Life in the Midst of Frenzy...

During this frenzy of moving, life keeps on happening. Today, I want to catch up on the things of life outside of the move to Georgetown. To do that I'll reach back a bit and go from there.

Joel, our 4th-great grandmonster, was born on June 6th. These are a few pictures of Joel's first month on earth. Joel with his dad, Drew, on Jun 19th. Joel in yellow sleeping on June 22nd. Joel sleeping on June 29th. July 13th Joel was tired of the hiccups and has his fist by his head. Last two pictures were July 14th. Joel has a great grin! We saw this sweet little lump of life when he was about a week old. We'll go in August to see him again. Can't wait to get a nuzzle.

Saturday, June 26th, I received a text with this picture from our middle child, Andie, simply labeled "Memory Lane..."

The text reads: The Anonymous Glove Bandit strikes again. Give this glove to a friend for their Thanksgiving decoration or great evil will befall you shortly. Signed, The Anonymous Glove Bandit. PS Your dad and I got the stuff to make rice krispie treats. Tell us how to connect with Rylee. 

I sent Andie a message explaining I could not remember this. Andie reminded me that I went through a phase while she was at Salisbury State University where I would sent her surgical gloves. I then remembered doing that. I reminded Andie she has a fun mother!?!? Andie assured me her 14 year old daughter, Bailey, was impressed. Andie explained she also has one that is a "prefabricated turkey" for Thanksgiving. Then there was one with a face and a set of calendar pages so Andie could plan for the holidays. Andie ended by saying, "I loved that mail!" So happy Andie reminded me of this interchange between mother and daughter. 

Our great grandson, Nelson, had to have surgery on his toes on July 2nd. He had ingrown toenails they needed to remove. This is painful to do and they didn't want to traumatize Nelson so they opted to do it as outpatient surgery. He was treated well with treats to eat, decorations over his bed so it was like a tent area. He left with bandages on each of his big toes. Just want to squish him. 

Katelyn dressed up her three kidlings up for the 4th of July. Here are pictures of Raelyn, Emelia and Joel. I'm not sure Joel is digging his bowtie. And, we can be properly impressed that Emelia has something on her feet!

Wednesday, July 7th, our first-born, Nissa, and her hubby, Todd, got some much deserved time away from work together. They look happy. 

Sunday, July 11th, the Marx family came to visit. They brought us dinner from Giovanni's. We had a lovely visit. Michael helped us have Netflix on our new television. We watched a soccer game from a tournament that Michael is following. Bailey set up Claude Zen sand garden. It was a nice visit. Andie left her purse when they returned home. 

Monday, July 12th, I borrowed Papa from the nursing home. He would get his ride in as I returned Andie's purse to her. I left it at the school where she teaches, as she is teaching summer school. The lady in the office that I left the purse with said, "Andie told me you were coming and I have been sitting here thinking of all the stories I could tell you about her!" I laughed. I should have said, "I have been her mother for 48 years. Let me tell you a story or two!" 

Tuesday, July 13th, we wished a Happy Birthday to our first-born grandmonster, Katelyn Roper!! What a joy she is.

Drew took a great pictures of Katelyn enjoying her birthday with her little brood.

Wednesday, July 14th, Claude had his first of two skin cancer surgeries. I have already posted about that with a picture. The good news is Claude went back to Dr. Wilson on Monday, July 19th, and had the outer stitches removed. He is healing well. The inside stitches will dissolve as they heal. The wound is about an inch deep. 

For a period of several days, we had good downpours every afternoon and sometimes in the evening. Claude and I found mushrooms growing under one of our trees. I sent pictures to Bailey, our youngest grandmonster, and suggested the tree was ready for us to make a fairy garden at its base. The mushrooms were already in place.

Friday, July 16th, I took Papa out of the nursing home and to the park to watch the creek and the geese. This time I also took Claude's old Kindle with the game Papa used to enjoy playing before the pandemic. It is Free Flow. Papa has not played this game since March 2020. I wasn't sure if he would remember it or if he would even enjoy it. I love for him to play it because it uses his brain in a different way so it exercises his brain. I parked the car under a tree and then pulled the game out. I showed it to Papa and reminded him of what he needed to do to play the game. He picked it right up without missing a beat. Made my heart very happy. He enjoyed playing it and would pause when the geese came out to play. He was very happy to get to do something different.

This day Katelyn posted this picture of Raelyn and Emelia dressed as princesses. Be Still My Heart!!

Saturday, July 17th, Claude and I drove to LaGrange in the morning to watch the Oldham County Days parade. Hayden and Bailey were both playing in the Oldham County High School Band. Hayden plays the euphonium or baritone and Bailey plays the trumpet. Irony of ironies, we drove all that way, the kid's band was the last band in the parade. I was videoing and completely missed seeing Hayden or Bailey! Claude didn't see them either. We knew which musical section to look in. The kids were on the opposite side of the street or in the middle of the line. Michael was able to get pictures of the kids as he was only doing still shots. In the first picture, Hayden is on the outside of his line. In the second picture, Bailey is in the middle of her line on the other side of the girl you can really see. I tried to circle where they are with yellow. Goodness. 

