Finally!! The Father's Day Reveal
Happy Father's Day to my husband, my Dad, my step-father Frank (in heaven), and my father-in-law, Phil. Four wonderful, kind, smart, wise, and loving men that have all had an influence on me throughout my life. THANK YOU for being such good men!!!
The carpet had worn and torn over the years, and looked horrible. The brass strips holding the carpet onto the edge of the steps were also coming loose and it wasn't safe anymore. Someone could easily trip and that would be horrible!
Abby, waiting for her prince to come . . .
Then they headed out in even smaller groups for a photo scavenger hunt around the neighborhood.
When they got back, they wrote uplifting messages to their "secret sister" and had refreshments.
RD, working on the door that had the issues . . .
Sophia, Gwen, Abby, and Alyson
Back: Sam and his sister, Hayleigh
After it was decided that everyone would come over to our house for the night, RD invited us to ride across town in their RV, while Amber drove the car and met us there. We happily hopped in and enjoyed our first ever ride in an RV. How fun!!
RD and Ann up front, getting ready to drive us all across town . . .
Sarah (RD & Ann's daughter and Sophia's mother), is surrounded by Gwen, Sophia and Abby. Hayleigh, Sam and Alyson are on the swings in the background.
Sophia holding Gwen, Abby and Alyson
Phil and Coy Harmon, RD and Ann Murphy
Later that afternoon, I got brave and climbed up on top of our very tall ladder to ratchet the strap that holds up our shade over the patio. It was a little sunken down after several windy days in recent weeks and needed to be cinched up again. I had to hang on to a mediocre tree branch for support in order to reach the strap.
After I got down, Abby wanted to climb up, too.
Sun shade all fixed!
And my ONE apple on the Jonny Tree is still hanging in there. It's up near the top. I sprayed the branches earlier this week, and hopefully it will survive until the apple is ripe and ready for us to cut up and enjoy this fall.
And now for the Father's Day Reveal that I have waited a SOLID MONTH for!! Scott's gift this year was a new front porch. :) SURPRISE!!!!!
A little over a month ago, after some discussion with Scott about the current status of our derelict porch and some tentative decisions on how to replace it and with what type of material, I felt inspired to have someone else do it instead of my ever-capable husband.
When he said something about this having to take the #1 slot of all the projects on our list to do when he gets home, which would in turn bump our top priority of expanding our master bedroom and creating a huge walk-in closet, I thought to myself, "There's got to be a better solution!" I took matters into my own hands and contacted Lee Brundage, our friend and neighbor, who is also a contractor.
We agreed that Weston and I would take care of the demolition (to save money) and then Lee would take it from there and do the building of the new porch. He did a great job!
Here are a couple of "before" photos of the porch:
Old, dated, and ugly carpet:
I took pictures of each phase of the project so that I could share it all with Scott when the time came. Today, over a video chat, I showed him the new front porch.
Click to hear his reaction:
And here are the rest of the photos in an album that I made for him. Over the phone, we went photo by photo, discussing what was happening in each one. He loved having a visual of what we did. :)
He was very happy and very surprised. Mission accomplished.
As for the rest of the week, it was great, too. It was a nice and quiet week, for the most part. :)
Monday: I trimmed up the "umbrella tree" out front (Scottish Elm). I like to call it a haircut.
Before: 
After:
*I had to be strategic about taking the photos because I didn't want Scott to see the porch.
I also hung up the painting (from last week with Amber) in the upstairs bathroom. It looks great!
Tuesday: It was a rainy day, so I pulled out the dress-up princess shoes and accessories that I recently bought on Amazon. The girls played for hours and hours and were very happy. I had some fun taking pictures of them out on the front porch.
Scott and I had something to laugh about in our chat that day, . . . thus the screenshots. But I can't remember what we were laughing about!
And this was the reaction of Abby and Gwen as I explained where Auntie Charmaine gathered some pretty little granite rocks up at the top of Donner Pass last weekend for them. I told them to hold them up by the window so they could see the sparkles in the light. Their facial expressions were just priceless.
And lastly, Gwen was having too much fun outside on her swing, trying to wind it up so she could spin. She took up so much space in the process that I had to stand in between her and Abby so that Gwen wouldn't run into her sister swinging next to her. It was too cute!
Click here to see Gwen:
Wednesday: We did a little art project for Great Grandma Doris' birthday coming up this week. She will be 99 - that's NINETY NINE - years old on Friday!! WOW.
I'm hoping to get some good pictures (from family in CA) of what my mom is planning to do for her own mom's birthday, and then I can share them in my next blog post.
Thursday: I helped facilitate a young women's activity for several hours within our neighborhood. It was really fun! We split the 30 girls into two groups, coming at separate times so as not to disrupt the whole social distancing thing. The youth leaders (Bailey and Brinlee - both about 16 years old) each presented a devotional about "Who Am I?" They put a lot of thought and testimony into their presentation, and it sparked a wonderful discussion with each group about qualities and characteristics they can identify with or work on to improve who they are as a daughter of God.
Many of them mentioned how fun it was to get together and do all of this, appreciating the value of spending time face to face instead of "virtually".
