May the Sun Shine Brightly

April 30 - May 4

The grass is quickly turning green

WEDNESDAY    Today seemed altogether different than other Wednesdays. We only had to work the morning shift now that Elder and Sister Likes are here to work the afternoon shift.  (Usually Osborn’s day off)  So, after we left the Memorial, we came back shortly for Sara Dunkle’s piano lesson.   Then, we were only home for a few minutes when Rhonda had to go back to the Church to play for the YW.  While she was at the Church, I went to Mooney’s and cut his hair.  By the time we got all that done, it was dark so we just stayed home and relaxed.    
THURSDAY   Today is our “P”-day.  It was finally time to wash and iron my white shirts that I had been saving for a while.  I ended up doing nine shirts.  We went shopping in the afternoon,  It was time to stock up on a few of the essentials.  In the evening, I spent most of the time watching TV.  It was BYU baseball and volleyball so that kept me occupied.    
FRIDAY  My morning was interrupted by a knocking on the door.  It was Ed (owner) coming to see about the dishwasher that doesn’t shut off.  After visiting with him, I decided to do some reading, etc.  This is our first day on the new schedule of going to the Memorial at 2:00pm and staying open until 7:00.  I’m glad we had several visitors to help the time pass.  We had the sister missionaries there to help give tours but of course not enough people so we were definitely "over staffed".  It was nearly dark when we finally got home and I sure was hungry.  I couldn’t wait to get the left over chili warmed up.  Not much good on TV on Friday nights so I spent my night balancing the checkbook and paying some of the monthly bills.   
SATURDAY    We were back to work early shift today.  Our first visitors came pretty quick but then they were in the restroom for 40 minutes.  Apparently they had slept at a rest stop in their car and needed quite a bit of freshening up before they could make an appearance.  We watched the monitor, then got nervous that the door was open so Rhonda went to see if they were inside the visitor center.  She finally got tired of waiting and came back to the office and watched the monitor some more before they finally started up the sidewalk.  With a number of visitors, it made the day go by quite quickly.  After we returned home, we did some cleaning as Kent and Tammy Harman were coming to spend the night at our apartment spare bed while their kids are here.  I helped  a little with the cleaning but took a couple hours off waiting for the Kentucky Derby to conclude.  It was a good horse race!  I also watched the finals of the NCAA men’s volleyball match which was also exciting.  When Harman’s finally arrived, we talked with them a while before finally retiring for the night.

SUNDAY    After Sacrament meeting, we agreed to take the Harman family,  on a personal tour at the JSBM.  We watched a few movies and had a good time.  By the time they were leaving, it was time to open the Center for the day.  We had a fairly busy day--especially adding in the visitors that came for the piano recital.  Emily Burkholder (the ward Primary President) teaches piano lessons and held a little recital at the memorial.   When we got home we had a nice telephone visit with Brayden on his 12 birthday.  He told us that he was ordained a Deacon on his birthday which is pretty special.       

Family Fun, Finally!

 

April 25-29

 FRIDAY  I checked the computer as soon as I got up to make sure Randy’s family made the early flight to Burlington, VT.   Since they had tried twice before to get here, we were hoping that "third time would be the charm"!  They were assigned seats so Rhonda and I got ready, went to the Memorial and borrowed Osborn’s Expedition and went to Burlington to pick them up.  We were a little early so we went to Costco and bought a few groceries on the way to the airport.  We parked the car and went inside the airport as far as security would let us go to wait.  Soon we saw some little legs coming through the door.  Alex saw Rhonda and ran to her with a big smile on his face.  Mia followed right after so I put out my arms and she came running as well.  I picked her up and she laid her head on my shoulder and I could have melted!  I was afraid she wouldn’t recognize me after a six month absence. It sure was good to see all their family.  Luckily they had all their luggage as carry-on so we just went to the car and headed for McDonald’s (kids choice).  We made our trip back to Sharon a sight-seeing trip. 

  First stop was to Ben and Jerry’s ice cream plant a few miles outside Montpelier. 

The kids were excited to just run and play a little.  We took the little tour through the plant and received the little sample of ice cream at the end.


