What my mechanic has been working on this morning

It's only about 7:30 in the morning and my mechanic has already been working on the Suburban.

The radiator needs some TLC before a trip and my mechanic is taking advantage of the cool, pleasant morning to remove it to take it to a radiator shop.  Lucky me--my mechanic is Bill.

Several years ago "someone" (not Bill or me) wrecked the front end of the Suburban.  The body parts were replaced and the vehicle looks fine, but the radiator and the air cooling unit in front of it both got pushed in and both are shaped like a saggy mattress on edge.  Both cooling units have continued to function until now.

We are hoping the old radiator can be repaired because a new one won't fit into the slot the old one came out of.  The front cooling unit impinges on the space for a new radiator.  Unless we can get the shop to put a nice curve into the flat unit so it matches the old one's curve . . . .

Barring that, Bill is going to have to do some frame work to straighten it to accept a new radiator.

If you give a mouse a cookie . . . .

Happy 12th!

Caroline and Elizabeth have been looking forward to turning twelve for months!  Twelve means moving from Primary to Young Women at Church (children's program to teenager program) and it's a big milestone.  Also, since they have relatively late birthdays, they are some of the last 6th graders to turn twelve.

Here they are with their cake that assumes knowledge of place value:

 

 Including me behind the camera, here is the gang who celebrated their birthday with them:

Bill's painting project

Bill's car had trim in two colors--silver and matte black.  He wanted to go to all matte black so he took things into his own hands.

That is the hard top to the convertible and you're looking at the back window.  The top of the picture has the part of the back window that rests near the trunk.  Next he painted the grille and a couple of other parts.

 

I really urged him not to spray paint his Mercedes, but he did anyway.  So far it looks really nice.  I told him to check back with me in a year about that.

The pool is looking great!

I'm so glad Bill decided to fire the chemical company and deal with the pool himself!  Here is what it looks like today:

Doesn't that look nice?  It is still a little cloudy, so we are filtering it and backwashing the filter like crazy, but I think it will be ready for swimming tomorrow.  A week ago I never would have believed it.

Bill's busy day

Bill has been working on our pool water these past few days.  We hired a pool chemical company to take care of our water about a month ago.  Within days it was turquoise, then green, then yellow-green with the appearance of pea soup.  Not quite as thick as that, but very cloudy and the same color.  The company said the chlorine was fine and we needed to run the filter more.  After running it non-stop for a week and the water's looking the same, dh came to the conclusion that it wasn't going to get better with the chemical company and he'd better fire them. 

To do a chlorine shock to a pool our size, you put in about 5 pounds of powdered chlorine.  In two administrations yesterday, Bill put a total of 15 pounds into our pool.  It's amazing the difference a LOT of chlorine makes!

It's still not the clear light blue it should be, but it is an 85 on a scale of where it was (0) to where it should be (100).  It's so much better that I'm pretty sure we'll be swimming in it again by Monday.

Another project he did was one Elizabeth had been asking him to do--build a bird house.  I couldn't get a very good picture because of the lighting, but here is the bird house, about 20 feet in the air.  Just let me catch a neighborhood cat trying to climb that pole!

 

Happy Father's Day!

I have posted this picture a number of times and you'll certainly see it again.  Here is my favorite father--the father of my children.  It is because he was such a terrific father when I met him that I decided I did want to have more children.  We waited a few years, then had three in quick succession.  I'm so happy he doted on my older children as well, giving them another loving, interested adult in their lives.

I love you, Bill!

In honor of David and Alicia's wedding a year ago . . .

. . . some pictures Bill and I snapped of ourselves while we were waiting for them at the temple.

I think we're looking pretty . . . old.  Haha, you thought I was going to say just "pretty," didn't you?  I'm posting these anyway because in a few years I'll look back and wish I looked so young and beautiful. :-)

My cute husband

Isn't he a cutie?  When my husband was a little boy his family lived in Pakistan and this picture was in a yearbook we found online.

Can you imagine being my mother-in-law, a small-town girl from Idaho busy having children and raising them, then her husband gets a job in Pakistan?  In about 1963 they moved with their four children to Lahore, Pakistan.  Another child was born while they were there as well.  They had a little compound with a maid and a gardener/driver/babysitter.  They were husband and wife and my husband adored the husband in particular.  Life was made a lot easier with that domestic help, because it wasn't nuthin' like Idaho there!

And interesting note--probably because of the domestic help, my husband was fluent in Urdu when he was in lower elementary school, and in fact, one time they were traveling and he and his two older brothers went down for breakfast before their parents got up.  When his parents got to the dining room, they found my husband ordering the staff around in Urdu!  Alas, today he can count to ten in Urdu, but that is about it, kind of a Flowers For Algernon effect. 

All of the older boys in his family have fond memories of living overseas at a young age.

Naughty dh

Look what dh is making for Sunday evening:

Chocolate chip walnut cookies.  Sigh.

