Here, There, Everywhere

I feel like we’re juggling several balls in the air. Or that we’ve traveled through time zones. We began the week in Branson, which we left early on Monday to drive to Ft Leonard Wood to get our first shots (meningitis). Unfortunately they only had enough for one shot which Sandy accepted; that way when we go up next week for yellow fever, Tom gets two shots while Sandy only gets the one. We then proceeded on to St. Louis with the purpose of looking at houses. Our goal was owning 3 units before we left. We signed a contract on one while we were there and made offers on two others. We also offered on two properties that were rejected. So at this moment, we close on a single bedroom duplex (that means each ‘house’ has one bedroom) the first week of September. Peter showed us a great two story duplex that basically needs minimal work with an asking price of $18,000. It even had the utilities still one! That means none of the water pipes or electrical wires have been ‘removed’ for resale. Yes, we did make an offer on this one.

We have been looking into a self-directed Roth IRA where we could invest in real estate. The advantage is all the income is tax free. If we “flip” the property and sell it for a profit, that profit is also tax free. It’s got some tricky limitations, but the upside will work well for us since we are looking at investment property. So after deliberation, searching for a holding company, etc., we started this process.

Tuesday morning we met with an insurance agent in town and discussed insuring our projected properties. And as an attorney, he can also file our application for an LLC. It is times like this that I have trouble remembering that in about two months we plan to be on a mission. We had time to attend the temple for one session and then drive home, which we reached about midnight. Junk food helps keep me awake, although it doesn’t do anything for nutritious eating.

Back home, we entered the mission/prep mode. We managed to get the deck restained and cut the ice storm danglers and low branches in the east pasture. We also burned them. I drew an analogy with these danglers and the process of repentance. When the ice storm hit, many branches just cracked and fell or were left hanging by very little. Others seemed to bounce right back to normal after the ice melted; many of those over the past couple of months, though, have started to droop and need cutting. Sinning is similar; if we carry our burdens around without forsaking them, they will bend us low, even though we may appear okay to the outside world.

I have also been busy tying up the loose ends with the downstairs trim and molding, and patching the bottom end of the stairwell ‘impact’ area. Hopefully, that will be completed tomorrow. One more thing to cross off the list of many things to do.

We heard this week from the family we had invited to stay in the house while on our mission; the mom felt it was important for them to stay with her folks just south of here. So we called the back up—Beth Green-- and told her the house was hers if she was still interested. She is! The advantage to this single mom of an eight year old daughter is that she can live downstairs (now I know why we redid the kitchen down there) and the advantage for us is we can leave the upstairs alone: no moving of furniture. We also got the last of the information we needed so we could send off the material for our visas. They only need 30 days for Kenya, but we wanted to be early (at least this time).

Those pre deployment catastrophes that always happened just before and just after I deployed aren’t peculiar to only the military; they apply to leaving on missions as well. I have been concerned about our well this past week. We finally did some trouble shooting Friday evening and concluded that we may have a pump problem. The pressure drops every 20 minutes or so which triggers the pump to kick in and the cycle repeats itself. Our friendly plumber is out of town until Monday so we have just started to turn the pump off at night and during the day when we don’t need water. Hopefully we can get this problem resolved quickly; of course maybe this is just a precursor of things to come while in Africa!

The chickens are healthy and provide us about three eggs a day. The weather has cooled this past week such that we have actually opened the house up the past couple of nights. And it is almost 4 in the afternoon and we don’t have the A/C on yet!

Branson and House Hunting

Once again you get to hear about our week. It has been a balancing act
between acquiring real estate in St. Louis, fixing and caring for our
rentals and our home in Mountain Home, taking the necessary steps to go on
our mission to Kenya.

On the home front, Tom spent hours in the west pasture clearing the brush
that grew like Jack’s beans after the January fire. Where the ground
had been burned, weeds and plants gushed forth. They hid branches that had
been uncleared as well as cut tree logs that needed splitting. Rain
prevented Tom from burning the piles of cut brush, and stopped us from
staining the deck, but he was able to wash the siding on the house so it
looks fresh. Tom also mowed (a constant job as the usual August drought
has not appeared) both at home and at one of our rentals that is vacant.
And he helped install a heater.

