The end of summer. . .

Well, I can tell it’s the end of summer because so many things have been accomplished and now I find myself digging my heels into the ground and not wanting Fall to arrive. It’s not that I don’t like that season, but I love Summer and I hate what comes after Fall – Winter. Oh, well . . .

Randy has been attending a class on Saturday mornings to learn to make molds for his sculptures. This is one of Christ after it has several layers of purple plastic– I know it looks like he has a Mohawk, but that’s where he will cut it apart!

















When it’s done, he can then either pour a finished sculpture out of resin, bronze, or other materials. Bronze is very expensive, so he will do the first one, at least, out of resin. It can always be painted to look like bronze! He is also working on a website where he can sell his recordings.

Not much has changed in Jesse’s life – we talked to him for a long time this last week, but I can’t remember a lot of news. He’s enjoying his work at the restaurant and he really likes the owner/manager. But the manager is going to be gone (he’s in the service) and Jesse’s not sure he will like the manager that will replace him. Jesse’s got a puppy now – the dog and the cat basically stay away from each other – a mutual toleration. Tyler is back at school along with working, so he’s pretty busy. He’s taking 12 hours this semester on 2 long days, and works the other 3. Since he has moved, he is in a different ward and his new bishop is Bishop Michael Parry – one of Dave’s brothers - small world. Heidi celebrated her 25th birthday and Dylan wrote her a great poem!

She had a “gang” conference in St. George, so she also got to visit with friends down there and had a good time. She got braces on her teeth AGAIN – which is NOT such a good time. She has started back at school – 11 hours. Ingrid and Jeff are doing well. Ingrid is sick of her job at the daycare because she is always having to do the work of the people that are being paid a lot more, while they just do nothing. But, she will hang onto it until she finds something else. Dylan still hasn’t found a job. He and his friend were supposed to go to Idaho and do scaffolding, but he found out he has to be 18 years old, and his birthday isn’t for another eight days. So, he’s been filling out applications, but is still hoping to go up there in a few weeks. Randy thinks he can get him a job doing roofing as a laborer, also, once he turns 18 – but that would be a terrible environment. I don’t know if the surroundings at the scaffolding job will be much better…

Tyler helped Randy build a shed for us and Dylan also helped a bit. We moved a lot of garden and lawn stuff out there, along with a bunch of tools.

Now we can actually get around the universal gym and weight bench in our garage and maybe they will get some use!

We have several hummingbirds that visit our nectar-feeder each day. It's just off our front porch, so I can see it from the desk in the office. I took some still shots, and then I actually took some video of one. (This was accidental because I had my camera set wrong - but oh, well...!!)

Randy got me a laptop last month. My desktop computer is real old and SO slow! But, I still use it some because I haven’t got Word on the laptop yet. I started to download some free word programs from the web, but either they aren’t actually free (yearly and monthly fees) or they try to add-on all kinds of things to your computer. But, I should be set soon.

I admit it - I am an organization-freak. I put organizers in my bathroom drawers and the excitement took days to wear off! Pretty sad.

I also re-painted the front door and front light fixtures because they were looking pretty bad. Please ignore the big dents in the door – they were here when we moved in!

I got some frozen

strawberries to make smoothies and some frozen cherries for pies. These were from a special order that a lady in our Stake organized. I also got ¾ bushel of peaches from another woman in the Stake that I have since canned, along with about 11 quarts of tomatoes – with more growing outside on my plants.

I am trying to perfect my homemade wheat bread so that I can use up some of my stored wheat. I’m afraid I’m turning domesticated!

We attended the Oquirrh Mountain temple dedication. It was wonderful. I’m so excited to start attending there. Our Stake is now on the New Family Search and we have found a lot of names on Randy’s line that need work done. My brother will also let us know when he has more work for us to do on my side of the family. This is certainly a wonderful time to be alive!

We also attended our nephew, Richie Preece’s homecoming talk. He just completed a mission to Oklahoma. It was great. And Dylan and I attended a fireside for all those who went on Trek this summer. They filmed the experience and made a wonderful DVD and each participant got a copy.

Happy Birthday this month to Dylan and Mom! And Happy Labor Day to all!