Wrapping up June and more photos from Colorado

We started the week in the middle of an oppressive heat wave. Happily, that has moved on and we now have "normal" summer temperatures and heat...although, this morning was quite pleasant as I went out to water my flower pots. I spied a red bird that was not a cardinal this week at my bird feeder - maybe a house finch? I sprayed some 30% vinegar on my back driveway and it was successful. Although, I saw new green grass shoots so I will have to spray regularly to keep the weeds down.

Emily had a birthday on Friday and Steve and I drove over in the evening for cake, ice cream and a fun game of Cranium. Emily is always so thoughtful to get me a gluten-free Nothing Bundt Cake personal cake to eat whenever we get together for birthdays at their place. Yum!

Monday the Afghanistan ladies got to go to the Botanical Gardens. It was SO hot that I had no desire to walk around so I found a shady bench and worked on an English lesson for Thursday and did other projects. Tuesday I had my annual exam and came away with an audiology consult (yeah, I don't hear so well anymore) and an order for a CT scan of the calcium in my heart. Wednesday, Steve drove Fred to the airport to pick up Ruth, a long-time blind friend of his who will be visiting for three weeks. On Thursday morning, I drove Ruth to the grocery store so she could stock up on vegan foods. She is the same age as Fred and Steve and a lovely woman. Evidently, when she and Fred both lived in Ohio, they were engaged! Elise came in to town Thursday evening and she and Beckie had birthday lunch with Emily on Friday. Steve and I were at the temple so we couldn't join them. Saturday morning, Steve and I did a tree-trimming walk in the other direction. It is slightly longer and we definitely had more trees to cut back. It took two Element loads to get rid of all the branches. The rest of the day was pretty laid back. I had one cello lesson. I prepared more humanitarian sewing projects to work on while watching Jeopardy every afternoon. I took more photos for Billion Graves across the street. I baked a GF cake for Sunday dessert. And, Steve and I have been working our way through season 1 of Andor. As of last night, we have four more episodes left.

Emily finished editing the "professional" photos she took of the family at the Colorado reunion and here they are. 

Emily also had some fun additional pictures from our week's adventures...

First, another shot of the huge living room:

Above are the Steves in Cripple Creek and Lucy and Ivan and at a picnic table. Below are the chore lists. Everyone took their turn with meal prep and meal clean-up. We were not allowed to wear shoes in the house so the next photo shows our shoe collection at the door.

Emily with Larkin and Quinn in the hot tub with the fire pit in the background...

The water bottle identification game...

more pictures at the Arkansas River

Finally, Larkin is learning how to roller skate and the huge garage was a perfect rink for her.

 

Summertime is here

Whooeee - the first day of summer was the first day of a heat wave and we have been in the high 90's ever since. With the humidity factored in, the index has been over 100 degrees. I am SO GRATEFUL for a functioning air conditioner!!!

It was an average sort of week. For Monday's Afghanistan women's event, temperatures were very pleasant for an outdoor "field day" event in the parking lot of our church. Emily's ward Primary provided an array of fun activities for the Afghanistan children to participate in while the women sat in the shade and visited and ate. There was jump roping, an obstacle course, scooters and bike riding, bubble blowing, sidewalk chalk creations. Emily and Larkin came to help and it was a very enjoyable morning for everyone. The photo is not very good (and taking pictures of the women is usually not permitted)

We bought a new washing machine this week - it was installed on Saturday. It has a clear lid which I really like and it has a removable agitator when we need to wash large items like quilts. The old one was just not working right and I am very grateful we had the savings to pay for the new one. 

We had to have Spectrum come on Wednesday to work on our internet connection. The fellow ended up running a whole new line to the house from the pole in the alley. It is running much better now!

We took the KIA in for an oil change on Friday morning - we dropped it off and kept expecting a text that afternoon saying it was ready to be picked up. I tried calling to get an update but ran into voicemails with every number I tried. Well, the service center closes at 6:00 and I finally got a text at 6:01 saying "we have you complete. I will cover your oil change sorry for the late response. I will have your keys with our sales department. They will be here until 8:00 this evening".  A free oil change in exchange for no communication is not too shabby.

I got a new student in my English class Thursday night - who only speaks Swahili!!!! How on earth did she get plugged into a Dari/Pashto speaking English class??? Maybe she is related to the Swahili speaking man who has been coming to Steve's class? Maybe all she heard was that they teach English from someone? And so she came. At least she knows the alphabet as we English speakers write it since Swahili uses the same letters! 

Saturday morning, before it got too hot, Steve and I took a tree-trimming walk eastward along Bates Street. When Fred walks with Steve every morning, he runs into tree branches that have begun to grow into the sidewalk. So, Steve and I armed ourselves with the lopper and two pruners and we did what the city of St. Louis should be doing and cleared the walkway. (You're welcome, St. Louis) When we got back home, we got the Element and picked up everything we had cut down. Here it is! We emptied it into four different yard waste dumpsters in the alley in back. We will tackle the westbound portion of Bates next Saturday.

