May 24, 2008

Stirring up the pool in our back yard.	Ina Sue taught her Sunday school class for the next to last time on Sunday.  I spent much of the Sunday school period having disciplinary sessions with Landon.  Carl Heatwole preached the message on "Prayer".  He used the example of Elijah to challenge us to pray, and to expect God to answer.  We came home to a lunch of fresh potatoes with browned butter, poor man's steak, biscuits and salad.  We had to leave quick after dinner and drive up to the First Baptist church in Denmark to hear Carolyn Heatwole's piano recital.  She played very well and cut a much more elegant figure that many of the others who performed in flip flops... :(  Then home for naps.  We popped popcorn for supper along with fruit slushies.  Our school graduation program was in the evening.  Brian Peachy, Joel Heatwole, and Laura Dickerson were the honored graduates.  Afterward we attended the very nice party in the gym.
They love "pops"	Monday was a lovely (not so hot) day.  I went to work and Ina Sue started on the laundry.  She kept Roslyn Stover's children for a while in the morning and early afternoon.  Carolina & Landon had a great time playing with them.    When I got home from work we had an asparagus/ham puff pancake and spinach salad for supper.  After supper I drove over to Carls with the children and uprooted some of Grace's mint tea to transplant into our patch.  Our patch has been the smoothleaf mint and has really gone down hill this year.  We decided to try the fuzzy leaf like Carl's have and see how it goes.  After I got back Betty Heatwole dropped by for a little to look at some of the digital pictures they had taken of their family.  We found out that Ray Martin passed away very unexpectedly today from a heart-attack.  Although I had not seen much of Bro. Ray for the last number of years, I still have good memories of him and his family from when I lived in Georgia.  We are certainly praying for his family during this very sad time.
Lunch with the Stover children.	We slept in a little on Tuesday then I headed in to work for a quick service call.  I had two calls scheduled for down in Hampton & Walterboro (about an hour away) so I dropped by the house on the way and picked up Carolina Sue for a day with Daddy.  She did extremely well and we had a really nice day together.  She did get a little tired at the one place but handled herself well.  We got back to the shop around 3:00 and I was doing some work there when it suddenly sounded like we were being bombed.  Our store is a metal building with a metal roof and a sudden thunderstorm was dropping serious hail on us.  It was the largest hail I think I've ever seen in SC.  Very close to the size of golf balls, and coming down pretty thick.  The racket was so loud you could just barely talk on the phone.  After about 10 minutes it slacked off for a while then came back even harder.
After effects of the hail storm at the shop.	After it calmed down we went out to survey the damage.  Thankfully our building wasn't damaged but any car sitting outside was covered with small dents on the roof, hood & trunk.  We found out later that on out toward Snelling, cars had their windshields actually broken out.  The storm actually started on the other side of Augusta and after it went through Barnwell it headed out toward Govan & Ehrhardt.  The hail here at our house was not as big but still very thick and extremely damaging to crops and gardens.  When we drove home we surveyed some of the damage and it seems like it was a pretty narrow strip of heavy damage (maybe a mile wide)  Carl Heatwole's & Myron Brubaker's fields looked about the worst with corn pretty much cut to ribbons.  After supper we relaxed at home and I did some work on my computer.  The graphics have been pretty messed up and nothing I've tried seems to completely fix it.  I've reinstalled new and different video drivers numerous times with no effect.  I guess my video card must have bit the dust.
And at our house...	Wednesday we got up and surveyed the damage to our yard from the hail storm.  There was not terribly permanent damage but our newly planted impatiens were pretty much slawed and we have shreds of pecan limbs all over the back yard.  Ina Sue decided that instead of focusing on all the work to do outside, she would clean inside.  She worked on cleaning out and cleaning up the kitchen cabinets.  She also studied for Sunday school and made us stroganoff sandwiches for supper.  After supper we went to prayer meeting.  The Youth are away on a camping trip so the crowd seemed a little skimpy.  Bro. Gary led the discussion on "The Ordinance of Marriage".  Home for milkshakes.  I tried to install a new video card but still had the problem with slightly garbled graphics.  I finally found out that it was actually a problem with my monitor.  So, I splurged and hooked up a new 22" widescreen.  I love it!
The "Dirt Monster"	Thursday was a lovely day weatherwise.  I spent the day at work.  Ina Sue made us breakfast burritos to start the day.  After I left she cleaned out the fridge, took a walk with the children, did misc tasks, and made us a delicious supper of chicken alfredo over noodles.  Unfortunately, I never made it home in time to eat it.  I had a service call down in Fairfax that occupied me until after 12:00am.  When I finally got home the family were all slumbering in bed.
My beautician at work.	It is amazing how quickly the weeks roll by.  Friday already!  I went to work while Ina Sue worked on the cleaning.  With her condition she says it gets to be more of a chore each week.  The children didn't sleep well for their naps and were a bit grumpy.  When I got home at 5:30 I entertained them for a while Ina Sue finished up our supper.  After supper we took a drive around the neighborhood to see the status of all the new houses being built.  Andy Korvers have their's all dried in.  Chad Brubakers have the 2nd floor sheeted and Danny's are in about the same condition.  All three of the houses are being built with full basements under them.  My wife tries to contain her envy.   After driving around a little we stopped in at Don Heatwole's to see how their little pig was doing.  Ended up sitting down with them on their porch for a wonderful visit and snack.
A beautiful plant Aunt Miriam gave to Ina.	Saturday was a day at home for us.  It was a big day.  We started out by cleaning up the debris in the back yard.  I used our leafblower reversed to suck up the shredded leaves and bag them.  It really worked good to clean the leaves off of our recently put down pinestraw.  I trimmed up a bunch of our trees that were starting to hang down too far.  We weeded the green beans together and Ina Sue took Prince to the barber for his regular haircut while I started on my weekly lawn mowing.  In the evening I took the van up to Denmark to fill it up with gas and wash it.  Then we relaxed with the children and I practiced making balloon animals for them.