2nd to last week in Columbia

This is how our house looks right now...

It was a week of packing.  But not all the time.  Steve and I went to the movies Tuesday night and saw Guardians of the Galaxy Part 2.  The MMCO rehearsed Monday night and performed Saturday at Parkside Manor.  Then we had a lovely potluck afterwards and this is the gorgeous gift I received from the group.  It is a beautifully framed print of a watercolor by a retired art professor at MU.  The subject could actually be me in younger years.

I managed to take a couple of friends up to a little flea market/antique shop east of Centralia on Wednesday afternoon.  Of course I didn't buy anything but I sure had fun with the litter of three kittens.  Cara, five-year old granddaughter of one of my friends also enjoyed playing with them.


Not only are we packing up the house but also the yard - at least the vegetable garden which will not be planted this year.  Remember all the fruit tree covers I sewed out of the dozens and dozens of discarded pillowcases several years ago?  I had enough covers to fill a large tub and I just couldn't see saving them.  Well, I found a good use for them.  They are acting as weed-prevention on the garden.

those are logs on top.  Trust me, they are not the only way we are keeping the sheets in place.  We have tent-pole-like rods also poked into the fabric at intervals.  And rocks.

Steve had a bunch of blackberry brambles to get rid of and we had a falling-apart bench under the deck that needed dismantling so Steve had a bonfire Thursday evening.





It also happened while I had my last lessons with the Barner twins - Ethan and Andrew - and they, being normal 10-year old boys, had a blast with burning things in the fire.  And writing with charcoal tipped sticks.  They also brought me and Steve a beautiful Edible Arrangements.

 
Steven turned 35 on Wednesday.  Steve and Steven celebrated by going to a Cardinals game that night.  And we had his birthday dinner Sunday night.  Here he is sporting a ribbon from one of his gifts as he blows out his candles on his carrot cake/cheese cake birthday cake!



Julina turned 41 on Thursday.  And we got the wonderful news that Kirsti and Ryan are expecting a baby girl.

*^%$#$@$%^ Food Storage!

Oh, my!  Dealing with OLD food storage has been our trial this week.  Back in the day, when we had all seven kids living at home, I generally said "sure" to people offering their unwanted food storage because they were packing to move away.  Evidently, I said yes to stuff when I should have said "no thank you" - like twenty #10 cans of dried corn!  Aside from grinding into cornmeal, what on earth does one do with dried corn kernels?    We opened one of the cans this week  and there is clear evidence of bug damage. Plus, it looks very unappetizing.  No way were we going to keep this or even give it away.  The next problem was opening 20 of these can-opener killing cans (we destroyed two hand-crank openers and the electric opener just groaned).  Steve finally used a can tapper to make a jagged opening about 3 inches long - enough to pour the corn into 5-gallon buckets.  

Now what????  Well, every morning on our walk with Sadie, we each take a full can of corn and broadcast it in the wooded thickets across the street in the park and hopefully, the deer will eat it!.   Did I also mention we have three buckets of dried soybeans?!?!  That is even more of a "what do you do with it" puzzle than the corn.  I hope deer like soybeans....

And, then there is the wheat....

  All of this is wheat.  Most of it was given to us over twenty years ago - again by people moving away.  Thankfully, a young family with three children took all that we had except for six cans which we kept for Steve.  We also had a HUGE and ANCIENT drum of wheat (probably about 60 pounds) we acquired from Marilyn Richey who probably bought hers in the eighties  OR it actually could have come from my mom and dad which would mean it was from the seventies.  Needless to say, it is OLD wheat.  And, guess what?  There is a market for the stuff!  Back then, wheat was not genetically modified to have more gluten and there is theory out there that the reason we have so many more incidents of celiac disease is because our immune systems cannot handle all that genetically modified gluten.  So, old wheat would be easier on the body.  Or so the theory goes.  When I had lunch with my friend, Terri Anderson, on Monday,


she told me her yoga instructor would LOVE my ancient wheat.  And, she WAS interested!  This drum was SO heavy, though, that we said she had to come to our house to pick it up.  And, that is what she and her husband did!  Hooray!

Aside from dealing with food storage, Steve and I packed up rooms and I fought a cold, and we were invited to enjoy dinner with good friends Friday evening.

On the left are Jared and Karen Runnels with Katherine Eschrich behind them.  Heidi and Mark Burris are on the right and the dinner was held at their home.

We drove to St. Louis on Saturday - to work at the temple and to deliver a dining room table of Beckie's that we forgot to bring last week with the big moving truck.

We drove up to Brookfield today to attend church.  Back when Steve was in the stake presidency, he got quite attached to the folks up in that little branch and he really wanted to visit one last time before we left.

It is iris season and the hybrid bulbs I bought last year have done magnificently their first year!

Upcoming week - more packing.