On the Mission front: We sent off our medical insurance papers. We have
asked for a letter saying we’ve taught seminary and institute so we can
submit that with our passport, notarized college diplomas, 6 photos, and
4-5 forms for our Kenya visa. We have been emailing the mission office
missionary questions, and she has been fantastic about answering them.
I’ve set up an apt for my EKG, and got a prescription for oral typhoid
immunization. And when we went to Branson this weekend, Tom bought 5 white
shirts and 4 slacks, 12 pairs of socks and one sweater vest. I found one
pair of closed toe sandals and a small size purse. We also looked at
luggage, electric converters, and we bought a nifty travel speaker for our
mp3 player. Monday, on our way to St Louis, we have scheduled a stop at
Fort Leonard Wood to get our meningitis shots – if they have the vaccine
available.

On the real estate front: We finally got the bank’s forms for the
contract on our 1st duplex. We thought we’d put in an offer on a cute
house, but it turns out our agent doesn’t have a HUD number and can’t
do it. We are going to St. Louis on Monday and will hopefully be able to
take care of all of these things. We also plan on meeting with an
insurance agent, setting up an LLC, opening up bank accounts, going to the
temple, and maybe looking at more properties. Below is an $18,000 duplex we put an offer in for.

And lest you think we don’t have any fun, we used our Branson timeshare
this weekend. Miranda and Dan came to visit on Friday and we had fun. We
went to Silver Dollar City and went through their Marvel cave and their
saloon show and a ride and bought taffy. We also shopped and walked the
river walk, played 5 crowns, watched the new “Race to Witch Mountain,”
and part of “Shriek 3”. We also had a very enjoyable time going to the
Hugh’s Brother’s Family Show. Miranda brought tasty goodies to eat,
and we visited Harry and David, and so ate well, too.

Time passes all too quickly and after breakfast this morning, Miranda and
Dan left to return home so they could attend church at their ward at 1pm
and we attended one of the Branson Wards. I like attending this particular
ward: they have many of the performing families and so there is always a
wonderfully joyful noise made when singing the hymns.

Woods and Ordination

In preparation for our mission, we have made several ‘to do’ lists; things to do on our rental properties, things to finish on our own house, things to do to get ready to leave, questions to ask the mission home – anyway, you get the picture. When considered in total, the tasks appear insurmountable. Fortunately, we just tackle them one at a time and we don’t get overwhelmed. And, we are making progress.

With Sandy’s help on the tractor last week, we were able to clear a lot of the ‘danglers’ from the ice storm damage in the west pasture. That involved Sandy at the wheel and me in the bucket; she would raise me high enough to either cut the limbs or wrap a chain around them so we could pull them off. Very effective-although there were a few times when Sandy forgot which lever moved the bucket which way. I managed to hang on in spite of her best efforts! I was also able to reclaim the fence line in that area; the weeds and shrubs were making a valiant effort to hide the fence. I spent some time neatly stacking the firewood that I had just been dumping in a pile behind the barn; another 50 foot by four foot high wood pile. I feel like a squirrel hiding nuts in various places for winter: we now have four different wood pile locations.

We have been working through a real estate agent we met in St Louis on making an offer on a duplex there. The photo below is one of the duplexes we've been thinking about. We offered, they countered; we countered and they countered again with the same price; we then accepted their price and are waiting to see the contract they want to go by. Sandy had also researched another duplex and made an offer on that one Friday morning. She thought it would be quick and easy to do; the agent emails us the contract, we read, sign and fax it back to him. Unfortunately, he had another appointment in the morning that took longer than expected and it wasn’t until 1 pm that the contract was signed and faxed.

That is significant because we had decided on Monday that we would drive to Vicksburg and visit Andy and family since Nathan had his 12th birthday and would be receiving the Aaronic Priesthood on Sunday. I was actually ready to leave at the appointed hour of noon – and then got to wait an hour before we left. We drove through Little Rock so we could get our International Drivers Permit and multiple passport photos for our visa from the AAA office there. We arrived in plenty of time to get that taken care of and then continued to Vicksburg. Although we didn’t arrive until about 9pm, the children we still up (Kera had let them stay up late) and surprised to see us. We didn’t do much Saturday morning (we did help Kera make 14 quarts of apple pie filling from some Granny Smith apples she had picked) and then went swimming in the afternoon. At the pool is a swingset the grandkids enjoyed. Sunday during the priesthood hour, Nathan was ordained at deacon and had asked me to do the ordination; it was honored that he would ask. He is a responsible young man. After church we headed back to Kera’s, had a quick lunch and hit the road. Just had to take a photo of Emma enjoying her food. We managed to navigate the 370 miles in about 6 hours and 20 minutes without having to refuel once—about 39 mpg..

