Out with the old...

It seems that Heavenly Father saw fit this week to remind me of something. I need to be grateful for the comforts of life which I take for granted. I get up every day and take a warm shower, run my dishwasher, do the laundry. All with a simple turn of a knob I have hot water to do my bidding. I haven't been thankful enough for it, until I didn't have it. After many attempts to keep the pilot light lit on our water heater, and it not wanting to do it (two days in a row) we turned to the internet and found that our "thermocoupler" was most likely broken and we would need to replace it. So we called our wonderful handyman Mike Nankervis who knew exactly what it was the minute we told him the problem. "Oh, your thermocoupler needs replacing!. Turns out the contractors who built our home put in the cheapest water heater they could buy. (we often wondered why this house was such a good deal!). We bought our home in 2004 and they stopped making parts for our water heater the year before...2003. AND, it had a warranty of 6 years, which expired in April. Go figure. According to our handyman and the people at the hardward store, you can TRY to find an "adapter" to switch the thermocoupler from a left hand thread to a right hand thread (or vice versa!) but we would have to have it shipped and then risk the chance of it breaking again in another year. So we decided to bite the bullet and buy a new water heater. I do not like shopping for major appliaces...But...agfter 4 days of cold showers, eating off paper plates and not getting any laundry done...thanks to Dave and Mike...we have a new water heater! Believe me, I am truly grateful for the simplicities of life and the comforts that I enjoy every day and have been taking for granted. I will try to do better at acknowleding my Heavenly Father for the many "easy" things I have. I know why I was not born a pioneer...and I need to thank Heavenly Father every day for that and a myriad of other things...

The old....(what do we do with it now????)

The new...WITH another 6 year warranty! I sure enjoyed my warm shower today!!

The one thing that got me through this troublesome week...
a fun phone call with my grandson David! He wanted to talk to Grandma! So I called him and he answered the phone..."Hi Grandma!" He then continued to jabber incessantly and even though I couldn't understand most of it, I LOVED it! It made my day! Pure bliss I tell ya...Thank you David for making me smile and brightening my day!!

4th of July on the 5th...

Early morning on the 5th of July...Clovis 2nd ward had a flag raising and pancake breakfast. Much too early for me, but Joel was in the color guard so we went. We were happy once we got there....Bro. Budge and some of his patrol...Joel, Jacob and Jordan...

They did a great job raising the flag...then we pledged it and then we listened to Red Skelton's interpretation of the pledge of allegiance...very stirring. THEN, Marcia Brase sang the national anthem...beautiful! It all brought chills to me...

There were many happy friends there (for so early in the morning!)...

Our beautiful sister missionaries with our beautiful sister Scott! The star stickers were a nice touch! Next year I want some!

Then we went inside to eat breakfast...Joel and Dave...

Clif and Phil...

and me holding Scarlet! I was saying, "just take a picture of Scarlet!" I just rolled out of bed and had no hair or makeup done...ick! But after I ate I got to hold a fussy triplet while her parents ate and it made me so happy! She snuggled down and went to sleep. It was one of their first outings to the ward! Fun!

Bro. Brown got some of his friends to bring their cool cars for a mini car show...then they gave rides around the parking lot! It was so nice of them to do that!!

Later in the afternoon Dave grilled us up some burgers and hot dogs! Yum! We had the sides of course and rootbeer floats! It was heavenly!

Robin, Jennifer and Jayden joined us...Jayden was fixated on the wii game his mom and Clark were playing...

Jenn and Clark playing wii...Joel and Clif playing on the computer, and Jayden playing in the toy bucket...with his new haircut! See next set of pictures...

Jayden getting a hair cut...in our back yard...by Clif!

It was torture for Jayden...only some M&M's would help keep him still for a little bit at a time!

all done and washing off in the hose! What a day!

We really did enjoy our 4th of July celebration on Monday the 5th. Even though it started so early! I got to end the day's fun by going to help feed the triplets. It was a wonderful day with family and friends!!

Uniontown Cemetery...

On our Folsom visit, we drove up to the foothills to this pioneer cemetery. If someone didn't know it was there, we would have never found it! It is in the small town of Lotus, CA. It's a private cemetery and is basically in someone's back yard. We have a few relatives buried here (Dave's side of the family). We came prepared to weed and clean around the headstones, but someone had already done it! So we walked around and took pictures of headstones and were wishing we had brought stuff to actually clean the headstones. They have things growing on them. It was real shady and so most of those pictures didn't turn out too good...but we have the information for our genealogy. Some of the graves were VERY OLD. Some didn't even have markers. Some of the names were worn off. It was sad to me.

The square with the tall marker is the Mckinney/Shields/Amos plot...

There was one plot enclosed in wrought iron (that is all rusty and mossy) and there was a little stone at the foot of the grave, so Barbara is going in to investigate! :) It just had the man's initials on it. There were several graves done this way, with a "footstone"...don't know what it is really called...these are not our relatives by the way...

I'm sure the day this plot was created, it was fancy and beautiful...

Dave, Terry and Barbara discussing family history...Dave's grandparents Ewing Roy and Myrtie L. Shields are buried here..as well as Ewing's sister and her husband (Amos) and a few other family members...

This grave was added on to the family plot...

It's a deserted and barren looking plot...the headstones are sinking...but they have been there a very long time...

