Grandkids!

Lisa's kids have been on Spring Break for 2 weeks and she needed a little break. I was able to have Lilly, Lucy and Landon for a few days to give her a little break. So after Landon's baptism, I brought them to my house. I enjoyed them and I think they liked being at Gma's house!

I had them for St. Patricks Day, so we did a few fun things. We made green shamrock pancakes, green jello, they colored some pictures, we made shamrock sugar cookies and frosted them green and we made green slime. I also got a little work out of them-we cleaned more of the junk left from the big cleanup we had a couple of weeks ago. We washed my car and LaVerl's truck. They earned $5 each and I asked them where they wanted to spend it. I thought they would choose Dairy Queen, but they chose Circle K. Oh, the junk they like! 

Lilly is getting really good on the piano. I found a simplified version of  a song the Primary kids sing, "Gethsemane" and she practiced it so much that she could play it really well before they left for home.

 

I tried a different recipe for the slime and it didn't turn out as good. 

One day we rode bikes (they brought theirs and I rode my e-bike) down to the skate park. It was uphill coming home so they had to stop for a break and of course climb the nearby tree.

They did keep entertained a little with the ping pong table and foosball. I didn't let them on their iPads as much as they wanted.

On Thursday we met their Dad, Barry in Show Low. I was going to drive them half way, to the bottom of Salt River Canyon, but Barry wanted to see his Mom, who lives in Show Low with one of his sisters. I would have kept them longer, but I needed to be in St. Johns to stay with Mom for 4 days while Sonja and Randy went to Utah for a missionary homecoming. 

Landon turns 8!!! Feb. 26th

 And gets baptized March 14th in Queen Creek, by his Dad. It was another trip to Mesa for me. I went down on Friday to help Lisa with everything. Lisa is due in about 3 weeks and is feeling very pregnant! Landon had lots of support from many who love him!

His birth Mom, Ashley came from California.

Sterling Parker gave the talks and Sis. Parker lead the music.

I played the piano. 

Cousin Kaemon and Landon share the same birthday!

I made Scotcheroos and my really good bean salsa. She ordered subs from Jersey Mikes to make things easier and some yummy icy slushy dessert from Eggees.  Others brought a veggies tray, cookies, etc. There was lots of food! 

Later that afternoon, Landon had a baseball game!

It was a really nice baptism, I gave Landon a big basket of candy and things that will help him remember all the things the Holy Ghost can help him with. He also got lots of other gifts from friends, I guess for his birthday.  I stayed and went to church with them, Barry was giving a talk and so was Dempsey. After Church, we loaded bikes and kids and we headed to Eagar. It's their Spring Break and Lisa needed a break!! I could only have them for 5 days because I need to be in St. Johns on Friday to stay with Mom so Sonja and Randy can go to Utah for Shane's son, Jackson missionary homecoming.   

Another HUGE project!!

 Words can hardly express what I'm feeling about this weekend!! I have been feeling a bit overwhelmed about all the junk we have!! I've discovered, (well I already knew) that my sweet husband, who I loved dearly, was quite a hoarder. It wasn't so much that he was a hoarder I guess, he could just see a use for everything and couldn't stand letting anything go to waste!! And... we have a big field to the south of us that we didn't use for anything, so that sort of became his dump! All his old big 8 foot satellite dishes, our old refrigerator, dishwasher, hot water heaters, old toilets, lots of metal everything, lots of trailers, even an old airstream trailer, and on and on, he dumped out there!! Well, some of my kids were able to come and they got it all cleaned up!! We got it done mainly because Barry (Lisa's husband) came with his huge 3 axle dump trailer along with his excavator. Our friend, Randel came to see and he told the kids, "You can't clean up in 2 days what it took LaVerl 40+ years to do".  But they did!!! We also used LaVerl's dump trailer, which wasn't quite as big and LaVerl's truck. Barry would load them up with all the metal (LaVerl's dad taught him, "You never throw away anything metal") and then they would drive an hour to the salvage yard in Show Low that paid $40 a ton, and dump them, then drive an hour back. They made 2 trips on Friday and one on Saturday, both trailers. That's a lot of metal!! Barry used his excavator to smash up the trailer and all the satellite dishes to be able to get them in the trailers. Everything that wasn't metal went into a huge pile that they burned!! Later, Barry dug a big trench and buried all that was left! Meanwhile, we got started cleaning LaVerl's shop and taking things out to sell at our big estate/yardsale on Saturday. We advertised on Facebook and I put lots of boxes out. We had quite a few people come and sold some stuff and gave a lot of stuff away!!!  I hope LaVerl wasn't cussing at me from heaven. 

Before pictures of the south field.

I wish I could post all the videos we took. They show the much bigger picture of what things really looked like.

Dumping the loads at the recycling/salvage place.

Filling the trailers again!

I think LaVerl saved every piece of electrical wire he had left over. Bret will take it to a place in Phoenix that pays $4.22 a pound. He also took about 50 old satellite receivers that LaVerl had saved for some reason? Maybe so the kids could make a little money if they wanted to work for it!!

With most of the metal stuff cleared away, they started burning the rest.

The after pictures!

Can you believe it? Only some trailers left that some young guys are going to come get. 

LaVerl's shop took a long time to clean. We started taking his big equipment outside first for the yard sale. Then all the containers of miscellaneous stuff LaVerl had. Probably 15 gas cans, 20+ fishing poles and 6 or 7 tackle boxes, full of stuff,(which he never used. He liked his 5 gallon bucket where he could put the gear he needed, and his lunch, plus he could sit on it while he was fishing!), boxes of plumbing parts, cement tools, painting stuff, cans and containers full of miscellaneous bolts, nuts and screws, 10+ tool boxes-still full of stuff, which he never used! The list goes on! 40 years worth!

Before....This is only one wall!

After... there is still a lot of stuff, but it is organized and a lot less than there was!!

The north wall!  We didn't get to it--next work day!!

The old antique tractor was kind of out in the middle of shop, so we moved it.

The stuff on the floor is going to the thrift store!

It's pretty amazing what 5 hard workers can get done in one day!!

So after the yard sale started to be less busy, when I thought we were about done for the day, Mark starts on one of our sheds. That wasn't even on the game plan! We all started moving my totes full of my holiday decor out first because they were in front of everything - because that was the only place they could go. Everything else in that shed hasn't been touched in 30+ years, I didn't even know what was in there. We found lots of Kari's totes, 8 to be exact, lots of boxes of kids games and toys that I had saved for some reason? Lots of boxes of old clothes that we put back in the shed because I guess 'vintage clothes' are becoming very popular for the kids to wear and the grandkids want to go through them. 

BEFORE

The empty shelf was not empty. It was full of the satellite receivers that Bret had already loaded to take to the recycling place. 

They found lots of old treasures!!

For some reason, Barry, the biggest one of the boys, got up on the very top shelf and was throwing things/junk down. We noticed at lunch that he was still covered in spider webs!!

What a weekend!!! We got so much done!! Of course there is still more to do, but we made a huge dent!!! I feel so bad that our kids have to clean up our messes, but they are more than willing to help!!!