We then traveled to Montpelier and saw the State Capital (I have heard it is the only State Capital in the US where you can’t find a Mc Donald’s in the city). 

From there we took some of the less traveled roads to the Northfield area where we saw the three covered bridges in about a quarter of a mile, all going over the same river. 
There was also a pretty stretch of the river called “the falls”.  
 We then drove past Norwich University and showed them where we teach Institute.  Again, kind of fumbling our way and not knowing exactly where we were going, we made our way to a “floating bridge”.  
This is near the town of Brookfield.  Anyway it is a bridge that floats on the water and is about 100 yards long.  It is currently closed to vehicle traffic and is scheduled to be re-built within the next year.  We finally made it back to the apartment and the kids played outside with the neighbor girl, Tulula, while Rhonda fixed Swedish Meatballs/rice.  After dinner, we started making beds and everyone of Randy’s family ended up sleeping in the same room.  We had borrowed a “pack and play” from the Hart family in the ward and the boys slept on inflatable mattresses on the floor while Randy and Alena slept in the bed.   We were just glad to have them here and enjoyed their visit.   

Blowing the hot glass

SATURDAY     It rained a good share of the night and most of the day so outside activities would not be the best.  After breakfast, we loaded up and drove down the back road to the Simon-Pierce  glass blowing plant in Quechee.

On the deck at Simon-Pierce Factory

The kids were quite enthralled with the whole process.  We finally had to drag them away.    






 We went to the Cabot cheese outlet at Quechee Gorge and everyone enjoyed the free samples of cheese, syrup and popcorn.  The rain let up a little so we walked along the highway and looked at the Quechee-Gorge (Vermont’s answer to the Grand Canyon).  By then, breakfast has worn off and we headed to Wendy’s for lunch (or whatever you call it at 3:00pm).   From Wendy’s we drove towards the Claremont/Windsor area where we saw the “longest covered bridge” in the US. It looked like it was close to 200 yards long.  From there it was back to the apartment and enjoyed being together. 


 
SUNDAY    Since church starts at 10:00, we managed to get all of us there on time.  After a quick breakfast, we went to Sacrament meeting in the South Royalton Ward.  The kids weren’t especially excited about going to Primary so we just all loaded in the car and went to the Memorial for a private family tour. 
We ended up opening the center and staying until the Likes came to start tours.  We then went to the apartment where Rhonda had a delicious roast beef dinner prepared.  From there, we hardly left the premises.  The kids played outside on the lawn a little but most of the time we just visited and enjoyed being together.  As Randy started checking flights, the situation looked less likely that they would make it home on Monday so just before retiring for the night, they decided to stay and go home on Tuesday.

 

    

MONDAY   It rained a good share of the day today. We spent the morning looking at flights and just visiting around the apartment.  When it was time for us to go to work at the Memorial, we took Osborn’s Expedition and Randy took his family in our Subaru and went back into Quechee and hiked the trails a little.  About the time Randy’s were leaving, a man in a solider uniform came to the Memorial.  I invited him for a tour and he said he didn’t have time and just wanted to see the monument.  I followed him and we started talking and before you knew it, we were inside the visitor center talking about the restoration.  He ended up staying and talking with me for an hour and twenty minutes.  I was really impressed with this man.  We stayed at the Memorial until after the opening of FHE and then slipped out.   We met Randy's family at Applebee’s in W. Lebanon for dinner.  That about did our day as Randy wanted to get the kids to bed earlier so they would be rested for a long day of travel.          
TUESDAY   We got things rolling and after a quick breakfast we loaded up and headed for Burlington Airport.  It was hard to say good-bye but we sure were thankful for the visit.  (sidenote, the went from Burlington to Laguardia in NY, to Washington DC and on to SLC.  At SLC they finally got seats for Alena and all the kids but not for Randy, he had to call Blake and stay the night at his house and then back to the airport for the early flight on Wed. morning)  After we departed, we went to Costco with the plan to buy some new glasses but once I talked to them, I changed my mind.  We bought a few groceries and pills and headed back down the highway and to the Memorial for our shift.  We missed a little of the missionary-meeting but nothing serious.  

Happy Easter!

