Michelle's Sunday Six

I can't believe it's my turn again already - but here goes:


1. Today is my dad's 81st birthday. His health is declining, but it makes me smile that we made a big deal out of his birthday last year (his 80th) and had a big family celebration complete with magician. It was a fun and memorable time. So many times I have good intentions, but fail in following through. This time I am smiling because we didn't just think about it, we actually did it. Happy Birthday, Dad!


2. Going along with #1, I am smiling because I finished writing my dad's life story. I used a free program online at http://www.blurb.com/ where you can download your photos and text and write your own book. Dad has been wanting to get his story written for a long time, and I had started on it about a year ago, but worked a little harder starting in October, and then since I was released from Primary I have spent time almost every day on it. This week the finished book arrived in the mail! I was so excited to present it to him. He perked up and recognized what it was. What a great feeling! Now I need to put my mom's pictures and story in a book form. On to the next project...


3. We are in the midst of trying to get a bathroom built out by the pool. Mike Hendrix (Pat Hendrix's brother - Pat is my brother-in-law) has been working with us to draw the plans. Thank goodness for his persistence, or we wouldn't be this far in the process. He has been great to work with. He is submitting the plans to the Town of Gilbert this week. If all goes well Mike should start construction in a couple of weeks.


4. We have cousins visiting this week from Denver. I had wanted to plan a backyard movie, but it turns out we don't have a free night to do it! But in the planning I got into looking at outdoor movies screens that would go up faster than our homemade-string-a-tarp-between-two-posts-screen which took lots of finagling. The purchased screens are way expensive and also delicate. But I found a site with instructions on how to make your own with conduit, which led to another site with professional screens that are durable and reasonable priced. So although we didn't get our act together to have a backyard movie this week, we should be able to do it before the summer is over. Yeah!

5. Pool Share. Our ward has put together a calendar of people with pools who are willing to open their pool to others. We signed up and on Friday had about a dozen kids and moms come for a swim. My kids loved having the extra friends to play with - it was a party with no planning! And I enjoyed visiting with the moms. Great idea!

6. Our grapes are growing! We planted grapes last year, but really didn't get any fruit. This year our vines are growing at an amazing rate. They have filled the arbor and have branches sticking out in the air. They have also put on lots of grapes. At first their were tiny, but now they are actually getting a reasonable size. We have both red and green. We keep trying them, but I don't think they will be ripe until the first of July. I'm so excited they actually produced! It is so fun to grow things you can eat.