Tuesday, June 5, 2018

May 2018, in brief. (Or not.)

This actually starts in April. We have blooms!  Well, not on the raspberries (above) quite yet in April, but they are green and growing and I'm starting to become very excited about the fruit that is to come.  I'm also beginning to wonder, "When will I ever have time enough to pick them all???!!" and "What was I thinking?"  But also, "Mmmmm, we do love raspberries!"

 The apple tree, above, had gorgeous blooms in April. Now there are baby apples all over it!  Yay for fall apples!
That's the apple tree in the foreground, above, the neighbor's cherry tree soaring above that. There are some cherries on it now, but they are so high up that we'll never be able to reach them.  They are few and far between, also. Too bad.

The neighbors on the other side of the yard have a pear tree and an apple and an apricot tree that all hang over into our yard. Lovely.  The pears are always wormy and small, but we plan to give it some water. It won't help the worminess, but should improve on the size. The apples are mushy and wormy and nearly all of the baby apples (like the size of an almond nut) have fallen to the ground already. Maybe because of lack of water. Students rent the place and they don't water. There are a few apricots that survived the frosty mornings we had in March and April.
This was taken in May.  NOW there are blossoms galore on the raspberries and the bees are as busy as...well--Bees!

Later in May, I attended the ULA Conference in Provo. I got to present some Certificates, help with a panel presentation and do one mini presentation on my own. I stayed with Robert and Janet and it was nice to visit with them for a while. Robert sure enjoys his garage/woodshop and woodworking tools.
Look at the cool hat/coat rack he made for their kitchen.

His garage. Many of the big saws and things roll to the side, he can quickly sweep up and it's ready for Janet's car.  Unlike MY garage, below:

GAAAAAA!! And it's getting fuller and fuller by the day.
Yes, School is out, the program ended, and Mike cleaned out the office, the work room, sheds, storage areas and brought home all his tools and the other things he had there. Materials that didn't have a home. Ugh.  I will get my garage back one day. I will! He says he's going to clean it out and organize it.  But there simply is not room for all of that. (Plus he unloaded some at his Mom's garage, AND there is still one ware house that he still has to clean out at school!!)  There are no words.

Except, MAYBE, Happy Birthday to Jonathan!  And Gail. They both had birthdays in May and I got to celebrate with them. Kind of. 
After my library conference on the 18th, I drove on in to Salt Lake, had dinner with these cuties
Logan
And Rachel

And Kaylee ('s legs...ha)


Poor Logan cried at first when I came in the house.  He did get happier, later on. I'm hoping it is because he thought I was going to baby sit and his mom was leaving and that's why he was so sad. Nick wasn't there. He'd gone on a long backpacking hike to Coyote Gulch(?) with some of his high school friends. I just saw some photos of that area. It is gorgeous!

Then, I left Salt Lake on Friday night and headed over to Elko, NV.
Gail and Seth were headed to Mexico the next day for an all-expense paid vacation from a work contest that Seth won. Cool!  They went to Cabo San Lucas and had a great time.  Caroline, Jonathan and I
Sat around and played on our devices?

Nope, not really.
I delivered Jonathan's birthday present from Nick--a Harry Potter-type wand!
I was also supposed to deliver the Gail and Seth gifts from Nick, but I am sorry to say they never left my car and I forgot. Sorry, Nick and Kaylee. They will get them. Eventually.

Since it was Jonathan's birthday (Tandy contributed, too, and) I took them Bowling, and for Pizza and Ice cream at Cold Stone (which, conveniently, is located in the Bowling Alley).  We had the entire bowling alley to ourselves.  That was kind of cool. It's small--only 8 lanes. No photos of us bowling, but I think Caroline sent a Marco Polo video to someone.
Jonathan won! That game, anyway.
We went to Church on Sunday. They called their parents too many times. We went grocery shopping for ingredients for Caroline's school project she had to make on Monday after we got home from bowling.  Want some yummy stuff?  Make this! She did and it was delish!
Caroline is a very good cook and her Spanish Class was lucky to be able to enjoy this dish. I want to make it, too!

We also played Monopoly for two nights in a row.  I am happy to say that I trounced them thoroughly.  I was not lenient in the least and it was the ONLY time I have ever won at Monopoly (this was T-Bird-opoly, but whatever) in my entire life.  Sad that I had to do it to the sweet grandkids, huh?
During the day while they were at school, I worked on a Christmas craft project and watched tv, so it was a good vacation for me, too!  Fun times. I left for home before Gail and Seth got back.  They were heading home as I was and got home on Thursday night, May 24. I had to be at work on the 25th, so that's why I left early. I wanted to avoid the elk on the Nevada highway on my drive home and didn't want to be home late, so I just sent kids off to school and went on my way.
The drive home was really quite nice. I listened to an audio book and enjoyed the scenery. They had had lots of rain and it was very green.  I even saw elk! Far away off the road, grazing.  And I saw antelope, too. And had fun junk food for lunch.

Next in May was Memorial Day and our annual trek up to Utah county to decorate graves. First Stop, American Fork. We met Gayela there. Only Mike and I and his mom went. Eric had a rehearsal that evening that I didn't think we would be home in time for. I forgot to take pictures in American Fork. 
2nd stop was Provo City Cemetery.



This is how we roll. Well, some of them. I actually caught a ride in the back this time, too. I'm old enough.
Next stop was the Park in Provo for a Picnic with all of Gayela's family.  Some of Anita's family came, too, AND  Mike's cousin Ed Liebhardt, his wife and 2 kids. It was a good time.
Charlene, Anita's daughter and Mike's cousin. She also brought her daughter and a friend.




Plenty of food and some nice visiting. All of Gayela's Utah kids were there with most of their families, plus one of Troy's daughters from Denver was there visiting, too.

Mike headed north, and we headed south. I took Berenice to her cousin Iris's 90th birthday party in Provo at a different pavilion. We just stayed a short while. I just people - watched and visited briefly with the only people there that I knew, Wade and Karen Seely from Idaho.

 Iris and Berenice.

Then we stopped in Springville and decorated more graves (her sister LaPrele and husband), and THEN we drove home.

Mike picked up Nick and they drove to Vancouver Island, British  Columbia, Canada, met Damian and Braeden and did this:





And a fun time was had by all.  They were back on Saturday, June 2.

I had fun while he was gone. I worked.  But we had a party, too!  Amber is leaving and moving to Virginia, so we had lunch together at work. On Book Carts. How librarian-esque. ha. Not really. Food has no place in a library!!
I planted flowers (no photos), I attended at play and helped usher for "The Music Man" (no photos), I went to the temple--twice. Once with a group of Relief Society Ladies from the ward, and another time to clean--again, with the fine folks from my ward.

May was full and fun and busy and relaxing (because I got to sit around and blog and listen to audio books). What will June bring, I wonder?
My day (today, June 5, 2018) began like this:
I walked over to Berenice's to get some exercise AND to water some flowers at 6 am.

AND it ended like this--the view from my kitchen window (screen and all):
I should have gone out and done it justice with nothing between me and the sky.  But oh well. I was tired. I dug up a bucket of weeds today after work.


1 comment:

Kaylee said...

What a busy and fun month! I have a feeling June and July will be pretty busy too!