Elder Corrado and Elder Jacobson's birthday party

August was birthday month for both elders that are staying with us. On Saturday, Elder Corrado taught us how to make an authentic southern meal complete with fried chicken, baked beans, zuccini and parmesian cheese vegetable and I provided the death by chocolate cake.

Final picture of the deck

This was taken after we escaped the thunderstorm. The most difficult part was fitting around the points of the diamonds, Paul cut and recut several times.

Update on deck - work for August 18-23

This week's work on the deck was cut short by 3 days of rain. Thursday as we were working lightening immediately followed by thunder sent us scurring to get tools inside. It poured! Finally on Sunday we saw some blue sky. Here are the pictures of what we did get done during the week.

Didder Didder Do and Landon Too

Landon has grown so much! He is a real talker, usually he says "didder didder do" when he is interested in something. I couldn't resist using the title Didder Do and Landon Too for the slide show of our first day in Philadelphia with Troy, Crystal, and Landon. There is more to come on the trip - Troy and Crystal took us on a great tour of the whole area! Thanks for the wonderful time!

Progress on the deck.

We finished the first decorative design on Friday evening. On Saturday Elders Corrado and Jacobsen helped Paul put in the support for the second design. Milt Grover joined us and helped lay the rest of the planks. I went over to help Carol Grover paint her living room. I thought that was a fair trade, I worked in the air conditioned house while the guys toiled away on the hottest day of the week. No fun.

Finished patio

These are the before and after pictures.

Update on the patio and deck.

I had help from several boys on the patio. Alex and Layne helped me compact the rock/soil, put on the boundary and sand and place the flagstone - all on a day in the 90's! I kept them cool by spraying them with the hose!