Sunday, July 28, 2019

Happy Birthday Brent!

Yes...it is hard to believe that 34 years ago, Brent joined our family.  All of our boys were born on a Sunday (except for David - Tuesday) .  Very considerate of them to realize that their Dad had the best opportunity to welcome them into our family on a Sunday!!  In Brent's case, Jim was REALLY busy doing custom haying and was into the thick of second cut.  Funny story....Jim was gone so much (while Brent was teeny) that summer, that one day he walked into the house while the kids and I were eating a meal and boomed out a "hello" to us all and startled poor little Brent to death.  He didn't know his own father for several weeks until haying was complete!  I must say, though, that they have a great relationship in spite of that "rocky" beginning!!!   We love and appreciate each of our children and their spouses AND children ....they each add a dimension of joy and love to our family.  That's the funny thing about love....you never run out of it....it seems to grow and expand as we give it to others.  Jill celebrated her birthday yesterday and we have loved having her choose to be part of us, as well.

This has been an interesting week.   On Monday, I came home with my phone in the pocket of my coveralls and while I was in the shower, Jim put all the daily work clothes through the washing machine.  I didn't even miss it until that evening (after Sunset by the Mississippi) and was looking everywhere for it.  We tried calling it, etc. but to no avail.  Then suddenly, I remembered !!  Sure enough, there it was in the bottom of my deepest pocket....soak and wet !!   I couldn't get the back off of it and take out the SIM card but I put it into a bag of rice for 48 hours.  At that point, we took it to a Verizon store in Keokuk where they confirmed that it was a "done deal" but they retrieved my SIM card.  Luckily, we had had David & Jill bring an unused iphone5 from home when they came to visit at the end of May.  We had been having trouble with my iphone6 and thought that perhaps this iphone5 would work.  We had taken it to Burlington and they said that they wouldn't activate it because it was obsolete but we took a chance on it in Keokuk with the SIM card taken out of my dead phone.  It worked!!  although there are no guarantees that it will continue, we are going with it for now. If, for some reason, it also dies, we will just use Jim's phone for the remainder of the mission.  Crazy how dependent you become on a phone.....like how to find each other in WalMart !!  I was thinking about how the Lord is actually in the little details of our lives.....like having the prompting to have David & Jill bring that little phone down.  I think that the Lord knew that I would need it!  Thankfully, I heeded that prompting! 

Thus, the pictures that you will see are from Jim's phone and I think that you will enjoy.






This shows  all the elders and employees (that could be spared) putting up a new plastic quonset-shed for hay.  They put one up last year and all of the first cut of hay is in it.  Because the weather was so wet, the first cut hay didn't get cut as early as usual. When it was cut and baled, it resulted in a  HUGE amount of bales...completely filling that shed.  The second cut of hay is now being baled and they wanted a place to store it.  Funny thing is....that until last year, they would just leave the bales out in a corner of a field and would loose many of them to rot because they would mold.  I'm not sure if they had never thought about shedding the hay before that or if they just did not have the necessary resources to do it. Hopefully, it should help them have better quality feed for the horses and livestock throughout the winter.   

We are really looking forward to having David, Carol & Tate come to visit Nauvoo this next week.  We will take pictures and share with you next week.  Interestingly enough, we ran into Jill & Tiffani's friend, Chelsea Bretsky last week and had a quick little visit after Sunset.  It is always fun to see family and people from home!  

Come and SEE and come and STAY....we promise that you will love Nauvoo! 


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