MARCH 2016

We just got this cute picture of Carter from Jenna for his Kindergarten photo!  He wins for most handsome in the class, I'm sure of it!

 We had a fun winter hike with Lori, Bre and Elliot in March as well.  We had loved Donut Falls in the summer, and wanted to try it again, not realizing it would be under 3 feet of snowpack.

But that did not stop us.  It did mean some sliding on our behinds though.

After a slippery hike up the river to the top of the falls, you can go inside to see the "Donut Hole" where the water comes through.

Our fearless crew inside the hole.

Bre and Elliot

It's  hard to see Lori in this photo, but she was there!!

My March was also busy visiting family and teaching a lot.
I was really looking forward to my trip with Dad back to see Susan in MO...so it was a big blessing that after her heart problem we were set to fly out the day after she got home from the hospital.

Clair and Bernice met us at the airport to drive us to her place. We had a stop at McDonalds for lunch where these 'staches served a purpose other than Monopoly advertising.

I love the birds in Susan's neighborhood, so colorful and noisy!

 Here we are all together using a timer shot.  We had such a good time visiting and helping Susan out.

My morning run a few times was out along the perimeter of the country frontage road by Susan's place...I am so not used to hills!  Some of them were pretty steep and I had to walk at points.  But it was chilly the whole time we were there and great for jogging.

We loved celebrating Purim with Bernice by her teaching us to make Hamentashen, a yummy cookie called "Hamen's hat" in translation.

The celebration centers on Esther and her helping save the Jewish people.  We did not bring our costumes to wear or we really would have been in the spirit of things!

For the first time in my visits to Susan's, I was there over a Sunday to go to Church.
We met a family that used to live in Jenna's ward in New Jersey so this photo was to send to Jenna.

I got to see the St Louis temple a couple times.  One coming in, and the other when Susan and I went on a day trip to St Louis for her shot and lab tests for the month.  Very pretty temple!

This is hard to see, but it is an Amish buggy.  We drove to Amish country one day to go to a small Amish store for spices and such.  I was careful not to take photos of the people since the religion forbids photos of people...even though the kids were SO CUTE walking home from school and the farming was so beautiful.

So...our visits to Susan's are WORK VACATIONS!
Dad and I lost no time in installing runners up the stairs from the basement.  Here is where they meet going up to the kitchen...nice job Dad!!

Here was another project, finishing the raw edges of this part of the kitchen in the basement.  We stained and then polyurethaned the edges and it was a good fix.

Another of my projects was to repaint the windowsills and some baseboards just to upgrade some thin, not high quality work of the original house.

Susan had got this bench at a yard sale...it was originally white, painted one coat in splotchy red.  We coated it to make it look really good!

Dad was able to build up the sagging deck stairs and reattach the side railings to make her stairs sturdy again!

And our last project was to sand and then paint her front porch railing so it looks brand new!

Here we are right before we left for the Kansas City airport.  We had such a good time and are already looking forward to next year!

The rest of our month was also busy with about 5 visits from RMs and our monthly APM dinner with this great crew!