5.18.14

Exciting stuff this week!  Tuesday Christopher got to run the Wellsville Mile.  It was fun to see him do so well.  He had his best time ever and so he was pleased.  He got 10 min 11.2 seconds.  We hung out together all morning and I only got misty eyed a few times, thinking about how proud Nick would be and how much I missed having him there with me.

I bought a new tree!  It is a peach tree.  I know, peach trees don't do well here.  The nursery guy told me.  But even if I only get peaches every few years and have a nice tree in my front yard the other years, that is okay with me.

Thomas had a lacrosse game on Saturday.  He had fun and is looking forward to summer camps and clinics in the next few months.  He also had a great mountain bike ride this week and wants to do more before it gets too hot.

On Friday we went to see something cool.  The primary pianist in my ward takes apart and restores old pianos.  He has been working on a player piano from the 1920s and is almost done, so he invited us to come look at it.  It was amazing.  The piano looks brand new now and I only know because of what he has told me all the work he has put into it the past few months.  We listened to the piano play Gershwin and a compilation from Carmen.  Then he showed us the pianos in his showroom, ones he has collected and restored over the years and is getting ready to sell.  There were about 7 or 8 in the showroom, several more than a century old.  He knows all the history behind why each piano was made the way it was and its strengths and weaknesses, differences in tone and why, and a lot about the time periods and companies that made them.  It was really fun.

Annelise got tired of me telling her that yes, we need to buy a bike pump and I will get around to it.  She found a way to get her bike tires pumped up and has been riding all around the neighborhood.  It is so fun to see her excited about being active.

Yesterday I decided to plant some things in the garden.  I was going to just start with onions and spinach and lettuce and peas.  You know, the things that do well when it is still kind of cold.  But we just kept going and planted most of the garden.  It is earlier than I have ever planted before, so I hope it goes well.  At least it is not supposed to freeze again in the next week or so.

Primary music went well today.  I taught the second verse of "Build An Ark."  I love the correlation between Noah building an ark to protect him from the flood and how we need to be building our testimony now, before it starts to rain, to make it through the tough times ahead.  I told the senior primary, "It doesn't say, 'Then if the storm clouds come', it says, 'Then when the storm clouds come.'"  The difficulties are part of life.  It is planned that way so that we can stretch and grow and reach for heaven's guidance and grace, so that in the end we will be more like Him and prepared to move on in the next life.