Lambson family reunion

I do want to share the events of last week.  It started on Monday with me driving a BIG moving truck to St. Louis and back.  In a perfect world, Beckie would have found an affordable apartment by now and we would have moved her things from the parking side of our garage into her new home.  Unfortunately, we live in an imperfect world but thankfully, Emily's garage has space so we moved Beckie's stuff (and a queen size mattress for Katherine Eschrich) from Columbia to St. Louis.  Since I was the one who made the truck reservation and since we didn't want to spend the extra $26.00 for a second driver and because we didn't have time to change the reservation into Steve's name -  I got to drive the truck both ways.  Lucky me!

(hey, Jeanne, your shoes are untied!)

As you can see by the raincoat, it rained lightly much of the day but, thankfully, all went smoothly in spite of the wet.  And, I only had to back up twice.  First time was after we had loaded an extremely large and heavy mattress at Katherine Eschrich's place and the second time was into Emily's driveway (just barely missing her across-the-street neighbor's mailbox!).  At our place, Jim Bonuchi backed the truck into our driveway.  In addition to him, we also had Ray Stubbs, and Larry Jespersen  to help load here at the house and at Katherine's.  The biggest challenge was getting a VERY HEAVY sofa bed out of the basement, up the lawn, and into the truck.  This was not even Beckie's sofa.  It belongs to Emily and when they were living in Kate's house, she had no room to store it so we brought it to Columbia and I used it in my music studio.  Emily found this sofa at a Deseret Industries in Provo and somehow hauled it up a rickety flight of stairs to her little second floor studio apartment on Center St. Then, it was carried back down those stairs into a U-Haul trailer that she pulled behind her silver Honda when she moved back to Missouri and it went into her apartment (on ground level, thank goodness) in University City.  Then, somehow it was hauled up TWO flights of stairs to the top of the Mason Lodge until it was brought to Columbia (back DOWN those two flights of stairs).  It now resides in the garage in Ballwin and Steve and I hope we NEVER have to move that couch ever again.

After a full day of driving on Monday, we spent Tuesday buying groceries and I attended my last CCO rehearsal that night.  On Wednesday, I did my duty as a visiting teacher and as a friend and I helped dress 92 year old Violet Davis for her burial.  Her funeral was Saturday right in the middle of our family reunion so this was all I could do for her and her family this week.  On Thursday, I made three batches of jam - two blueberry and one blackberry - to try and use up some of our frozen fruit.  I put up about 21 jars and we STILL have leftover fruit.  Sigh!  That afternoon, Kirsti and Ryan returned from their little trip up to Chicago.  Friday morning, they helped haul down all the stored boxes and tubs from the attic that belonged to both Kirsti and Sarah.  From about eight tubs, Kirsti was able to whittle what she wanted to keep down to one tub.  Food preparation took the rest of Friday and Emily and Joe and kids arrived that evening.

Saturday was the BIG DAY! Our Lambson Family Reunion.   And, it was a perfect day.  I loved every minute of it.  In the morning, after a pancake breakfast, Lucy and I strung beads for a necklace with some beads from Kirsti's storage tubs.  Julina and Shiloh arrive around 9:30 and she and I left take care of a safety deposit box loose end and we also dropped off a bunch of stuff to hazardous waste.  (yeah, that is a pretty random thing to do on such a day but the hazardous waste collection days are only on the 1st and 3rd Saturdays of the month and this was a 1st Saturday and the FIRST Saturday since Steve and I had cleaned out our garage so we had about three boxes of chemicals and paints that were taking up valuable garage space.  It was a much needed errand, in spite of an already busy day)

At 11:30, we spread Trissy's ashes at the pond across the street in the park.

( walking over to the pond)

We ate a delicious and easy lunch in our back yard under the shade trees.








then, after we ate, Emily took a family portrait.  Mid-day is not ideal for taking pictures but the north side of our house is nice and shady and it provided the perfect light.  Next on the agenda was the give-away.  I gave each child a shopping bag and list of places in the house where they could "shop"(food storage, games, holiday and sports stuff in the garage).  I had some of my pottery I was giving away and I also numbered the paintings I was willing to share and each person ended up taking two home with them.  After all that was done, and while folks returned to sitting and visiting in the back yard, I let Noah try out my full size violin and my cello and we practiced a couple of duets.  We then went out to the back yard and played our duets for the rest of the family.  That was followed by a little family jam session with Steven on guitar, Emily on banjo, and Kirsti on mandolin, Noah on violin, and me on cello.  Our repertoire was quite small and limited to the key of G but we had fun!  When we were done, Noah and I went back inside for his piano lesson.  Beckie had brought Luna (she was dog-sitting for Kyle) and that dog was perfect for the energies of Lucy and Quinn.  They loved throwing Luna the  ball and she loved retrieving it.  That evening, Steven and Tamara provided Shakespeares pizza for dinner.  And, eight of the family (Steve, Julina, Emily, Noah, Lucy, Elise, Beckie, and Melanie) came to listen to my Columbia Civic Orchestra concert.  We returned home to a campfire and campfire desserts and the perfect day was done.