April 20-26

Easter is a beautiful time of the year.  We are feeling the promise of Spring--even here in Vermont!  The resurgence of new growth is appearing as the blanket of snow is lifting.  It is wonderful to think of the beautiful Easter message and the blessing of Christ's resurrection, which gives us the gift of eternal life.  We are so grateful that He lives today as our Savior and Redeemer.                                                  SUNDAY   Rhonda was ask to play the organ at Church today.  She always does a great job,  it sounds so nice to have someone who can really play the organ.  We only stayed for Sacrament meeting as earlier in the week a Bro. Lowe called and ask how he could get a tour of the visitor center but only had time to go to Sacrament mtg.  I told him I would miss Sunday School and take him.  After Sacrament mtg., I told him I would meet him at the Monument.   Before he got there (45 minutes later) was a group from Maryland (7 people)   who just parked waiting for us to open.  I walked out and invited them in.  No sooner did I start with them than Bro. Lowe arrived.  I tried to combing their groups but before I knew it, they were wandering all over.  Some watched the Easter Video and others went to the Monument.  We finally finished with whoever was around about the time the Osborn’s arrived from the block meetings.  We left and went to the apartment and played with the TV but couldn’t even get it to boot up.  Rhonda called DISH and after “talking” with them on the internet, the guy determined that our receiver was bad so we were finally talked into getting “insurance” so he could send us a new one by UPS.

Today was also Elder Harman's birthday

It was soon time to go back to the Memorial for a Missionary Easter Dinner.  
 MONDAY  Started the day with a sweaty run/walk.  Then it took a while to cool off before getting ready to go to work.  Once at work, it seemed like I hardly spent any time in the office, most of the time I was dealing with visitors at the visitor center/monument.  Several of the non-members who came hardly had time to go through but then the started asking a number of questions so they could have had the whole tour.  I missed the activity at FHE as I was busy giving a tour.  I did make it back for the eats however.  Once back to the apartment, I didn’t have much for excitement so messed on the computer for a while and soon retired.   
TUESDAY   We had more rain during the night.  The rainy weather did give me a little more time to read in the Book of Mormon.  We went to the Memorial for the missionary training and no sooner had the opening prayer before visitors came.  I ended up missing the whole meeting.  That was only the start of the day, I was kept busy  almost all the rest of our shift talking to people.

This is about half of the young sisters serving in our Mission

WEDNESDAY   Today was cold and windy all day.  It started early and continued all through the day.  Rhonda went with the other sister missionaries to a “Sisters Conference” at our Church. Sisters from our half of the mission attended.  Rhonda accompanied the sisters serving in So. Royalton as they played a special violin number.

Singing to the Chef in "thanks" for a wonderful meal

     
 The “senior” sisters here at the Memorial did all the table decorations for the conference.   


 Just after noon, Elder Osborn got a call to come to the chapel and get some lunch our wives had saved for us (he had been sitting with me most of the morning).   Before he got back with the lunch, I had visitors.  I ended up warming my dinner in the microwave three times before I had a chance to eat it all as people just seemed to keep coming for tours.  After our shift finished, we stopped at the Church and cleaned up a little and did the dishes that were left in the sink, luckily most of the dinner was on plastic plates and cutlery.  We were quite a bit later than usual before we finally got home.  Our DISH receiver arrived so we spent some time getting it hooked up and programed so we could begin watching TV again.    

 THURSDAY  Instead of a day off, we worked mornings today and traded our day off for Friday.  We only had one group come so I did a lot of reading, etc.  Once home, I had to wash my dirty car again.  In late afternoon, we went to town.  I let Rhonda off at JoAnn’s while I took the car to Norwich to have the oil changed in the car.   When we go back, Rhonda started cleaning house while I kept checking the computer to see where Randy and family were on their way to visit us.  I couldn’t follow their travels.  
Finally Rhonda found that they had gone to Los Angeles on their way here as some flights closed up,  I finally helped them make a motel reservation in Minneapolis but they were only able to get about three hours sleep before they had to be going again.  They went from SGU to SLC to LAX and finally MSP (Minneapolis) just after midnight, at which time they called it a day.