, dolls, tools, toys, trains, the tour guide's grandmother's wedding dress, even all the furniture and tools from a working general store...

the  photo below is us taking in all the things from the third floor...

The basement included a quilt display, old dresses, a huge steering wheel from a river boat and a replica of an iron clad boat that went up and down the Mississippi during the Civil War. 

We ended our tour with the library of the museum with all kinds of documents and records and more artifacts including a working antique telephone!  The tour guide used it to call my cell phone.  So amazing.  

We returned home to eat lunch, to do piano lessons with Quinn and Larkin and to finish our time together doing a Christmas ornament craft.  

Oh, and the kids got to feed the neighborhood dog, Paluche, some doggie treats. He is such a sweet dog

Speaking of dogs, I got some good photos of Sally on Friday morning as we had our FaceTime with Alice, Ivan and Kirsti. She LOVES to lick Steve's bald head and, bless Steve, he puts up with it.

For the last week, off and on, this has been happening to our deck in back....

We got an income tax refund and we thought we would use it to hire someone to sand and paint it. Well, like many home-improvement projects, it has morphed into a much larger undertaking and will cost almost twice the amount of our refund but we will have a much nicer, more stable deck that should last long after we have moved away. I will take a photo of the final result when it happens. Our handyman, Ken, is very skilled but also kind of flaky - taking on multiple jobs at once - so often we are not his top priority. Plus, he has had to deal with a rather wet month of May. Once the deck is re-built, we will have to wait until the deck is completely dry before he can paint it with the expensive deck paint we bought. So, stay tuned....

We have had houseguests since Wednesday evening. Joe and Vicki Southerland - Joe's parents - have been staying with us (since the four bedrooms at Emily and Joe's house are full). 

They have spent all their time in Ballwin soaking up grandchildren time culminating with the big event of Larkin's dance recital Saturday afternoon. Steve and I got to attend and it was a full two hours of small dance routines by so many dancers - mostly littles but a few numbers by teenagers. The dance studio is HUGE and the recital we attended was one of four (one on Friday evening and three on Saturday!!!)

As I sat there in that high school auditorium watching all the little dancers, I was reminded that I took dance lessons for about a year when I was in 2nd grade. Below are photos of me in a tap routine and in my ballet costume. We performed in a large auditorium in downtown El Paso.  

Below is a photo of me and Noah, Lucy and Quinn after the performance.

And it is now June.....I look forward to a wonderful summer!

 

Memorial Day Weekend

Memorial Day Weekend was the BIG EVENT - Melanie Johnsen and Sal Moreno got married in the Nauvoo temple!  Elise drove to St Louis Thursday night, after teaching her last day of classes at West Middle School *** and she joined Steve and me on the drive to Nauvoo Friday morning.  We attended the 3:15 temple session and, by the time we were finished, Melanie, Sal and the Southerlands had all arrived at the large VRBO we had rented for the occasion just outside of Nauvoo proper. It was an easy trip for us and the Southerlands - not so for Melanie and Sal. On their way, their car was totaled! 

 Melanie was driving and did not realize that it was just a two-way stop and their car was hit by a large truck (like a 350)! It was a miracle that neither Sal nor Melanie were injured at all!  Thanks to wonderful Bear Creek ward members, they were driven up to Nauvoo in time to get their marriage license. 

For dinner Friday night, we enjoyed Casey's pizza - which is really good - including their gluten-free pizza - and Lucy, Quinn, Larkin, Steve, Elise and I played some dominoes and Kwirkle until it was time to go to bed.  Julina joined us late that night, making the 5.5 hour drive from Indianapolis to be with us!

Below is Lucy with her dominoes creation and Melanie and Sal on the steps of the temple after the ceremony. Emily was hired to be their photographer.

Everything at the temple was finished by 11:00 so we took the next hour to tour parts of Nauvoo that had recently been acquired from the Community of Christ - specifically the Red Brick Store, the Homestead and the Mansion House. The photos below are genuine pieces of furniture owned by the Smith family.  So cool!

 

Soon, we had to say goodbye to Julina who headed back eastward and Elise, Steve and I drove westward towards Columbia for the evening reception. We went via Moberly and did some shopping at the Amish to restock my gluten-free flour supplies and to get fun things at the out-of-code store.

The ring ceremony and and dessert reception was very lovely. The colors were lavender and sage and I found a purple flower print dress for the weekend festivities. Steve and I stayed overnight with Steven (Tamara was in Arizona visiting her parents) and we attended our old Bear Creek ward on Sunday. Between Saturday night and Sunday morning, it was so fun to see so many old and dear friends.  I sat in on Steven's Primary class of five and six year olds and, wow, I thought my Primary class was a handful!!!!! Not sure how long he will continue to teach, though, since he was recently called to a stake communications position.

Steve, Steven and I went to Elizibeth Crippen's for a mid-afternoon dinner and a game of Scrabble and then it was time for Steve and me to return to St. Louis. Elise's car still being in our driveway, we picked her up on our way and headed east into severe weather. Poor Beckie and Sally spent some time in the basement of the house during the tornado watch but, thankfully, no problems in our neighborhood. And, by the time we got into the metro area, it was just rain. 

Elise stayed through Monday afternoon (Memorial Day) and she spent the morning baking me a gluten-free white cake which was a birthday gift that I finally cashed in. I have it in the freezer, just waiting for the right time to frost and eat it.  

*** Good news for Elise for those who don't already know....She has been teaching 6th grade English this past year at West Middle School and it has been a soul-sucking experience for her.  Even though she has an English degree and a teaching certificate, her real passion is being a librarian and that has eluded her ever since she got her Masters in Library Science ten years ago. She subbed in the West Middle media center for three months at the end of the school year 2023 and that got her "in the door" so to speak with this English teaching job but it was killing her and when she learned that the library tech position was opening up, she applied, was accepted, and will take the pay cut to have this hourly pay job.  Hopefully, it will open doors for her to become a salaried media specialist (aka school librarian) in a year or so.