Saturday, July 20 to Friday, July 26

  I needed to get re-acquainted with our house and yard after being away for nineteen days.

Our grandson Josh had faithfully mowed our yard each week, but the bird feeders were empty and there were lots of weeds. (I took this picture after filling the bird feeders and pulling most of the weeds.)

   I was most surprised at how tall the corn had grown.

  I am 5′ 7-3/4″ tall and when I stood next to this and stretched my arm as high as I could, there was still another foot of corn above my finger tips – meaning it is probably close to 8′ tall.

The crepe myrtle bush was not blooming when we left.

It now has beautiful blooms.

The butterfly bush is also beginning to bloom – attracting many butterflies.

It is nice to get home on a Friday evening, which gives us Saturday to do laundry and put suitcases and everything else away.

Then we had Sunday to go to church, have lunch with Cerwin’s mother, and spend the rest of the day relaxing.

The day helped us ignore the fact that our vacation was over.

Monday morning seemed to come all too soon. That is when we knew our trip was over. Cerwin went to the TFC shop, and I began working through the emails in my computer and snail mail on my desk.

By Wednesday afternoon Cerwin had pulled all the loose ends together from the trip, cleaned a malfunctioning air conditioner on the Harrisburg Chapel, and began ordering supplies for the next chapel – for Hudson, Wisconsin.

 By that time I made it through the mail and emails, prepared two newsletters, the prayer calendar, and individual Highway News for the post office.

  I took the Overseas Newsletter and Prayer Calendar to the post office on Wednesday morning.

On Thursday morning John and Kathy Diffenderfer and two of their children (Janessa and Jason) helped us label 2,800+ Highway News. Cerwin took it (16 mail bags) and Chaplain Jerry Pike’s newsletter to the post office just before lunch.

I felt that we had made good progress.

Then it was time for some real work.

We spent the next three hours weed eating, pulling weeds, and mowing yard in preparation for two weekend picnics at the pavilion behind our house

The first picnic – our Sunday school class – was on Friday evening.

 It was a beautiful, warm evening – perfect for a picnic and visiting.

I will tell you about the other picnic in another entry.