We got to watch a lot of movies/shows this week! I watched Here Today on Tuesday while Steve was at a meeting. It was painfully close to the life that Steve and I are approaching (memory loss). I enjoyed it, though. Funny, touching. We caught two episodes of Andor (season 1). Wow, that is such a well crafted show for not being a theater-released movie! We finished The Magnificent Seven and now we need to watch The Three Amigos which is a spoof on the film and, if I can find The Seventh Samurai, we will watch that, also, to compare. Finally, last night we watched The A Team (movie with Liam Neeson) that Elise loaned to us. It was surprisingly funny and entertaining. I never really watched the original series because it was on when I was working evening shifts at the hospital back in the 80's. 

I went to the circus!

I had three events with the Afghanistan women this past week. Monday, we all went to Grant's Farm. This is a huge preserve in the south part of St. Louis that was owned by Ulysses S. Grant and eventually became part of the Anheuser Busch family holdings. It starts with a tram ride around the property to view all the wild life and it ends at a small animal park where kids can feed baby goats, parakeets, ride a camel (all for a price, of course) and the adults can get a free Busch beer. 

Thursday evening was English class. I typically drive the Katab family to and from and, this particular night, the baby, who is probably fifteen months old, was NOT happy riding home in her car seat so she screamed (the intense, guttural kind) the entire fifteen minute drive home. 

Friday noon, a group of Afghanistan mothers and children got to attend the Circus Flora (Google it) in downtown St. Louis. I had never heard of it but, apparently, it is fairly well known and it draws some big-name acts. Namely, the Flying Wallendas! (I have heard of them). I know sometime in the eighties, we took the kids to a small-time circus that traveled through Columbia but, aside from that, I had not been since I was a little girl. And, I think I only went once back then. 

Here are some photos:

  

Check out the guy with the pole on his head! I had a head and neck ached just watching him. And the last photo was of the Flying Wallendas. It was SO nerve wracking to see the patriarch of the family, who is in his 70's at least, do his bicycle on the highwire WITHOUT A NET! They also had a trampoline act that I neglected to photograph. Plus, there was a small live orchestra. 

As for the rest of my time, it was spent catching up from being gone for a week. I even cancelled all my music lessons for the week. Lots of yard work, of course. 

Check out the two lovely murals that have been painted around our neighborhood. When I was serving on the Holly Hills beautification committee, they were being discussed. It is so nice to see that they happened.

Our Wonderful 50th Anniversary Reunion

 

Here we are! Julina, Elise, Steven, Sarah, Steve, me, Kirsti, Beckie, Emily. This is a candid shot - the more "professional" ones will come later when Emily has edited them. We stayed in a gorgeous VRBO just outside of Canon City near Royal Gorge. The house sleeps twenty - we had eighteen in attendance. Only Julina's husband, Alex, and her two adult step-children were unable to attend. (Alex's muscular dystrophy has progressed such that he cannot travel well and Shiloh has removed herself from the family and Stratton was needed to take care of his dad). The following photos show just how expansive the house was and the gorgeous views we had. (and you might even spot the Steves playing a game of catch)

You will notice clouds in all of the vista shots but, happily, we never had solid days of rain - just  cloudbursts that quickly blew over. Temperatures were in the 70's during the day and in the 50's at night. We had a couple of evenings where we cooked s'mores around a gas fire pit with many of the crew in the adjacent hot tub.  (Ivan loved his Uncle Steven)

We all arrived at various times Tuesday afternoon. Wednesday, we took an excursion up the mountain to a quaint mining town called Cripple Creek that turned out to be mostly full of casinos (!!!!); Happily, they had a few souvenir shops and we all took a little train ride.   

On Thursday morning, several of us went on a short hike to overlook the Royal Gorge.  Apparently, river rafting on the Arkansas River that cuts through Royal Gorge is a highly sought after activity by folks around the world. We, however, did not want to pay the high prices for such an adventure. You can see several rafts in one of my grainy close-up photos...

Thursday afternoon, we visited a very fun rock shop just down the road from our mansion. Steve and I are sporting the reunion t-shirts we had made for everyone.

Early Friday morning, a few went on a more rigorous hike. For lunch, we packed lunches and explored the town of Canon City, ten minutes away from where we stayed, and we dipped our toes in the freezing and fast flowing Arkansas River that flows through the town. 

Notice Ivan's cast in this last photo. 

When we weren't exploring away from the house, we just enjoyed hanging around each other - relaxing, putting together a puzzle, and playing games.

We had a fun game of "Name That Water Bottle"...

Wednesday evening was the big photo session and then, the kids did a presentation where they reproduced old family photos. It was just hilarious!

 

 

I can't find the original but Alice was reproducing Steve.

I will close with a photo of Julina and Elise Tuesday morning at the hotel in Hays, Kansas.