Tuesday, July 05, 2011

As we finish out our Iowa lives...

Elizabeth painted the "princess" for the camp flag (and their's won).  "Appointed by Divinity" was their title.
Last week, in an effort to get rid of stuff, we had a garage giveaway.  I've never been, and probably never will be in the mood to have a garage sale.  The thought of having to price everything, and then sit there while people paw over things just doesn't appeal to me.
But to give things away is different.
 I set everything out, and people just stopped by.
 It really cut down on how much stuff we ended up taking to Goodwill.
And, we finally got the valued inventory done.  Everything enumerated and valued.
That is SUCH a tedious job but everyone helped out.
Last night as we were getting ready to email the inventory back to the insurance company,
all four of us were totaling sheets so we could get the final amount.
 We also took photos of all the items.
 The ward had a going away party for us and another family moving away this month--and to welcome in the 4 new families that have moved in the past month.
We called it a "replacement" party.  
Alice spent part of the time hanging out with her Sunday School class.  For all 12 years in this ward, she has been the lone girl in a class of boys.  Lately, she hasn't minded it.  The boys constantly tease one another about doing things to get her favor--and the funny thing is, they DO!
They're all good kids, and it's been fun to watch.
 And finally, the packers came today.  This is what we've been agonizing, puzzling and sweating about for the past two months.  Which things should we take?  Which should go to storage--and if we don't need it for 3 years, should we just get rid of it?  What should just be thrown away?
Well, judgment day is here and whichever decisions we've made are quickly becoming permanent.

Sunday, July 03, 2011

Just for some contrast...

I thought I'd put in some pictures of the yard, back in 2004.  Wow, only 7 years ago, and things had already grown quite a bit.  Some friends planted some apple trees this year, and mentioned their regret at not planting them 30 years ago when they moved here. They thought it would take too long before they actually got apples. We forget that in most cases, we do have time to have things come to fruition.

 And for our comic relief, this picture was taken in 2002.  Don't you just love Kim's expression?  After you get past that, look at the tiny trees in the background.  We've come a LONG way in just 9 years!