Kirsti found an old costume I had made for her and she gave it to Lucy who wore it pretty much the entire Saturday.

including the concert!

Music (and rain) was in the air all week

 We celebrated Sarah's 30th birthday last Sunday...

We have had rain and more rain this week.  This is what the Bear Creek looked like yesterday!

I worked my last day at the Refugee and Immigration Services office on Monday and I had lunch with Kaye Miller at Bangkok Gardens.  Mmmmmm

And, the rest of the week was full of music:

Tuesday, Steve and I drove to St. Louis to hear Noah play in his third grade violin concert.  All the third graders in his school take violin.  They have class twice a week, they don’t get to take the violins home, and, even with those restrictions, they sounded really good in their concert. 

Thursday I accompanied my cello student play in the state music festival so that meant choreographing the day around a trip to MU campus. She got a "two".  (I felt she deserved a "one")

Saturday afternoon was my last studio recital.  Fourteen of my sixteen students played.  (I also teach five adult students - I don't make them play in my recitals)

Today, I played duets with two of my students in their sacrament meetings – Roberta up in the Moberly ward (one of my adult students)

and Ethan in the Perche Creek ward.

Elise sang with the Memorial Baptist Choir in a performance this evening with guest conductor, Paul Crabb.  I got to attend and they sounded amazing. 

Finally, Kirsti and Ryan are in Missouri.  They braved snow on the highways of Wyoming and arrived in the wee hours of Saturday.  Her baby is due the first part of October and she has a pretty decent baby-bump.  Sadie is LOVING having her around, as you can see.

 speaking of babies, a parting shot of Larkin grinning at Uncle Steve last Saturday

Two weeks in April

On Tuesday, April 11^th, we released our Trissy from her aged and sick body to go to heaven.  The huge tumor on her hip had grown so large so quickly and it had developed an open wound that would not heal.  She died surrounded by as many Lambsons as could be rounded up – Steve, me, Elise, Steven, Tamara, and Sarah.  Add a vet and a vet-tech and you have one crowded room!  And, while Trissy had the mildest, sweetest temperament, she was also rather strong willed in some things (unable to be consoled during thunder storms, always escaping under the back yard fence to wander the neighborhood) and her stubborn streak showed up at her death.  She did not like having to lay down on the examination table and having her paw confined while they inserted an IV for the anesthesia over-dose and she caused it to be pulled out with only half the dose going in.  They had to insert another IV in another paw for the rest of the dose but it was not enough!  She was calmed down by that time, of course, but her strong old heart was still beating. It took a third IV in a third paw to finally release her.  Oh, Trissy!

Steve giving treats to the dogs the night before Trissy died.  You can see the bandage on her rear end.  Even, then, she was up for her nightly tricks for treats.

That same week was full of Easter Cantata rehearsals (Tuesday and Thursday night) and the performance on Friday night.  The music was beautiful – as always.   Well, there was that one song that sounded like a Klezmer band that I thought was kind of goofy.  But, overall, the music was fun to sing, it was enjoyable to sing next to Steve in the back row, and I think the performance went very well. 

We were in St. Louis Easter Saturday – to celebrate Lucy’s 6^th birthday and to work in the temple.

Larkin got some grandpa time while

Emily set up for Lucy's birthday party

Lucy and Quinn hanging out

Easter Sunday was quiet.  Sarah was driving back from a last-minute trip to Idaho to take Kevin Moegling out to college, Steven and Tamara were with her parents, Emily and Joe and kids stayed in St. Louis.  We did have Beckie join us, however, and Elise and Melanie. 

My Sundays changed two weeks back.  I was called to work in the nursery for the last two months we will be here!  It is a pretty easy gig because the parents of the cry-ers stay with their kids. 

Steve and I tackled the garage four days this past week.   We did it in quadrants – the tools in the southwest quadrant one day, yard stuff and cleaning out the old refrigerator another day, the camping equipment the third day, and sports equipment and other miscellany the last day.  All of our stored stuff is now occupying the northwest part of the garage.  Elise is coming on Tuesday to help us re-organize her storage in the northeast part of the garage and Beckie’s things will be moved to St. Louis on May 1^st.  Throughout the week we made numerous trips of all our unwanted junk to assorted donation centers around town.  Good thing we still had the truck.  But, we won’t have it for long.  We found a new vehicle for us – a 2003 Honda Element – and we have a buyer for our truck!  

Jason and Denise Black.  We are letting them check it out the next few days and hopefully we will make the transaction by the end of this coming week. 

