This is what a college education will get you!!!!! Welcome home Craig, the newest and last Shipley graduate just completed his requirements earlier this month. He is now home and helping around the house. He was just been accepted as a counselor for the Church's summer program for youth-EFY-and will leave at the end of May to begin work at either BYU-Idaho, Provo, or in Mesa AZ. Oh, and it is a paying job also, $400 a week which is pretty good when you consider his lodging and food are taken care of.

Yes he did actually plant the snap peas and help me with the tomatoes, which are now beginning take root and grow. The reason for including the pictures is so that all the family will know that we are preparing for the Shipley Family Reunion in early July. (Yeahhhhhhhhhhhhh. or oooooooohhhhhhhhhhhh, or hmnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn, if you think about having 19+ people, ages 5 months to 86 years, descend upon this old homestead). The garden has to be in place and producing so that Brooklyn and Parker and Macy and Abby and Lori and Grace can play amongst the blooms and pick the peas and tomatoes. I imagine Ollie and Donovan and Sawyer will just drive tractors thru the whole thing, well at least Ollie will. What fun it promises to be.

And it looks like we are going to fire up the old 'hot tub'!!. Brad Slama, electrician and Scott's lifelong friend, is coming over next week and will replace the old house fuse box with a new one that will have more amperage and thus allow the hot tub to run on 210 volts instead of 120. What that means is that instead of having to have the water heater on 24/7 to insure sufficient water temperature, the heater will only have to be on for several hours prior to hot tub use to get the water temp where it needs to be. I have no idea why I am explaining all of this!!! It should be fun to have it working once again, even though it will be expensive to make it all happen. Once the electric is ready, then I am going to have to hire a hot tub expert to come in and prime the pump and get the water going. He will also have to install a gadget, I believe it is some type of ultraviolet gamma ray star wars light saber kind of doohicky that will automatically regulate the chemical composition of the heated water so that when we use the tub we will not morph into an alien being or contract some horrible water foul disease. And I will have to buy a new cover which will mean that miss 'puss n boots' pictured below will have to relocate to another gazebo to find rest!!!

Now it is time to begin writing or posting once again. I have simply been lazy in doing so, but I would be very ungrateful if I did not from this day forth try to stay true to the reason for doing all this in the first place, that being the ability to see and feel and thus record the ways the Hand of the Lord has been involved in my life and the lives of my children.



President Eyring counseled me in October 09 Conference to do the following: "Pray for the love which allows you see the good in your companion. Pray for the love that makes weaknesses and mistakes seem small. Pray for the love to make your companion's joy your own. Pray for the love to want to lessen the load and soften the sorrows of your companion". I have been so doing for the past while and there has been a deeper appreciation develop within me for my eternal sweetheart. Her weaknesses are indeed small and few. Her innate goodness is on constant display as she cares for all around her. I find myself thinking of ways to lessen her load and yes quilting has become more interesting to me. She is so very good at it!!! As a refining influence in my life there has been none greater than she. The Lord brought us together and his hand has been over us for the past 34 years and counting.