At home we found a note from the ‘chicken sitter’: one of the chickens was not to be found Friday evening when she came to feed and lock them up for the night. Ace, the only black and white chicken has not been seen since we left on Friday. And there is no evidence of what may have happened to her. No feathers, no body parts, nothing. Today while I was pressure washing the house, I let the remaining three chickens out; an hour later when I took a muster, only two reported in. Fearing the worst, I called Sandy to help look; on the south side of the garage we heard a rustle in the plants and found the ‘lost’ chicken, plus five eggs. Apparently she, and perhaps some of the other chickens, have been hanging out in that location for some time.

Working off another one of those items on one of those ‘to do’ lists, I was out in the woods clearing the four foot weeds that grew up in the area where we had the fire last February. I couldn’t run the bush hog through there since I haven’t cleared the down limbs. So I ran the Shindawa through there to cut the weeds so I can find the downed limbs and cut them up for fire wood, or for the fire. And that is this week’s major project, sandwiched in between home teaching, GED classes and such.

We also had Vela, our good friend and tax preparer, over for lunch and to get some financial and other ideas on ways to handle our affairs while we are on our mission. She is always so much fun and we learned some helpful suggestions from her. To obtain a visa to Kenya, we need a letter from the local police station attesting to our good standing in the community; I was able to obtain those without cost. Sandy has been busy researching the most economical way to obtain the three shots we need. We can pay a local doctor about $450 per person or get two from the military at Ft Leonardwood, MO and get a prescription for the third at $9 per person. That is a no brainer!

Sweat Week

Happy 1st Birthday to Steven Reck and a Happy 12th Birthday to Nathan Fox on this Tuesday.

This was sweat week; meaning the heat and humidity combined to result in large quantities of sweat pouring forth from my body. It started Monday when I helped move the widow Elizabeth Edwards, a 93 year old, from her home of 23 years into a one room facility. She looks the same as she did 14 years ago when I first saw her at church: a smiling face and white hair that looked as if she had just come from the beauty salon. Her mind is still sharp as ever, but she has cancer and has decided she is not willing to go through the treatments; she only has a few months to live. So sad.

That afternoon I ended up removing an air conditioning unit from a rental in preparation of installing a new one. Then I spent two hours on the riding mower beating the grass into submission. Then I came home and did the same to our yard. Sweat day number 1.

Tuesday I started working on the bath room of a rental home that just became vacant. It needed a new tub surround, but before the week was over that project grew: the walls got painted, the old flooring removed, new vinyl installed, and new light fixtures. The previous tenant needed a larger home and moved into one managed by our property manager. Her husband had just cleaned the house they moved into, and when he came to look at what needed cleaning at the house they just vacated, he was not happy. On the surface it looked okay; but it wasn’t. He spent at least 12 hours washing walls, floors, appliances, etc. Even with the air condition on, we both were sweating. Sweat day number 2, 3, and 4.

Friday, at that same rental house, I cut back some of the brush growing on the fence line and removed a vine that had managed to camouflage two eight foot pine trees. Made two pick up loads of debris. This was a two shower day. I came home, cleaned up and went to my local Red Cross donation center. I am surprised that people take time to donate; all the associated material to review, the questions to answer – takes 30 minutes to complete before they draw your blood. And that process is only about 10 minutes. I understand the need to provide ‘safe’ blood, but I find the questions frustrating. I came home and spent two hours riding the tractor bush hogging the west pasture. Sweat day number 5.

Saturday I attacked the fence line with the Shindawa; but it said it was too hot at 8:30 to work longer than 15 minutes and quit on me. So I used the other weed whip for an hour and then finished bush hogging the west pasture and then disposed of the burn pile in that area. Sweat day number 6. Sandy returned home from Girls Camp about that time, so it was appropriate for me to call it quits for the day.

This week we had an opportunity to watch two movies. One was loaned to us by a friend and was on the history of the LDS Church in Africa. Interviews were conducted with early African members who, in many instances had prepared congregations for the time when the Church would be established in several African countries. Really an amazing story of faith and patience. A couple of people had suggested watching “Out of Africa”, a movie starring Robert Redford and Meryl Streep and based on a true story in Kenya starting about 1913 for a period of 10 (?) years. Beautiful scenery and wildlife.

