Eeeee, the wedding is getting closer!

Insomnia has commenced – literally. I could not sleep Friday night because I had so many things rattling around in my head.

Kirsti and Ryan drove out to Missouri on July 8^th for a week. They had several objectives while they were here – introduce Ryan to the rest of our family (check), have me work on the wedding dress to make it modest (check), travel to Nauvoo for Kirsti to receive her temple endowments (check). Here are some photos from the week.

here are two shots of Kirsti and Ryan up on MU campus where we had lunch with Steve

Nauvoo was an especially wonderful day and it was so great that Julina and Elise made the drive from Indiana to join us.

(l-r) Elise, Melanie, Ryan, me, Kirsti, Steve, Julina

below is Melanie, Julina and Steve outside the Red Brick Store

Kirsti and Ryan at our picnic lunch in the state park in Nauvoo

Steve cooking the hotdogs and hamburgers

Kryan (Kirsti and Ryan name meld. We also have Stamara and Jonomalucy) left on Saturday, the 16^th and on Sunday, Elise, whose goal this summer is to put lots more miles on her car, drove to Columbia so she could have a job interview with Oakland Jr. High Monday morning. She applied to the assistant librarian position and the interview went well but she found out later this past week that she was not hired. Sigh! But, having her drive back through St. Louis on Monday afternoon gave me the opportunity to hitch a ride and spend a couple of days with Emily and family. We all know how energetic Noah is but, in reality, it is Lucy is who keeps Emily from getting anything accomplished so my primary task this visit was to hold Lucy…..which I did while Emily cleaned and sorted and organized their dining room slash office. Lucy now coos and tries to talk through her huge smiles and, for the most part, she was not a problem. Occasionally, she still struggles with her tummy hurting and Tuesday afternoon post nap was one of those times. But, by then, Joe was home and he has the golden touch with her. It is quite amazing to watch. I had to get back to Columbia for a dentist appointment Wednesday morning so my visit was too short but Emily got her room cleaned and I had some great time with Noah Tuesday morning as we watered the garden and with Lucy as I held her for her Tuesday morning nap.

It was back to St. Louis, though, on Thursday for the temple. Steve took the day off and we went for an extended time doing initiatory and two endowment sessions. We had not thought to stop by Emily’s but I left my scriptures in the back seat Tuesday night when we transferred from her car to Beckie’s at the half-way point in Jonesburg. So, back to University City for a quick stop before dashing home in time for Steve to attend presidency meetings that night. That was a LONG day, to be sure.

We had air conditioning workmen at the house Friday. Considering the horrible heat wave we are enduring, it was not a great day to have the AC off (but, at least we were not Elise who was at YW girls camp all week in these temperatures. Poor kid!) No, our BRAND NEW heatpump is not on the fritz. But, in order for us to qualify for the low-interest loan (to pay for said heatpump) which is offered through the City of Columbia, our heat pump needs at least a 14 SEER rating (efficiency mumbo jumbo). It has a 15 BUT, our air handler (which in the inside unit that blows the air around and is our back-up heater when temperatures get too cold for the heat pump to work effectively) is so old, that it pulls down that SEER rating. SO, we now have a new (and expensive) air handler to boost the SEER to the required number. And I thought I was through with repairmen for the summer…………

I have begun sewing Sarah’s dress for the wedding. My skirt is cut out. Emily’s dress will get tackled on Tuesday (I hope). While sewing, I have been watching movies (of course) and I have seen two Doris Day/ Rock Hudson / Tony Curtis movies recently. Those three must have signed a contract to make a string of films together with cookie-cutter plots. Doris plays the naive Midwestern girl in the city – Rock plays the playboy set out to trick Doris into thinking he is not a cad- Tony plays the comic-relief friend of Rock. Rock almost gets Doris into bed when she finds out his true colors and storms off but Rock, by this time, has actually fallen in love with Doris (his playboy days are through!) and he woos her back. Pillow Talk and Lover Come Back with exactly the same plot-line. It passes the time while sewing but I think I have had my fill of this movie candy for a long while.

Don’t look for another blog post until after we get back from Utah. That is, of course, unless insomnia returns.....

