Visitors to Our Side

During the first weekend in May, my parent came to visit. They didn't just come to play, but also to work, serving our family and the church.

My mom Margie is the administrator of our denomination's nursing home. She gave a three hour seminar at our church on caring for the elderly, specifically those suffering from Alzheimer's. The seminar was well-attended and, I might be biased, but she did a great job educating us about how to serve the elderly and their caretakers. Evan took this picture, and I noticed that my mom managed to escape the other pictures that were taken during their visit.


My dad Bruce preached on Sunday and also served our family by building a planter in front of our porch, greatly improving the curb appeal of our house. The kids, especially Evan, enjoyed helping him with all of the digging, loading, hauling, unloading and building. They enjoyed the working as much as the playing of the week!


My dad, ever the perfectionist, chipped part of the ledge off of the backs of the blocks on the corners in order to make them sit just right. He also glued down some of the layers to prevent shifting (or as he learned from building a planter at his church building back home: to prevent theft of blocks!)


After my parents went back home, my dad's sister, my Aunt Beth came over and helped us begin to plant flowers in the new planter. Aunt Beth plants wonderful flower gardens each year, and she gave us step-by-step instructions to get us started. (Gardening is not my forte.)


Aunt Beth helped us with the front rows of lobelia, pansies and violets (and two calla lilies at the back which are an experiment to see if they will thrive in the shade in Colorado).


Logan enjoyed playing in the dirt while we worked. The poor guy had a rough day that day, falling down and smacking his mouth on the pavement, giving himself a fat lip and loose front teeth. :-(


Matthew did a majority of the rest of the work, planting an assortment of begonias, impatiens, forget-me-nots, leadwort, columbine, dusty miller, and ferns. He demonstrated a knack for gardening. Aunt Beth also had him do some garden work at her house.












Thank you to my mom and dad and aunt for all your help and hard work!
More pictures of the visit to come...