The chickens have been pretty faithful in producing about three eggs a day. Yes, we know there are four chickens and no, we don’t know which ones are laying. But the eggs are good.

Girls Camp! Cha-Cha!

From Wednesday to Saturday, I got to experience Girl’s camp. We had to be on the road by 5:45 am. The camp is a Girl Scout camp and actually pretty nice. Our cabins were plywood with canvas half sides, which we kept rolled up all the time.

That allowed us to hear the cacophony of insects roaring all night long… Which sometimes drowned out the giggles and conversation of the girls. We had a 10 (by path)-20 (by road) minute hike from our camp site to the main camp area where the dining hall, the pavilion, the pool, and all the activities took place. And (ugh) it was a 4-5 minute hike to the bathrooms—but they had SHOWERS! The camp site did have porta-potties a few minutes walk across camp which I used at night. That was after I had a discussion with an armadillo about who had the right of way on the path.

The weather was seasonably hot and muggy. The first day, we swam and showered. The second day, as I was anticipating a shower, they told us the water had been turned off the night before with the septic problem. We had been using the emergency supply, and it was now about gone. No showers, no flush toilets. Grungy to bed, but they fixed it late that night. Yeah! Then on Friday, the A/C in the dining facility froze up. That was the afternoon I was helping with the cooking. But it was still cooler in than out.

The food was outstanding! Yum! The girls were great! Our ward girls had lots of fun and those who were new to camp loved it by the end. We camped in levels and while we were initially assigned to 2nd level, the 3rd level leader had only one helper and 14 girls. So Sis. Hall and I moved to 3rd level and helped there. Again, great girls. I just wish I were better at names!

In spite of bug bites, little sleep, and hot weather… the leaders put an incredible amount of work into the camp. The activities were imaginative and fun. The girls grew spiritually and it was a fantastic experience. Clearly the Lord blessed me to enjoy camp.

Onward and upward

Greetings on this beautiful day in the Ozarks. It is the beginning of a new month and exactly three months until we report to the MTC in Provo; we are excited!

After spending almost a week here in Mountain Home with his family, Dan left early Tuesday morning to drive back to Kansas City. Then about noon on Thursday, Rebecca and her four children departed for Rolla, MO to rendezvous with Dan so they could drive to St Louis for the night. Friday Dan and the two oldest flew to CA to spend time with his parents and Rebecca started the two day drive back to VA with the two youngest. It was a sad day in Mountain Home when they all left; even the heavens wept – it rained Thursday afternoon. With the departure of the grandchildren, life is not so exciting and adventuresome; we miss those daily hugs, kisses, silly grins and giggles. Prior to their departure, I was finally able to get the zip line installed. The 35 foot ride starts from the tree house; the end attaches to a tree limb so there is no ‘George of the Jungle” tree slamming. Check Rebecca’s blog for pictures. After all the ‘encouragement’ from Joshua to get the zip line installed, it was received with a lot of reservation and cautiousness from the children; I suspect he was anticipating a leisure A or B ticket ride and he ended up with an adventurous thriller of an E ticket one instead. After getting accustomed to the line, just being pulled back and forth, they gained enthusiasm, and soon Joshua, Marian and Callie were zipping down the line.

Before everyone left though, we did have one egg from the chickens, and the evening they left the chickens deposited three more. So far we have a total of five eggs, about ¾ the size of large store bought eggs. They don’t seem to have a regular schedule for laying. The garden continues to overwhelm us with beans, cucumbers, and tomatoes. We haven’t done any canning or freezing of the produce this year since we will be gone on our mission.

This past week I concentrated on clearing more downed limbs from the eastern side of our property. The county closed the site where limbs could be hauled to, so burning is really my only recourse to get rid of the limbs. I love the tractor; I can wrap a chain around a 10-12 inch downed tree and drag it to the burn area and cut it up at the burn site. Saves a lot of manual labor on my part. I managed to get the eastern area cleaned up, with the exception of three fallen trees that will be cut up later for more firewood.

