May 2025

Thursday 5/1

For "May Day", we turned on our Sprinklers . . . "bout time !!

All but one of the five stations worked great. The "drip line" station didn't work. We called our friend, Rob, and he came over and determined the solenoid for that station was bad. He and Steve ran to the Merc, found a new one, returned, and installed it. That did the trick and now all is well !!

Friday 5/2

This afternoon we attended the "Celebration of Life" for our Nephew

Curt Duane Mastrude

Deb (Curt's wife), Scott, Julie Wilson, Glenda, 

Robin & son Nick, Coby, Mike & son Dylan, Karen & Rob Eyre, Craig Wilson

Curt is Glenda & Selwyns oldest child. He loved riding his motorcycle and that is exactly what he was doing the day he passed away. The "Celebration" was held at the "Stone House" in Boise and it was packed. Curt's nephew Nick (Scott's son), conductied the service. He gave a beautiful eulogy followed by a fun slideshow filled with great pictures from Curt's life. After the slideshow, friends and family shared some personal memories. Once the service was over, we were able to visit with lots of family while enjoying delicious refreshments. 

We loved having another chance to be with our sister, Glenda.

We had a pretty good representation from the Waite family:

Ron & Cheryl, Dave, Steve & Linda, Matt, Marilyn, Jeff, Melissa, Lisa, Jennifer & Tyson, Randy & Lynette. We loved being with each other and with Glenda, Julie & Craig, Scott & Robin, Mike & Coby, Karen & Rob and even some of their kids.

Sunday 5/4

Tonight we caught a red-eye flight to North Carolina.

We left our house at 9 p.m., dropped a package off at Matt's house, left our car in the airports long term economy lot and took the shuttle to the airport. Our flight was delayed for half an hour so it didn't leave Boise until Midnight. 

Monday 5/5

We arrived in Atlanta around 5:15 a.m.  this morning.

We witnessed a beautiful sunrise, had an omelet at the Braves All Star Grill, then caught a flight to Fayetteville at 9 a.m. Our seats, on both flights, were in the Comfort+ cabin, so that was nice. Trudi, Morgan & Cora came to the airport to pick us up. Unforttunately, neither one of us slept much during our flights so we are a bit tired today.

Dispite our tiredness, we had a good day with the kids.

Wyatt and his girlfriend, Kayla, assembled a new, fancy, cage for Kayla's kitty, Sushi. 

It was fun seeing them work together on this little project. The kitty still isn't quite sure about this new environment of hers, but she will love it when she gets used to it.

The Lansford's new house came with a 25' round above-ground pool. They just finished getting it opened up for the summer.

1. Cora 2. Kayla (Wyatt's girlfriend), Wyatt (19 YO), Cora (13 YO), & Morgan (10 YO) 3. Cora in her Unicorn floatie 4. Wyatt lifting Morgan up in the air 5. Wyatt teasing Kayla 6. Wyatt tossing Morgan.

We couldn't believe how well the kids swam.  They had so much fun and Linda had fun snapping lots of pictures! We missed Charlotte (14 YO) who was out having her own kind of fun... NOT - a dentist appointment! 

Tuesday 5/6

Today, was our first full day at the Lansford's. We were pretty tired from our redeye trip so we slept in a bit. After breakfast, we went to Walmart for Cora's "daily outing".

After we got home, Linda was checking out plants in Trudi's front yard and tripped over the car charging cord and landed, face first, in the rock planter. She ended up with some scratches on her forehead and her glasses got scratched up, but she was okay and is doing fine.

Trudi's oldest son, Wyatt is working, full time, as a cook at Chili's and is not only enjoying the work, but also the paycheck!

Morgan & Charlotte - Charlotte braving the cold water - Cora in her happy place,
Cora, Morgan & Charlotte.

Yesterday, Charlotte wasn't home when the kids went swimming so, here is "day 2" in the pool.

Wednesday 5/7

Today, the kids worked on year-end testing for their Home School.

 

The Lansford's have two peach trees and two raised gardens for things like tomatoes, herbs, squash, and Potatoes etc. There are three hydrangea bushes in front of their house that are just beginning to bloom and are going to be beautiful. Trudi made a delicious chicken dinner tonight then Charlotte loaded all our dirty dishes in the dishwasher. She also has a little painting art project she started today. After dinner, we watched "Saving Mr. Banks" together.

Thursday 5/8

This morning, we received a text message from George . . . 

When he arrived at his workplace, he was greeted by this snapping turtle !!

This afternoon we fly home, or at least we HOPE we will. Our flights don't look very good but tomorrow looks even worse.

We were pleasantly surprised to get seats on both flights. We were last on the standby list for both flights however, with just a few seats available, somehow we got on. We even got to sit together. In the bulkhead, just behind 1st class on the first flight and in an Exit row on the second flight.

We left Fayetteville at 3:30 p.m. and arrived at the Atlanta airport at 4:56 p.m. We had dinner in the airport during our three-hour layover. We left Atlanta at 8:24 p.m. and arrived at that Boise airport at 10:50 p.m. We caught the shuttle bus back to the economy lot where we parked our car. We wandered around the lot for a while, clicking our key fob as we looked for our car. We finally found it and headed for home. We arrived home at 12:20 a.m. It was a long day and we are grateful we made it home!

