April 2024

Thursday 4/11

Spring is well on its way at our house

Flowering Plum, Daffodils, Forget-Me-Nots and Pansies are already in bloom and looking beautiful

These buds tell us we have, soon-to-be . . . .

Lilac stalks, Clematis flowers, Gum Tree leaves, Rhododendron blooms and tulips. Spring is an exciting time of year as we anxiously await nature's coming to life ! 

Friday 4/12

And Today . . . .

Our first tulip opened up . . . . and . . . .

Our Maple tree is coming to life in today's 75 degree weather.

Nice warm weather makes this a . . . .

work in the yard and . . . .

short sleeves & sandals kind of day 

Saturday 4/13

In February we had our trees trimmed

In the process we found this squirrel nest and suspected the cotton in the nest came from one of our patio chair cushions

This morning . . . .

BUSTED !!!

And . . . . Monday morning, this crazy squirrel is still at it !

Sunday 4/14

Tulips in Star !

Just a few days ago our first tulip bloomed. Today, our tree ring is full of multi-colored ones with more on the way. They look so pretty with the yellow daffodils and pink tree blossoms.

Wednesday 4/17

After 17 years, the bench, where we change our shoes, in our laundry room was getting a little beat up, sooo . . .

Today, Linda decided to give it a new coat of paint !

Saturday 4/20

Our ward will have a talent show activity in May. Linda signed up to be a participant and signed up to play "something" on the piano

She has decided to play the Overture from Nauvoo's Rendezvous Show.

It is a medley of 6 songs that are sung in the show.

Since very few have been to Nauvoo and seen this show, the tunes will be unfamiliar to almost everyone. Linda decided to create a Power Point Slide Show to go along with the Overture. She created it on her laptop, making 54 slides similar to those shown here.

1 - creating on Laptop

   2 - Title slide for each of the 6 songs

3 - Sample of the slides about Nauvoo

Steve will run the Power Point show as Linda plays the music. We hope it will turn out to be an entertaining and informative presentation. Maybe it will inspire some of our ward members to make the "trek" to visit Nauvoo !

Sunday 4/21

This afternoon we visited Matt & Jen

Their flowering cherry ? was so pretty and those tulips added some beautiful color. Linda couldn't resist taking a picture. When we got home after our visit, we found our purple ajuga in full bloom and our lilacs beginning to burst open and becoming so fragrant.

Friday 4/26

In case you couldn't tell, Linda learned how to make a collage. It's nice because we can post more pictures in less space!

Also, we love spring and seeing all our flowers bloom so sorry about all the floral pictures this month

First thing this morning our garbage collection company delivered a new, "green-top" bucket. It is specifically for grass clippings and yard debris. It will be nice to have the smelly grass clippings out of the garage (where we keep our regular trash cans).

Then, later this morning . . . .

Access returned, after doing an A/C tune-up yesterday, to do a plumbing inspection. End result was that everything looks good, although, our water heater is probably on its last leg, just because of its age.  

 

More "Spring" pictures . . . 

"Flower" the skunk surrounded by colorful pansies

Front yard fountain, turtles & purple ajuga

Tulips are about done and . . . 

Lilacs are just getting started and smelling wonderful!

Sunday 4/28

Just another busy day at church for Linda

She started out playing the organ, prelude, hymns, postlude, and . . . . during the meeting she played a special musical number, Love One Another.  After Sacrament meeting, she played the piano for the Priesthood's Mother's Day song rehearsal. Once that was over, she dashed off, down to the Primary room, to play for the kids. She did a nice job with everything!

Tuesday 4/30

A couple of weeks ago we ordered our 2023 Blog book. We were a little bit nervous about it because the company we use is from the Netherlands and hasn't been heard from since last fall. We took a chance and ordered the book, using the last discount code, from August. We paid for the book and kept our fingers crossed that we would actually receive the book.

We were excited this morning when Steve got the mail . . . 

Our 2023 Blog book arrived !

It is so much fun to browse through it and reflect on all the fun, and not-so-fun, experiences we had during the year.

This afternoon Steve met with his surgeon for a 3-month check-up

Checking out the wound site - it looks good !

Reviewing the most recent x-rays, taken 2 weeks ago

Again, everything looks good !

The surgeon cautioned Steve to SLOW DOWN. He is confident that the pain Steve has now will get better with time (1 year), if he will slow down and not do too much, too soon. He okayed some easy PT like riding a stationary bike & swimming and upped the weight limit for lifting from 10 to 20 pounds. He said no lawn mowing yet... oops... guess we'll have to make arrangements for someone else to help with that for now.