After sitting dormant in the garage for several months, I finally spent some time with the Model A so it could be driven again. It had a water leak, which I concluded after discussion with several people, was probably a head gasket problem. Rather than replace the gasket, I purchased a product designed to seal leaks. It seems to be holding water now, but I need to drive it more to find out. Drove it to church this morning and it did fine.

Sandy had been communicating with bankers and realtors in St. Louis. She drove up Friday, talked with them and spent much of Friday afternoon and Saturday morning looking at properties. One seems quite attractive, some others pretty good. She has a long list of questions the realtor will look up and answer, then maybe some investing will take place. It’s exciting and nerve wracking.

We're going to Africa!

We had a busy and eventful week. Monday we drove to St. Louis to look at properties and see abut setting up a team there. We saw properties with 3 realtors, talked to 2 property managers, and spoke with one banker. We saw about 12 properties in person and several dozen more on paper. I had plotted this grueling trek to the hour. We left Mountain Home at 6:30 and got to St. Louis at 11:30. Saw properties with Peter McKercher and talked to his property manager. Mostly we saw duplexes and 4 plexes with him. We looked at some he was working on, and one he’d already remodeled. At 3:30 we moved on to the next realtor. We spent an hour or so discussing what we wanted with her assistant, Tony, before going and seeing properties. Mostly they were single houses. One was $9,000 and about 3,000 sq feet that needed a total remodel. Such fun to see and such potential… but too costly for us. We saw another house partly remodeled and the house next door that had been beautifully refinished and was now being offered for a mere $289,000. We finished there about 8 pm. I’d been struggling with bronchitis for the last week or two and was dog tired. We finally got dinner, checked into the hotel and crashed.

Tuesday we saw realtor #3 and her assistant. We really clicked with Amy. She seemed to know exactly what we were looking for. She deals with many foreclosures and the banks ask her to look at them and evaluate them for resale. She has a handy-man refurbisher who she’s worked with for 10 years and can take a distressed house and restore it. We saw a possibility with her. Then we went back to Realtor #2’s office and visited with a banker by phone and with a property manager. Then we headed to the temple and did 2 sessions. Again, we had a 9 pm dinner.

Wednesday we left by 7am so we could shop at Aldie’s and still get home in time for Tom to go to work by 12:30. I think I kind of dragged around the rest of the day. Dan had arrived for a week’s visit on Tuesday and Rebecca and Dan went over to work on the house in the afternoon and I watched children. Wednesday evening we celebrated Tom's birthday with liver and onions and a great chocolate cake.

Saturday,evening we had a pioneer pot-luck dinner. Then the Young Single adults went to the Drake’s house for a movie night. We saw “Forever Strong,” a really good movie—even if it was about rugby. The young adults seemed to have a good time. We let them know about our mission and announced it Sunday as well.

Saturday afternoon, Tom finally got in the zip line for the kids. There are more techniques for zip lines than we probably know. It turned out to be pretty high and when we put weight on it—like me—it really roared down the line. The grandkids were a bit timid about the whole thing. They started out at the bottom, just getting slid up a ways. But after we left them on their own, they figured how to hop and ride and finally got the courage to go down from the top. They had a raucous time! Here Sandy is showing them how to ride. Here Tom is trying to convince nervous children that it's all just fine and lots of fun!

Thursday Dan and Rebecca went on a mini-moon and we watched children until Friday morning. Thursday about noon, we got the white envelope with our mission call! How exciting! Kenya, Nairobi! We will go into the MTC at the same time as Sue and Steve—November 2^nd. We are way excited. We spent the afternoon on the computer trying to find out about Kenya. The mission includes Kenya and Tanzania. English and Swahili are the national languages and then there are about 40 tribal languages. Rebecca took a picture of us with our mission call.

Friday was a memorial service for a friend. Tom went to the grave side service before heading to the midway duplex to clean and mow. I had an appointment at 10 am with a nursing home to do a spa treatment with the locked wing. It was interesting. Mostly hand massaging with lavender and a few agreed to foot baths with peppermint and Epsom salts. Then when I was done I went to Doug’s “wake” at their quilt shop. Lots of biker friends there. In the afternoon, Dan gave us a phone number of a friend’s parents who returned from their mission to Kenya three months ago. We called and talked to Bro. Pocock and learned lots of good things—mild temperatures, apartments furnished. Cell phones. Internet. Name brand foods. All the conveniences of life. He got so excited talking about his mission, he wanted to go back. The people sound wonderful. We are so excited to be going!