Happy Birthday!

We have had a nice week.  Last Friday Andrew was invited by his friend Aiden to come eat pizza and watch a movie.  I am glad that Andrew is having fun with friends.  He was telling us about their lunch time adventures this week too.  One day he and Aiden were goofing around a bit and fell in mud.  The front lawn of the school tends to not drain well and it had rained the day before.  Andrew got mud all over him and had to go to the nurses room and clean up.  Andrew told me he eats lunch outside most days.  He hangs out with four LDS boys, Aiden, Alex, and Adam.  We laughed and said “the four A’s” causing trouble.

Friday evening was our ward temple night.  Neal and I were able to go together and I enjoyed being there.  Our ward had been asked to do sealings and that was nice to be there with others from our ward.

Sunday afternoon Ruth and Andrew went to the BYD at the bishops home.  It was Andrew’s first one to go to.  I think it is fun he is a part of the youth group now.  He is enjoying it too.

Monday was the eclipse.  We only had about a 75 % coverage here, if I remember right.  It was still cool to see.  We had some interesting shadows but it didn’t get very dark.  It was like a cloudy day, in fact it was a cloudy day.  About 11:30 the clouds broke up some and I was able to see the sun and watch the coverage happen.  I was glad that I got some special glasses to see it.  Ruth enjoyed seeing the sun with a telescope that was set up at the high school for the kids to view with.  Andrew had some solar glasses that he shared with his friends at lunch time. The younger boys did a little at the school with it.  Caleb was able to go outside and view it, Spencer’s teacher didn’t take them out side but just watched some things on TV.

Wednesday was Spencer’s tenth birthday.  He was so excited for it to come.  He was so full of smiles.  I was surprised that he didn’t want anyone at school to know it was his birthday. He even asked Caleb to not tell any one.  That was hard for Caleb, but he only told one friend in his class. I think he didn’t want people to know because he is the youngest in his class and feels a bit self conscious about being younger than everyone. He is happy that he can say he is 10 now. Wednesday is early out day for the elementary school.  The boys had fun playing together that afternoon.  They have been playing a lot with the wood trains this week.  They have a big story going on about Legos verses Trains.  I am glad that they are enjoying their toys.  Spencer requested peanut butter pie for his treat.  I think I make this once a year, on his birthday!  We also had breaded shrimp for dinner, another request.  I am glad that he had a good day.

I was able to do some sewing this week.  I bought fabric to make a skirt for myself back in April.  I finally made it.  Wednesday I cut it out and Thursday I sewed it.  I look forward to wearing it Sunday to church.  I also have done a lot of yard work this week.  I trimmed bushes yesterday.  Today I was working to move the last of the cement out of my flower bed areas.  I didn’t like the way it looked.  I also think it was hard on the roses to be surrounded by cement. I like the way it looks now. I forgot to take a before picture, to show what I moved, but I will share a finished picture. We are also starting to harvest our apples and pears.  They taste great.  It is fun to have fruit trees in the yard, although they take a lot of work to keep up with them and keep the fruit good.  I learned that I could have thinned them more than I did.  Our golden delicious apple tree had so many apples on it.  I took off more than half of what set, but it is still over loaded and the apples didn’t get that big.  We are enjoying our tomatoes too.  I had my favorite sandwich yesterday for lunch, red garden picked tomato!  I will probably need to start canning apples and do more pickles next week.

I looked back and found this picture of the same area that I worked on today from last May. 

Here it is with the cement removed and just a few rocks in the corners. The pear tree is in this plot and you can see a few pears hanging.  The golden delicious apple tree is in the back ground, you can see a couple of green apples hanging,  it is very small tree and the apples are low to the ground. 

Our red apple tree, I think it is either a Fuji or a Braeburn variety. They are good. 

Today is the daddy daughter ward camping trip.  Neal plans on picking Ruth up from school and taking off to go have some fun camping.  I hope it is a fun trip.  Ruth had fun last night with young women’s activity.  They were decorating boxes as cars for a “drive in” movie next week.  She is doing okay with high school.  It has been more home work for her.  She is enjoying her French class and shares things she is learning with us.