This is shadowy, but this side says McKinney...

these sides say Amos...Shields...I felt honored to be there and see the final resting place of some of Dave's relatives. Now that we know where it actually is, we might find it again sometime and bring something colorful to spruce it up a bit. This pioneer cemetery added fuel to my desire to log info from old cemeteries into a data base...I might make a blog! I even had a good title for it...but alas, I can't go travelling and fulfill this dream any time soon...Thank you Terry and Barbara for leading us to this little sacred place...

Sutter's Mill...warning, this is sort of a history lecture...

After our picnic on Saturday we stopped for a quick look at Sutter's Mill. This is where gold was discovered in 1848. They have rebuilt the mill (in 1967) to what it looked like back then. The mill was not used after 1850 and a flood in 1862 destroyed what was left of the structure. In 1947 some handhewn timbers were found and they used those to figure out the size of the mill. They have those timbers on display in a cabin with plexiglass windows so you can see them. I guess it is preserving them too. It was interesting to walk around and look at everything. There are placques that tell you all about everything you are looking at. There was a ranger there telling all kinds of stories about the gold rush..we didn't have time to listen to them all...but it sounded interesting! So here's a mini-tour of what we saw...

The Mill... the river is just a little bit past the mill, but you can't see it in the picture...we walked up to the top of the mill (the bridge you can see to the right) and it looks over the river. Very scenic....

This is up on top of a huge rock, where the Nisenan Indian women pounded their acorns. These holes are DEEP and we counted about 30 of them here. Apparently the gold rush destroyed the lives and culture of these indians. I will have to study more about that...I have never even heard of this tribe before...I tried to imagine the women pounding their acorns and their children playing amongst the trees and climbing on all the big rocks...

This is the Mormon Cabin - I guess some of us were there and helped at the mill! Members of the Mormon Battalion were hired to help build the mill. They lived with another family but were unhappy with the matron of the family so built their own cabin. The day they moved in, one of them wrote in their journal that some kind of mettle was found on the track and thought to be gold....

These are the "stampers" - huge machinery...it's so hard to imagine how they did things back then...the "sapling stamp" was used to pound ore for gold...the California Stamp (left) was used to crush the rock and it was so efficient that it was used in gold mining throughout the world. Sitting back behind these in the trees is the visitor's center...we didn't have time to get back there...maybe next trip!

This is what they attached the mules to...it is called an Arrastre and was introduced from Mexico. I don't think it's a replica...it looks pretty authentic! It was used to grind the ore and then the miners panned out the gold. It was effective but slow. The Chileans and the Chinese were other people besides the Mormons and Mexicans that came and helped and taught things they knew...I thought that was interesting...

One of the Chinese buildings... (they have display and pictures in here)...there are two of these buildings... they were called Wah Hop and Man Lee...they were built and then leased to the Chinese as stores...it was a social place as well as a store...

Chief Dave outside one of the teepees...this was made from the huge tree bark...amazing how it is all woven together from the inside with small branches...wish I'd have taken a picture inside it!

A historical landmark...there you have it...

Folsom, Family, Food, and Fun...

Saturday, July 3rd we took a day trip to Folsom. We visited with Terry and Barbara and had a busy and wonderful day! We visited a pioneer cemetery, had a picnic by the river, toured Sutter's Mill, and finished up some yard work at the folks' that we didn't get finished on Memorial Day weekend...

Joel, Clif and Barbara strolling through Sutter's Mill...

the beautiful river, lots of kayaks and canoes out on this perfect weather day...

Our picnic right by the river...Barbara, Terry, Dave and Allyson...

Joel and Clif - finally let me take a quick picture...

Barbara's beautiful Hydrangea, it is a lovely dark purple, the picture doesn't do it justice...

Clif's turn with the chainsaw thinning out Barbara's oleander bushes...

He did a great job and we finally got it all finished up...

Joel piled the branches and stomped them down good...(I think he enjoyed this job!)

The rest of these pictures are from Memorial Day weekend when Dave, Joel and I went down to help with some yard work. It was a productive weekend...that is also the weekend I bought all those books at DI (I blogged about that earlier but never got around to blogging our yard work!).

Dave with the chainsaw, cut down a tree and started trimming the huge oleanders in the back of the house...

Joel holding said tree...

Barbara was our supervisor and did a lot of trimming and clipping herself... I was afraid we were pooping her out!! But she insists on working with us...

I helped pull oak seedlings...there were TONS of them! In and around the rocks, flowers beds, bushes...wow...little acorns...big trouble!

Dave and Joel helped clean all the debris off the roof and out of the rain gutters...brooms and blowers came in handy!

I like this picture of Barbara happy on her porch and the leaves fluttering down from Joel doing his work on the roof...

The McKinney team...they do good work!! Memorial day weekend was very productive..in FOLSOM...our house is another story. :) Stay tuned for more posts on our Sutter's Mill visit and the pioneer cemetery this weekend...

Oreo Cake...

I was visiting Carla's cooking blog the other day and came across this scrumptious looking cake. I just HAD to try it! So I made it for our Sunday meal. It turned out pretty good! I think next time I will half the filling as it made my cake really tall! I had to take a picture it was so pretty, and then I turned around to take on from the other direction and this is what I got...

...my scrumptious cake with my exercise bike in the background! Is that not a hint or what!? I better get some help eating this cake or I will have to ride that bike to China and back!

Thank you Carla for sharing your yummy recipes! The link to her blog is on the right side of this page if any of my friends are interested. Michelle's blog is there too...I have found some yummy recipes on her blog too! Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go have a piece of oreo cake and go on a bike ride!