Friday 5/9

When we got up this morning we discovered that several of our flowers had started blooming while we were gone. We were only gone 4 days, but the nice, warm, sunny, days sure made a difference.

all the new flowers were PURPLE! 

Left side: Clematis, Phlox, Pansies, & Ajuga

Right side: Iris

The flowers weren't the only things that grew while we were gone.

The grass was very long too, so after raking up a LOT of maple tree helicopter seeds (20 gallons worth), Steve got busy and gave that grass a much needed haircut. 

Saturday 5/10

We have lots of volunteer pansies in our front yard, under the flowering plum bush.

We've been looking for some flowers to plant in the back yard under our gum tree and thought, maybe we could transplant some of those bright yellow pansies . . .

 so we did!

If they survive, they will really brighten up this space all summer long.

We have been watching our Clematis vines for a few weeks now.

It is fun to see them go from bud to flower.

First the pink side, then the purple side, 

now both are in full bloom and beautiful!

Sunday 5/11
Happy Mother's Day

Linda received phone calls & text messages all afternoon and evening wishing her a Happy Mother's Day

Thursday 5/15 

When Linda fell last week, her glasses got very scratched up. A few days ago, she ordered a new pair from Costco and we were able to pick them up today. They came in only a couple of days! They are a rose color and look very nice on her.

While we were out, we stopped by Franz Witte Garden Center and purchased a new little rose tree. 

It will replace the Hibiscus tree we planted a few years ago... it died. We hope this one will do better than the hibiscus, and that the Pink flowers will be pretty all summer long.

We had a spot in the back yard that needed some plants sooo . . . 

We planted the pink Hiacinths from Linda's birthday and then we dug up a piece of one of our Hosta plants and transplanted it next to the Hiacinths.

Saturday 5/17

It's "that" time of year when we start buying new plants

Yesterday we purchased two different varieties of pink peony plants and three Early Girl tomato plants then . . . .

Today we planted them . . . . in the rain !!

As always, the tomatoes are on the back of the house under our bedroom windows. One of the peony plants, a dark pink, went out in the back planter under the Gum Tree. The other one, a little lighter shade of pink, is up next to the house by the Hiacinths and Hosta we transplanted on Thursday. We know the tomatoes will do well and are hopeful the peonies will do better than the Potentilla's we tried last year. They didn't even survive the summer.

Monday 5/19

We had a alot of wind yesterday and there was one stem on our new Rose Tree that got broken and was hanging down sooo . . . .

We cut it, found a bud vase, and added it to our entry table. It is so pretty. We are happy that we will now have these beautiful roses all summer long.

Saturday 5/31

"Music People" have piles and piles of music. Such is the case at our house, however, all these "Piles" needed to get ORGANIZED!

Linda has been working on this project for a while now and it is going to take more time to finish it. Over the years, Linda has created a few original pieces so while working on this big project, she decided that she would gather all her original music into one pile and organize them into a binder.

Tuesday 5/27

Yesterday was Memorial Day. We spent the day at home thinking about our loved ones that have left mortality. We especially remembered those that have served our country and those that gave the untimate sacrifice doing so.

Today, we cut the last of our iris flowers and layed them at the headstone of our sister-in-law, Gayle. She is buried in the Veteran's Cemetery in Eagle, Idaho where her husband, Dave, A Navy veteran will join her someday. Though she didn't serve in the military, she did serve her community as a Deputy Sheriff in both La Grande, Oregon and Boise, Idaho. She has been gone for four years now and we miss her!

Thursday 5/29

Today, Linda had, yet another, appointment to try and figure out the sound in her head and worbably voice.

We met with Keely Cox NP at the St. Luke's Neurology Clinic. She seemed to have an in-depth knowledge of the Stapedial Myoclonus that Linda has.

Linda has been tracking all her episodes for the last two months and gathered information about the surgery she had on her ears back in 2013. Keely had some ideas for a treatment plan and we will give it a try. A new medication designed more for Myoclonus and both a CT scan and MRI of Linda's head and neck area. She will also contact the University of Utah to confirm what was done in the surgery. Overall, we are feeling pretty good about the outcome of today's appointment.

While at the clinic, which is in the same complex as the hospital, we visited Dave.

We were glad to see that he was doing much better today

than on Tuesday when we last saw him. Though he still has some pain, it is better than a couple of days ago. The doctor says he is getting better every day!

Friday 5/30

It's kind of crazy to go to the store and buy DIRT !

but that's what we did . . . 

It was time to spread some compost over all the dead bentgrass. We hope this will help encourage the new grass to grow. When we treated the bentgrass, we knew there would be a period of "ugly", now we are looking forward to the day our grass is a beautiful green again.

May has been a busy month. We have enjoyed many days of beautiful weather allowing us to spend time outside beautifying our home. We think summer has arrived, however, we will wait and see what June has in store!