As soon as I got home and unloaded the truck, I got a phone call from some Murphy cousins who were out in my neck of the woods and wanted to see me. You might recall from an earlier blog post, that when I was in South Carolina, I was able to meet the Murphys through a series of small miracles, especially considering that they lived out in the middle of nowhere and I hardly had any internet capabilities. The Murphy line is through my mother-in-law, Coy Michie Harmon. Her grandmother was a Murphy.
RD and Ann Murphy traveled across the country in their RV, along with several grandchildren, leaving home on May 30th. They drove all the way to Seattle, Washington to visit RD's sister's family after she passed away from leukemia recently. They had just been up visiting Yellowstone when the door on their RV wouldn't open. So they had to detour from their plans in order to get it fixed, which meant coming down to Idaho Falls where we have a Camping World store and service center.
Amber and I drove across town with the girls to meet up with them and say hello. Our visit quickly became an opportunity to get everyone some pizza for dinner and to invite all 7 of them to stay at our house for the night.
Hanging out at Camping World:
Gwen, Sophia, Alyson, Abby, and Sam
Front: Sophia, Gwen, Abby and Alyson
After dinner, we played out in the back yard and enjoyed the beautiful evening. Sam and I played Corn Hole. It looked like I was going to win quite handily, but he came back and won at the last minute. It was a lot of fun!
Amber, Ann and RD
The kids all played so well with each other. The girls LOVED playing with Gwen and Abby, treating Gwen like she was their little daughter and even carrying her around on their hip, ha ha.
Half of the group slept inside our home, and the rest slept outside in their RV. It must have been nice for them to spread out a little bit after having 7 people in an RV for so many days.
In the morning, after a nice breakfast that Amber made, consisting of rainbow sprinkle pancakes, scrambled eggs, and bacon, my in-laws, Coy and Phil were able to come and meet Coy's cousins for the first time. We visited for about an hour and took some photos out front before everyone left.
From the left: Sam, RD, Hayleigh, Ann, Amber, Abby, Sarah (holding Gwen), Alyson and Sophia
What a treat to see distant family and to connect with everyone!! I'm glad we were in a position to help them, too, when they needed it. :)
Saturday: I felt like cleaning. So I did. The girls caught on to the cleaning frenzy and wanted to help, too. They dusted, cleaned windows and mirrors, and swept the porch and sidewalk out front.
I pulled some weeds out front, too, while Abby practiced her "bal-la-lay" nearby.
When she tired of that, she found the children's sled in the garage and pretended she was a delivery girl.
The conversation went something like this:
Abby, pulling up to where I was pulling weeds: Hello! I have some deliveries for you!
Me: Wonderful! What do you have today?
Abby: I have 2 oranges, 5 valentines cards, several toy balls, and 3 tomatoes.
Me: Hmm, I would love the 2 oranges and the 3 tomatoes please.
Abby: Well, don't you want some valentines cards too?
Me: Oh, yes, of course. How about 4 of those please.
Abby: (hands them to me)
Me: How much do I owe you?
Abby: 4 plus 1, so five.
Me: (handing her some money)
Abby: Okay bye! have a nice day!
Me: You too! Thank you so much!
Then 10 seconds later she'd pull back up with a whole new sleigh full of stuff for me to "purchase". At one point, it became a lesson in frugality because something that I wanted cost WAY too much. (A toy ball was $50) I told her I would need to work hard and save up for that first. The next delivery I asked her if she had any cheaper items. Thankfully she did. :)
Later, she talked Gwen into giving her a ride. Gwen pulled with all her might and was able to go a few inches before giving up.
My strawberries are starting to come on!! The girls know how to lift up the netting and have a lengthy feast, moving along the entire length of the garden. It keeps them busy, my berries are getting the attention they deserve, and what a healthy snack!
In other news:
Scott got tested AGAIN for COVID-19. It was a little harder this time because he knew what was coming. The higher-ups requested another round of testing just to make sure things were okay. He is still fine and just counting down the days until he finishes up in Saudi Arabia and can start making his way home.
And Amber and I got to take the girls and go TO CHURCH this morning! It was so exciting to actually go and participate as a larger group. There were about 60 in attendance, many of which were members of the ward council and their family members, no doubt there to support and also to be a part of something so epic.
We had to wear masks and the families were seated in every other row. The congregational songs were played through the sound system from someone's phone, and the bishop asked us to either sing quietly or to just listen and ponder as the music played. Sacrament was administered by the priest quorum. They wore gloves and masks. The bread was placed in the little sacrament cups and the bishop asked us to select a cup for each child instead of them reaching for it themselves. We were instructed to take the cups home to dispose of them, or to dispose of them after the meeting was over. In other words, they would not be collected back by the young men who were passing the sacrament.
The bishop spoke about faith and how powerful it is and can be in times of distress and uncertainty. The stake president also spoke briefly and basically just encouraged us all to continue to be faithful and diligent in our gospel studies and in following our Savior Jesus Christ.
The strangest thing for me: having to help the girls to be quiet and reverent so that I could try to listen to someone else. For so long, we've been having church at home and it was all catered to THEM. We would adapt everything to THEM. But now, it's back to helping them to be quiet enough so that we (Amber and me) can pay attention to someone else - in this case, our bishop and stake president. It is going to take some getting used to for sure. But all in all, it was good. :)
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