Do something days

Since summer orchestra ended, I have been filling my days with numerous “little” projects. Too many to list, I think. However, I am delighted to report that our stairs finally have new carpet. The roll you saw in an earlier photo turned out to be the wrong type of carpet for our stairs. We have a gap between the stairs and the wall and too thin a carpet would eventually begin to sag into that gap. So, we had to load the roll back into our truck and haul it back to Kingdom City where I exchanged it for a thicker, quasi-shag type carpet.

Turns out, I really like this stuff much better – as you can see, it is multi-colored in browns to hide all kinds of muddy paw prints and, come to find out, pet hair. When I vacuumed today, I could have woven a sweater with all the pet hair I pulled up. Yuck! The main culprit in the hair loss is Trissy and I would like to shave it all off for the summer!

Here is a photo of the sports room.

Notice the theme-related curtains I finally sewed? The baseball team border up by the ceiling is also new. We bought Cardinals and Yankees wallpaper borders several years ago and just never put them up. Then, after my ordeal with peeling off kitchen wallpaper, I vowed never to let my walls be papered again. But, when we visited Julina, I remembered that she put up her border with staples. Eureka! If one looks closely, it is noticeable that the paper is not completely flush with the wall but you have to look REALLY close. SO, I stapled Cardinals and Yankees on the sports room walls. (all you can see are the redbirds. Yankees are on the opposite wall)

I have been spending lots of time at Finale doing music arrangements for Prairie Strings. We had a rash of special requests this summer – Michael Buble’s Everything, Beatles Michelle, the Imperial March (Yes, that is Darth Vadar’s march. The son of the bride will march down the aisle to that. I have no idea if he will wear the mask), Coldplay’s Life in Technicolor, and finally, the Mario Brothers music to take you up to the next level (that is when the bride and groom kiss). Ya, pretty crazy.

Emily, Joe, Noah, and Lucy visited us two weekends ago. Emily’s high school friend was having a bridal shower here in town. That is what gave her the courage to venture out of her security zone with a new baby. The visit went just fine but I discovered that having a VERY active 3 ½ year old and a somewhat fussy 2 month old did not mix well with our NINE pets, many of whom were extra needy during that time (Max and Sadie, of course, but Trissy was surprisingly always under foot). We celebrated Emily’s birthday while they were here.

Finally, Steve and I went to Indiana for the 4^th of July weekend. We went as far as St. Louis on Friday, the 1^st, where we ate dinner at the Hokensons. Who??? Paul is the retired CES director for St. Louis and his wife, Julina Smith Hokenson, is obviously a distant relative. They are both temple workers and the last time we went to the temple, Paul said we needed to get together to compare genealogy notes so that is what we did. Paul is an avid genealogist and he was extremely helpful for Steve with the Lambson line. Turns out we are also related to them by the Montague line! After sleeping at Emily’s, we left Saturday morning for Lafayette. Julina’s ward had a potluck picnic that afternoon that we attended (too bad it was sooooo hot and humid).

Here are gluten-free cupcakes we decorated for the potluck

While there, we met a senior missionary couple that gave us the phone number of a young sister missionary in the area also named Lambson (family history weekend!). Turns out his brother and wife were senior missionaries in Novosibirsk while Steven was serving (he remembers them) AND, they have a nephew who lives here in Columbia and is in the Highlands ward. In addition, we ate at a table with an older lady who was visiting her son and family and who lives in Billings, Montana and has Mark Jarvis (he used to live in Columbia) as her home teacher. WOW – super small world.

Julina and Steve at the picnic

After the picnic, we drove to Lebanon, Indiana (half-way to Indianapolis) to link up with Elise at a McDonalds. She shared souvenirs from her trip back east and brought gifts from Sarah to assorted family members here in the Midwest. It was a fun, if brief, visit.

On Sunday, we attended church and pretty much relaxed the rest of the day. Lafayette allows fireworks in the city limits for a few days leading up to the 4^th so that night was ablaze with home-grown firework displays. The house across from the little lake in Julina’s apartment complex had an impressive show – they must have spent $500.00 or more! So, we got to view fireworks from them and from all around the neighborhood in air-conditioned comfort. Monday morning we continued what we started Sunday evening – helping Juli sort and organize several boxes of old papers, photos, letters, etc. that had been accumulating for the past ten-plus years. We were able to get quite a bit done although there are still a few things for Juli to do on her own. We rewarded ourselves with frozen custard and a visit to the city park and zoo.

