Stake Conferences

We had our Stake Conferences this weekend. Adult session was Saturday evening. The surprise of that event was when my name was announced as the accompanist for the musical number. I had never even met the trio of ladies singing! Evidently I had a shocked look on my face (the folks sitting near me all told me this), but I did watch intently to make certain someone sat at the piano. I kid you not - I would have gotten up there and played for them, as I do sight read pretty well. Don't memorize worth a hoot, but I can play pretty much anything put in front of me. Maybe not perfectly, but it usually sounds decent. Anyway, they just had the wrong name listed so I relaxed for the rest of the speakers. We then stayed afterwards (9pm) for choir practice as our ward & one other ward were singing two numbers on Sunday. The next morning we got there early for choir practice and to be in our seats before the conferences started a 9am. We had two guest speakers for our conferences, Elder Robert D. Hales from the Quorum of the Twelve and Elder R. Bruce Merrell from the Area Seventies. I thoroughly enjoyed listening to them speak. And our choir did a great job ("Love at Home" and "How will they Know"). Becky Stevens is our director and she is just marvelous. It was a very good day.

Lacey, What is it?!

I have had a few people ask me "What is Lacey?" so here is a shortened version. John and I purchased a tri-plex in June 2007. It used to be a single family dwelling, so the first thing we did was convert it back to that. It was built in 1911; 2-story home with complete full basement. It is situated on a lot and 1/2. There are 5 bedrooms (4 up, 1 main) and 3 bathrooms. Built in china cupboard in kitchen and dining rooms. Front room has 2 sets of pocket doors. Dining room has bay windows. Ceilings are 9 feet? 10 feet? Anyway, they are very tall. All the windows are the old pulley kind and they all still work! Front entrance has a full length built in bench that the banister and staircase overlook. Rooms are huge and house has character. So now we are fixing it up. New wiring, new plumbing, insulation, 6 foot fence, restoring wood floors, painting, carpeting, completely gutting and redoing all 3 bathrooms and completely gutting the kitchen. It is a ton of work (for John as he is the one doing the majority of this). Know anyone that needs a home?

Art of Dairy

Lucerne (Safeway) brand dairy products have an annual art contest, "Art of Dairy" where contestants (1) Submit an entry and (2) If they are of the top 30 finalists they (3) Paint a cow with their artwork. Go to this link for more details. It is really fascinating!! http://www.artofdairy-artcontest.com/ You can see pictures of all the 30 finalists. The Honorable Mention in the first row ("If there is no Bread, Drink Milk Instead) was from our area. I got to meet the artist and see the painted cow in person. It was amazing. The contest required a tie-in to a historical event or the history of dairy. There were some crazy, fun and just incredible entries. Audrey was bummed that I had not told her about the contest as she thought it sounded fun. Maybe next year...

Misc.

I know it is not quite summer yet, but tonight reminded me of my favorite... summer rain storms. There is just something about the smell of rain mixed in with the heat of the day. I took a picture or two of the impending clouds. Probably neater in person, but hope you like it. I'm hoping for a little lightning tonight! As I was getting ready to post this blog, Audrey came into my office with a glass of water and a straw. The kitty likes water and tries to get it everywhere (except won't drink it out of her own bowl). She tried to pull the straw out. Looks like she was sucking it, doesn't it? And yup, about 30 seconds later she knocked the entire glass of water over and we had to scramble for towels to clean up the mess. Silly kitty!

Longhorn BBQ

Since I did not get any invites to the lake or any bbq fixes over the weekend - I had to get my barbecue fix another way. On Monday, Audrey and I tried to swing by Longhorn BBQ and get something for take out. But they were closed! (I think they always take Mondays off). So today I ran over to the grocery store and bought Longhorn barbecue sauce, sausages and potato salad. We'll serve them along with some beans of course. And last but not least, a fizzy drink. These are Izze's, which are 100% fruit juice with sparkling water, so "kind of" healthy?! I'm looking forward to dinner tonight. John is giving a tour of the high school to the Camp Fire group tonight, so as soon as he gets home we are eating!!

Memorial Day

Monday was a work day for us - no BBQ, no lake! We all headed to Lacey to do more painting and sanding. We have ordered carpet and we've been told it is in, so want to be ready whenever the installers can schedule the job. We're re-carpeting the entire upstairs and the main floor bedroom. 25 yards of carpet! Audrey and I lasted until 1:00pm and then we were more than done for the day. We left John to continue at Lacey (he has way more stamina than us and is much more focused too...) and Audrey & I went over to Orchard Prairie Union Cemetery to put a flower arrangement on my dad's grave site. Audrey helped me pick it out (the round display) and when we got there, it matched perfectly the vase display that was already there.

Spokane Falls

After church today we headed downtown to view the falls (along with everyone else in town). The falls were roaring and depending on where you stood, you did get wet. It was quite the site and the pictures don't even do it justice. Just awesome.