But!!!  Tonight is the first high-powered choir rehearsal for our Stake Conference and early prep for the Stake Christmas concert.  Have I *perhaps* mentioned how much I like singing in good choirs?

Happy birthday, Bill!

Dh got up early today and went hunting.  When he came home he grilled up the burgers and we had a good BBQ picnic lunch here at the house.  In the evening he brought several friends home with him after the men's meeting (LDS Church General Conference this weekend--the guys have a men-only session on Saturday night) and we had huge banana splits AND birthday cake.  It was great!

What do you notice about the Barred Rock (black and white) chicken?

Does this picture help?

Does she look mad as a wet hen?  We were outside eating our burgers when we heard a squawking from the pool.  We ran over and this chicken was in the water!  She swam along the side of the pool but couldn't get out, so dh reached in and grabbed her.

We usually (like 99.8% of the time) have our pool covered with a safety net, but it was off because the girls went swimming earlier and we hadn't gotten it back on yet.  To be honest, I never thought of it as keeping chickens out of the pool, only children.  I think she leaned in wanting to get a drink and went all the way in.

Poor Toek was pretty indignant.

Getting ready for dh's birthday

Tomorrow is Bill's big day and I'm preparing as much as I can ahead of time.

We have three things to prepare:

• birthday cake
• a hamburger bbq lunch
• a banana split party

Here is the cake part of the German chocolate cake.  It's from scratch, of course.  I'll make the coconut-pecan filling tomorrow.

Next is one of our family's favorite picnic sides which is nothing more than Cool Whip, drained fruit cocktail, miniature marshmallows, and dry Jello mixed together.  It's best when it's made the day before and refrigerated.

 

The rest of the luncheon's supplies are in the fridge and freezer.

 

This looks like two jars of the same thing, but they're not.  The one in the Kerr jar is homemade hot fudge topping and the one in the Ball jar is butterscotch topping.  They're for the banana split party. 

 

 

 

In addition to the toppings I made, I bought premium vanilla ice cream, and also chunky strawberry ice cream and "Death By Chocolate" ice cream. Oh, and some pumpkin pie ice cream just because I couldn't resist. I don't know if anyone will want that kind of ice cream in their banana split. I got several big cans of aerosol whipped cream and will chop some walnuts to go on top.

 

 My fridge yielded some maraschino cherries and a couple of partial jars of ice cream topping, and my counter has 5 bananas in a bowl with "banana split" written on the skin in red Sharpie.  

 

The banana split party is my tradition after the priesthood session of LDS General Conference every April and October. I put it on for my family as well as anyone Bill brings home with him after the priesthood session.

 

And I made a nice cinnamon apple cake just because autumn has come!

 

Why my vacation was much more fun than usual

Due to a variety of reasons, none of them bad, Bill and I seldom vacation together.

He's my favorite travel companion and it was DELIGHTFUL to vacation with him this year!

Pioneers!

Pulling a handcart--hundreds/thousands of poor European Mormon immigrants crossed the American plains to Utah pulling handcarts because they did not have enough money for a wagon and team.  Some of my mother-in-law's ancestors came to Utah by handcart.  A handcart this big would carry about 500 pounds of a family's supplies.  It was rare for anyone but tiny children and sick people to ride.  Almost everyone walked.

 Quilting for area charities.

 Our friend G.W.P.

 A braided headband like pioneers braided rugs.

A little family history

One of Bill's dad's great-great grandmothers was born into slavery in the early 1800s.  Since the descendent is actually my f-i-l's stepfather, we don't have any blood relation,, but Bill's father changed his name to that of his stepfather, so we feel a kinship.

 For years Bill has wanted to visit the historic family home in Ste. Genevieve, Missouri, and we finally had a chance.

 We arrived after the house had closed for the day, but the tour guide was still there and when Bill made an impassioned plea to see the home of his ancestor, Pelagie Amoureux, he relented and gave us the grand, family-only tour. ;-)

Here is some information about Pelagie Amoureux:

Her timeline

Hermit crabs!

The last day in Mexico our host used a mask and snorkel to look for hermit crabs.  He found six nice ones.

 If you look at the opening of each shell, you can see the crab.  Some of them practically crawled out of their shells while they were being held!

Note: the wind was blowing and puffed out dh's shirt--he's not Santa-in-training!

Happy Father's Day!

Bill got the day off today!  The girls made lunch, he bbq'd the ribs while I did everything else for the dinner, and he received calls from all of his children and one of mine.

After dinner we took a walk around the neighborhood with the children, then came back for blackberry cobbler and ice cream.

 Dh got some goodies made by Caroline and some shorts and shirts for summer.

Bill is a wonderful father, and in fact, it was his excellent father-ness that made me decide I wanted more children after we married.  That turned out to be one of the best decisions we ever made.

An advantage of living in a hot climate

You can go to work dressed like this!