A few days ago Mary Jean emailed me that my cousin Gene's wife, Mary Helen, was doing poorly.  The arteries to her colon had blocked entirely and she wasn't expected to live.  And then this week she died.  Her family was all with her and supporting her to the last.  Gene is confused and has a little dementia (they are calling it Alzheimer's but I don't know if it really is) so he wasn't there with her during that time but they took him a couple days before she left and he was lucid and gave her everything she could want with compliments and love and hugs and many kisses.  They had a little private service with him last night before the funeral so he was able to have closure, and then today was the real service for everyone else.  We went up to pay our respects and show we care.  I was a little nervous at first because it's been a long time since I have spent any time with any of these cousins and their children.  But Mary Jean made it all so comfortable.  She is a great person with her big heart and caring personality.  She greeted and took care of everyone that came, introducing them to others and making them feel welcome.  We had lunch at the church in the fellowship hall and then the service was in the chapel.  It was nice but I like our kind better with more personal attention to the departed and their life.  The pastor called it a celebration of her life, but he mostly just preached.  Three grandsons told how she had been so kind and caring with them.  And then we went to the cemetery and the minister prayed again and it was over.

I was happy to see my cousins and their families.  And Dad was very kind to let me do it and drive for hours and hours getting us there and back.

The week past he has been busy.  We did go and get the generator from Home Depot when we got back on Tuesday.  We had expected to get it delivered but they said they couldn't do it so we had them load it into the truck and hoped we would be able to get it out when we got it home.  It was really really heavy.  We also picked up the room air conditioner while we were there and they loaded it into the truck too.  So when we got home we dragged out the a/c and put it on the ground in the garage and then we decided it would be a good plan to drag out the generator and lean it on the a/c and let it down gently to the floor.  Which we did.  Yay!!  We got it out of the truck!  But when Dad opened the a/c box and got it out the cabinet was sprung out about four inches because the generator was too heavy for the a/c box to hold it.  :o(  But he of course got it fixed with his trusty pipe clamp.  What a wonderful invention!

This generator runs on either gas or propane so we don't have to store gallons and gallons of gas that may go stale in anticipation of a storm that may never come. 

 Then after he got the generator and the a/c put together he said, let's see if the a/c works and when he picked up the cord to plug it in, it had a weird arrangement of  prongs.  It was 220 and not 120 like we had expected.  Again :o(.  So after he was disgusted with himself for a few minutes for not noticing that before we brought it home he figured out a way to fix that problem too.  I told him that I hadn't worried about it for a minute because I knew he would solve that problem like he does all the rest.   The generator has a 220 spot to plug into and so he just went and got the right kinds of extension cord ends and will make the cord to fit the two appliances.

Then the next day he started on the little cart to wheel the a/c to the window when we need it.  We don't want to have to lift it in and out every time we need to use it.  he arranged it so that it tilts ever so slightly so the rain won't come in the window.  I hadn't realized how big that a/c would be when it got out of the box.  It's about twice as deep as I expected. 

On the way home from our Utah trip we talked about what to do with the backyard and thought it would be fun to make a tree house in the middle tree that has good branches for it.  Sarah Jane would enjoy playing in it for a while yet and we hope we will have other grandkids that like to climb trees visit frequently too. And maybe we will try to grow mushrooms and asparagus along the fence line. Heidi told us that currant bushes like total shade so we may try to grow some of those too.  And we may put in a deck so that we don't get our feet wet as we come in and out the backdoor.  It's fun to think of some good things to do with our existing conditions.  If we get sun back there then all the better, but if we don't we can do other fun things too.  I think we will be grateful for all the shade in the summer when the sun is so hot. 

Okay, I looked up mushroom growing and we will have to see if that is something that we can do.  We were thinking that we could just arrange a bed along the fence line in the shade, but they may need more specialized treatment than that. Something to think about, anyway.

The lady that I sit next to in Relief Society invited us to create with her a FHE group of older couples and I think that would be a great way to get to know people that we can do things with.  We will see how it goes.

The condo is still under contract and we are waiting for the appraisal with crossed fingers and toes.  We hope it comes in close to our asking price, or the buyers may not be able to get the loan they need to buy it.  We will have to wait and see what happens.