Speaking of transactions, we officially signed the lease for the house with Elizabeth on Friday.  And, speaking of houses, we got a call from the Phoenix mission office on Thursday informing us that we will be living in the home of the Johnsons – the current missionary office couple whose places we are taking.  They purchased a home in Surprise a few years ago – they are snowbird types – and, we guess when they decided to serve a mission, they requested Phoenix because then they could live in their winter home?  Anyway, the cost difference for renting a brand-new two-bedroom apartment for us and having to furnish it vs. renting the Johnson’s furnished home was nominal (although I am sure they are giving the church a price-break) so we will be spending the next two years in a beautiful, four-bedroom, three bathroom home in Surprise, Arizona.  Check it out on Google maps!  15359 W. Columbine Dr. Surprise, AZ  85379

I love April

I have thought this more than once this past week.  And, the redbud time in April is the best!  The fruit trees are starting to pop open and many of the non-fruiting trees are just beginning to get tiny green leaves.  Lilacs are starting to bloom.  Daffodils are just about finished and tulips are taking their turn. 

We had quite a few rainy days earlier in the week – which I don’t mind – and then yesterday was the perfect day of temperature and sunshine!  I had a make-up cello lesson in the afternoon and while I was teaching, the mom went to Gerbes to pick up supplies for a cookout and she said it was like a battleground at the hamburger bun section.  I guess everyone else had cookout in mind, too. 

Not us.  Our ward had a youth fundraiser event last night including a spaghetti dinner, silent auction, and variety show.  Proceeds went to scout and girls camp this summer.  Steve and I were quite involved.  We donated items for the silent auction:  Steve’s was four dozen home baked cookies.  Mine were three of my nicer houseplants.  And, we performed in the variety show.  I twisted Steve and Steven’s arms and we played a trio (baritone, trombone, and I resurrected the saxophone) of Americana-type tunes.  And, the dinner was almost completely gluten-free:  they had gluten-free pasta, the salad was crouton-free, and the dessert was root beer floats. 

We did savor the beautiful day yesterday by taking a bike ride on the Grindstone Creek trail. 

It was just beautiful.  Numerous hawks soared above on the thermals and we spotted a herd of deer.

On my pre-mission/pre-moving checklist this week I purged clothes and sorted them into different piles:  donate to charity, pack and store, wear until we leave, wear until we leave AND during our mission, wear on our mission.  It is kind of confusing. 

We have had frustrations with our internet connection all week.  It has gone down FIVE times in seven days.  And these are not quickie phone calls to set things right.  First of all, just finding the internet help phone number was a pain because phone books are a thing of the past.  (Hooray for smart phones)  Then you have to go through a series of automated responses before even getting to a live person. And, CenturyLink has help centers in the Philippines so the first two times the live person was half a world away from me.  The third time we had problems was sort of a break through because, after being on the line for over an hour with the help desk, Steve (it was his turn) finally said “we have other obligations and we have to go” and they gave him a number to call when we returned.  Well, that turned out to be a DIRECT number to a REAL person who sounded like they were in the United States so the next two times, fixing the problem was much faster if not still very annoying.  A REAL repair person is coming Monday to look at the situation but I am seriously considering switching internet providers for the last two months we are here….

Brrrr – it has been cold and rainy all week.

  But, I am grateful for the rain!  And the weather hasn’t stopped the spring flowers from blooming.

 This past week was Spring Break so it was a rather quiet lesson-wise for me – but not for the two music teachers now using the basement.  Trissy and Sadie have always been a part of my music teaching:  barking to announce their arrival (Sadie), greeting them at the door and escorting them downstairs (Trissy), hanging out at my feet during the lesson (Sadie), or sleeping on the couch (Trissy) so this week has been rough on them.  Steve actually caught Sadie barking outside the closed door of Elizabeth’s studio – she thought it was me teaching!  We finally had to install a baby gate at the top of our stairs so Trissy and Sadie would not go downstairs every time a student arrived.  So, in spite of car-parking issues and confused dogs, I believe having three music teachers at the house for the next six weeks is going to be fine.

Steve and I saw “Beauty and the Beast” on Tuesday and we LOVED it!  We loved the original and this was just as wonderful.  I loved the new songs, too.

Aside from some glazing, I am finished with pottery until we get back from our mission.  I tried my hand again at making tiny pots and here they are…..  The tallest is not more than four inches.

Tamara, Sarah, and Steve helped me tie all four t-shirt quilts Friday afternoon at the church.  I finished up the edges yesterday and they are finally done! 

Our BIG day was Thursday when we drove to St. Louis to hang out with Julina, Alex, Shiloh and Stratton as well as with Emily, Quinn, and Larkin at the Museum of Transportation.  The time with the Smiths was way too short but so glad we got to see them at all.  

Whenever we go to St. Louis and attending the temple is in the plan, he always dresses for the temple. Rarely does he go casual and dress for the temple later.  

This is in one of the oil cars