While I’m here

I decided to clean out our yard shed and cold storage while I was in the spring cleaning mode.  

It feels good to have it clean, it is even better to have it organized so I can find what I’m looking for.  

Happy Birthday Adam!

Adam had his birthday this past month.  It is hard to buy Adam a present so I decided instead of spending money I would give him something he couldn’t buy or do for himself.  He has been really busy with work the past couple of years.  This is his work shop in the back yard.  It was impossible to find anything in his shop, you couldn’t hardly walk through the shop, and it wasn’t any fun to work in it.  So I decided I would clean and organize his shop.  I really wish I would have taken a before picture because this would be extremely impressive if you had seen the condition of the shop before I started.  

I worked on this the entire time my kids were on spring break, the kids helped a LITTLE.  We were able to do this all without Adam knowing anything about it.  




I went through all this screws and nails and organized them in many different boxes.

Learning period

Avram began an electrical class at the DTC.  He is loving it.  He learned how to install outlets this past week.  He went to a career fair and an electrical company was there recruiting employees.  They were having a competition to see who could install an outlet the fastest.  Avram won.  They offered him a job.

I actually have a couple outlets that need to be installed.  So I told Avram I wanted him to do it for his job this week.  He was really excited about the assignment but I told him to wait until Adam was home so he could give him the supplies he would need and could help if needed.  

I went to the store and came home after an hour to find out that Avram had removed every outlet plate and pulled the outlet out to check the wires.  

I was happy he was so excited but we had to shut off the power and he spent most of the day re-installing the outlets.  

The following day I was working outside.   I had been outside for several hours and finally drug myself in to get some food.  I was getting ready to use the microwave when I saw the whole front of the microwave had been taken apart.  I didn’t do a very good job of biting my tongue and I said, very frustrated,  “what happened to the microwave?” Avram said, “the power wasn’t working so I took it apart to check it.  I said, “the power is working now.” He said, “I know, it just started working again.”

Adam got home, I prepared him for the microwave so that when he got home he could be really positive and encouraging with Avram.  Luckily Adam was able to fix the microwave.  

Tavitas, Avrams friend, parents live in Tonga.  We have helped out Tavita and his sister a lot over the past few years.  They sent us a package with some shirts and souvenirs from Tonga as a thank you.  A couple of the shirts were too little so Ila put them on the dogs.   

 

Church

 Mom and Dad were able to get some tickets to the Womens session of General Conference.  

As we were walking into the conference center Ila and I saw several anti Mormon protesters.  One guy was shouting about Joseph Smith being a liar.  When Ila understood what the guy was yelling her eyes widened and she looked at me complete shocked.  

Some members built a tabernacle replica from the Old Testament.  It ended up being such an amazing accomplishment that some people made arrangements to bring it to Davis county.  

We all volunteered to help with the tours.  We were all dreading the assignment, it was on a Saturday afternoon and the kids wanted to be with their friends.  When we got home my kids told me what they had learned and taught in their part of the tour.  

It was so awesome!

The event was set up in the middle of bountiful.  There is a really old tabernacle/ church building here.  This building is actually the oldest build in the church that is still used.  Every prophet, except for Joseph Smith has spoken at the pulpit in this building.  There is actually an area in the basement where they used to store grain for Johnstens army.  

One of the leaders dropped the ball on an activity so I quickly threw together this little craft for the girls to do.  We made these Easter Bunny’s out of socks.  

One step forward, 5 steps back

When we did the addition on our home 7 years ago we had to pick and choose what needed to be done at the time vs. what we wanted to do.  One short cut we made was to leave the brick on our house even though we couldn’t match the pillars.  We added stone to the pillars around the porch.  

It actually didn’t really bother me that they didn’t match.  For work, Adam specializes in home exteriors, so this annoyed him a lot.  

Once in awhile there will be a gap between a couple of jobs for Clearview.  When there is a gap Adam continues to pay his employees.  If he doesn’t keep things consistent then they start looking for other work and he doesn’t have them when he needs them.  When this happens Adam tries to find smaller jobs for neighbors, friends or family so that they don’t have to pay the “typical” fees to get the work done.  Basically the work is done at cost and save them a lot of money and saves Adam from having to pay his guys without working.  

There was a little window with a couple of Adams stone masons so Adam took advantage of the situation and brought them to our house.  

We didn’t have any notice so we had to make decisions fast on what we wanted.  In situations like this I leave the decisions to Adam. 

Now as we are working on these improvements. Things started falling apart.  My vacuum broke, the freezer quit working, water heater stopped working, water softener quit, and the tv stopped working.  So our improvements turned into a really expensive month of repairs.