It's September Already

Our current release date is March 10.  That means that September 10 will be our 1/2 way mark.  The time has gone so quickly.  Here are a few things we've done in the past two weeks or so.

I helped Stacey with her garden.  Her squash was infected with powdery mildew.  I tell you that stuff is really hard to get rid of.  Almost every garden has it.

Even with the mildew, her squash gourds are overrunning the garden.  They have totally overtaken the strawberries and are creeping out everywhere.

 The sisters were there helping us pick beans.  Some of the beans had this white fuzzy stuff.  At first, I thought it was cocoon stuff, but no, just some kind of fungus.

Gross, huh.  You can see how tall her corn is.  It must be 12 feet high.

This is Hermana Ramirez and Hermana Escobar.  We LOVE them.  

It seems like the fungus in the beans was finally the death of them.  I helped Stacey pull them all up.  It still seems weird to me that you can just dump this stuff at the curb.  But that's what they do.

Our good friend, John Luzer, had some major surgery on Thursday.  Before he went to the hospital, Craig, Brother Swope, and President Portwood went over to his house to give him a blessing.  After the blessing, he invited us to pick corn.  He MOSTLY grows field corn, but had several rows of sweet corn.

Can you see how the sweet corn in front is shorter?  Anyway, we loaded up the car with corn.  It was delicious.  We gave lots away, but it was funny how many people said, No Thanks, they already had corn.  After all, it's plentiful in these parts.

Here is Sister Swope with her arms loaded.  You can see Craig behind her picking away.

We have an alfalfa field nearly across the street from us.  Having never seen alfalfa grow, I was kind of surprised.

It's a low growing bush, no bigger than your knees maybe.

The man who owns this field has already harvested it three times.  It's like grass.  It just keeps growing back.  Not a bad return for your investment.  They cut it, let it dry, then bundle it up.

We had our "Day of Service" today with the Branch.  We went to a nursing home in Francesville.  One of the things they wanted done was to repaint the shuffleboard courts.  

Here are the before pictures:

We restriped the lines, washed windows, and cleaned up the yard some.

The courts look great!  Then we enjoyed a wonderful pulled-pork lunch.  Good times.

Last Monday we went to the temple with Jay.  He is a newly baptized member and wanted to do baptisms for the dead.  Both sisters who worked with him were able to go as well.  Robert Wagner and his family also joined us.

This is Robert Wagner, his wife, Pam, and son, Daniel.

We stopped on the way up to meet others and carpool, and look what we saw in the MacDonald's parking lot:

They were on their way to a car show.  The police pulled them over just to look at the car.  Too funny.

After the temple, we crowded into Giordano's for pizza.  YUM!!!  It was a small room.  Everyone there was with us.

Last week, Craig and I went to Indianapolis.  We looked up some of the tourist spots.  We saw the Lucas Oil Stadium where the Colts play.

Not too far from that is a State Park.  We rented a tandem bicycle (that was an adventure) and rode down the canal.

We then stopped at the NCAA Museum.

Of course, we had to go to Indianapolis Speed Way.  It was huge!  The track is a mile long and a quarter mile wide.  In the center is a museum.  You cannot see the whole track, only a section at a time.  It just looks different on TV.  Anyway, the museum had some really nice cars.

 Cars used in the beginning of the raceway.
Cars that look just like pinewood derby cars.

AND, the Spirit of America.  Even "I" knew what that was.

 They also had this really cool quilt on the wall.  I loved it.

The names were signed and then embroidered.  

The morning of the drags it was rainy.  The races were delayed three or four hours.  It gave us time to walk around and get signatures.  The drivers are really good about standing by their trailers and talking to fans.

This is Craig talking to Erica Enders.

And posing with .Jeg Coughlin.

Don Garlits was charging money for a picture with him.  Whatever.

It wasn't super crowded, but then again, it was qualifying only.  I guess the weekends are really crowded.

It wasn't too loud until the funny cars ran.  Oh my gosh!  Really, really loud.  You can see we both had plugs in our ears.  And even then, you had to put your hands over your ears when the cars ran.

The flames look totally cool.  It was getting evening when this first group ran.

By the time the top fuel dragsters ran it was about 10 at night.

 Please excuse the two men who stood up and walked right in front of me just as the race began.  Grrr.

One last bit of service, we fixed the roof leak on the Rodriquez home.  YAY for Craig!  They thought it was a miracle.  Seriously, he just climbed up there and sprayed some Flex Seal.  He let it dry and gave it a second coat.  IT WORKED!!!  They were so grateful.  Now we just need to help them repair the damage done by the rain.  We love them.  They are a wonderful family.  If only they knew how much they needed the gospel and how much we need them.  Well, maybe, some day.