Julina and I at the city park

butterfly at the insect exhibit at the zoo

eagles at the zoo

Steve and I left around 3:30 Indiana time and drove through beautiful rural Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri past fields of corn and soybeans and got home a little after 9:00 Missouri time. It was a good visit. As I type this, Kirsti and Ryan are driving to Missouri for a week-long visit. Highlights in the next blog……

Black raspberries and pesky squirrels

Steve and I have been picking black raspberries on the nature trail these past two weeks. Above is our harvest from today. We made ice cream with the first picking. Mmmmmm. Notice my lettuce in the foreground?

Look what the squirrel(s) have been doing to the wild birdseed tub that I keep on the deck! Can you believe how they have chewed through the thick plastic lid? How did they know that there was seed in there??? Smell? Watching me as I scoop out the seeds? Now I am looking for a metal container for storage............

Summer has begun

Not only is this the first official day of summer, but I feel like my summer has officially begun this week now that summer orchestra is over.




Admittedly, this year was only two weeks long instead of three and it was held early in the season so it was not too bad a gig but I still came home exhausted every afternoon and it was still a four and a half-hour chunk out of my day. My first hour was team teaching the 7^th grade large-group orchestra – students who have only started last September. Second hour was sectionals with these kids – I had the violas and cellos and one bass. Third hour was sectionals (violas and cellos and one bass again) with the advanced group. We use the term “advanced” loosely here since several of these students have only been playing for two or three years and are still pretty squeamish about shifting and vibrato. Last hour was all the advanced kids in the large orchestra. We had a concert last Friday night. They played well, the auditorium was cool (for once), and I made no heinous conducting errors. Plus, I got to play bass when I wasn’t conducting. That was pretty fun.

We have been seeing an unusually large number of repair-type people lately. You already know the earlier things – floors, heat pump. Well, thanks to Steve’s and my plumbing ignorance, we have seen a plumber twice since last I blogged. I burned out one of the heating elements to our water heater when I tried to drain it and thankfully, the plumber came over that same day. Then, when Steve tried to remove the shower head in the downstairs bathroom, part of the pipe broke off leaving not enough thread to screw on the new one. So, back he came a second time to fix the pipe. We just had a bunch of insulation blown up into our attic to make our home more energy efficient. And, on another day, we had soffit vents installed, windows reconditioned and weather stripped, and foam board installed up near the ceiling of our laundry room (where Tonks likes to hide. She was actually hiding up there when the repairman was working and I had to climb onto the dryer, then kneel on the water heater, and, with work-gloved hands, reach waaaaay back into the recesses and pull Tonks out by her paw while she hissed and fussed at me. Sorry Tonks.). Finally, remember that roll of carpet for the stairs? Well, it looks like we will finally have that installed on Thursday of this week. I will believe it when I see it.

We were in St. Louis last Saturday. Papa Joe was in town and below is a photo of everyone.

While the grandpas dandled Lucy on their knees, Emily cleared out a corner of her living room that had been collecting stuff and she and I re-arranged her kitchen to make more of the cute built-in shelves she has around her east window. Here are the after photos.

Beckie came with us and, while Steve and I were at the temple, she and Emily visited the Soulard Farmer’s Market. I think it was good therapy for a baby-weary Emily.

Lucy seemed happier that day – maybe she is growing out of her colic or maybe the baby zantac is helping – who knows?

Speaking of medicine – we seem to be having more than our share of overnight thunder storms lately and thank goodness for the drug cocktail we give Trissy. Still makes for a rough night, though. But, I have to admit Trissy is a good dog in many ways. She found another mole in the yard and, when I ran short errands today after taking her to the vet, she calmly hung out in the back seat instead of whipping herself into a complete panic attack like Sadie would have.

Oh, Steve and I are currently picking wild black raspberries on the nature trail. They are quite plentiful this year. And, our domestic blackberries and red raspberries in our front yard are doing extremely well. Steve picks a handful every morning. Blueberries were sparce as were the pie cherries. Did we have a killing frost sometime back in the spring that I didn’t know about because we also have no plums nor peaches and one (just one) pear?

To follow up on the last blog – the new mailbox is up and the quilts are done! All while watching Secretariat and the new Tron and an old Horatio Hornblower (with Gregory Peck).