This was the 50th year of the parade. They had a printed program and it listed all the Grand Marshall's of the parade with the year they were Grand Marshall. For 2020, the Grand Marshall simply had COVID-19. There was no parade. We all got a chuckle out of it.

Here are a few pictures of things I enjoyed in the parade. Included in these pictures are a very old snowplow, the Blues Brothers, Elvis, actual fire and Mr. and Mrs. Santa Claus. Fun parade. We loved where Andie and Michael found for us to sit and will sit in this spot next year as well.

After the parade, we walked through the vendors as we went back to our car. Purchased Graeter's Ice Cream to support the band fund. We met everyone back at the Marx home. Claude and I purchased barbeque sandwiches for everyone for lunch. 

We determined we would take Hayden back to our home for a few days for a sleepover. He really, really, really wanted to be the first person to spend the night in our new home. This helped Hayden fulfill his bucket list item. He is a very easy guest to entertain. We stopped at Kroger on the way to our home and let Hayden pick out five candies he wanted for munching during his visit. We had dinner at Zaxby's Sunday night. We would dine at Sonic on Monday night. Lunch at Chick-filA as we took Hayden home would round out Hayden's choice of dining experiences while he visited. We would watch all three Hobbit movies. Hayden shared a movie titled The Social Network with us. We watch some documentaries. We even managed to give Hayden a hair trim before we took him home. It was a nice visit and we are grateful Hayden truly wanted to be our very first overnight house guest.

Andie and Michael had a puzzle they made on their dining room table. They let me take it home. Saturday night, the 17th, I put the puzzle together. It was only 300 pieces and a nice scene picture. I timed myself and then sent a screenshot of the timing and a picture of the completed puzzle to Andie and Michael. I have now donated the puzzle to the nursing home for their residents to enjoy. Love me some puzzle time!

Sunday, July 18th, Claude and I both spoke in Sacrament meeting. My topic was "An Attitude of Gratitude" from a talk by Thomas S. Monson. Claude's topic was "Called to the Work" from a talk by David A. Bednar. 

Monday, July 19th, I had a mammogram. There must not have been anything wrong as I have not heard from my doctor or the hospital radiology department. Yeah!!

After Claude had his stitches out this Monday, he determined he could now move mountains. Actually, we had one last valance to install. He put up the rod and we finished off the dining room window with two valances. I think they are simply lovely.

Monday night we received a call from our bank. It seems the check we received at closing from our buyer for the purchase of the tractor had a stop payment put on it. The bank wanted us to be aware of this. Say what!!! I sent a text to our realtor, Wendall, telling him the situation and explaining that we needed to get access to the house to get the tractor if they were not going to purchase it. Wendell was able to contact their realtor who spoke with the buyers. They did want the tractor. They had two checks out and wanted to stop payment on one of them. It seems they stopped payment on the wrong check. Bless their hearts, they went to their bank, got a certified check for the tractor and overnighted it to us. We were just happy they did want the tractor and understood the mix up. We would not have asked them to get a certified check and pay for overnighting. We are grateful that they did get this straightened out though.

Wednesday, July 21st, we were back at setting up our home. Our next hurdle to cross was the shed. When we moved in, we had the movers put boxes in the of things we knew we wanted to store in the shed. As we unpacked the house and set it up, we found other items that needed to be stored in the shed. We also knew we had some items in the garage that would need to be stored in the shed. We determined we would get up and work in the shed on Wednesday morning before it got too hot. We were very successful setting up the shelving and then grouping the items to be stored on the shelves. We are very happy with the work we did. Today, Claude has added storage hooks for the tools that will be stored there as well as an overhead light that can be plugged in electrical cord which will plug into the house to add light when needed. We did empty out a bit more of the garage. Yippee!!

We were exhausted after all of this. We went to Burger King for a hamburger. Then came home and took a little nap. This left us refreshed enough to work some more in the early evening. Claude had repainted his horseshoes from the ranch. He put one over the front door and one in his office so it looks like the letter C for Christensen.

Wednesday morning, while working on the shed, I received a telephone call from Laurence at the nursing home. It seems a resident in the Transitional Care Unit (Rehab) tested positive for Covid-19. This means the nursing home is shut down for visitors until all of them test negative again. Ugh!! I am ever-so-grateful I took Papa on Tuesday from the nursing home to the church. He sat on the front pew with a hymnbook in hand. I played one verse of the hymns starting at the front of the book. In an hour and a half we made our way through 90 hymns. Papa loved this outing so much. Now I am very happy we did that. Not sure when I'll be able to get him out again. 

Wednesday night I received a text. It seemed someone was using our credit card. We had to close the account and will get a new card in a few days. Ugh!!! I don't think I have even changed all the address I need to change yet. And now we get to change credit cards. 

So life continues. We have an electrician coming tomorrow to add some outlets in the garage. We have purchased a ceiling fan for the guest bedroom. We'll see if he can do that tomorrow or some other time. We set up the items on top of the kitchen cabinets. We are now at the point where we need to open the pictures boxes and make decisions about what to hang and where to hang it. We still have things to be done to the back yard. But the house is just wonderful. It will be a delight to live here.