Last week we planted the raspberry starts we got from Mom, Josie, and Grandma.  Thank you all so much!  Some of them are looking like they really miss home, but most of them seem to be doing okay.  Kathryn’s says they better live!

Yesterday we took advantage of a rare free Saturday to get some good work done on our yard.  For several weeks we’ve been working towards putting rocks around our mailbox.  We sprayed out the weeds, let them die, dug them out, removed some dirt, and smoothed out what remained.  Yesterday we made it to Sunroc building center and bought some ground cloth and finally the rocks.  And now it’s finally done.  We really like it.

I also took the opportunity to attack the flower garden in front of our front window.  It was full of old roots from the old tree and other long gone plants.  I basically plowed the area cleaning out the soil as I found stuff.  You can see the work in progress in the above picture.  Then I gave it a new grade and smoothed it out all nice.  It was a lot of work!  I’m grateful that we don’t have to farm by hand.  We’d all be a lot skinnier I think.  Now we just have to decide if we want to put down ground cloth and bark, or just plant stuff and deal with the weeds as they come.

After this was done, I was really tired.  As I was putting away the tools, I saw some weeds in the back yard growing in the grass and I decided to mow them really quick.  I mowed them and even put the lawn mower away, but I just couldn’t stop.  I decided I would just mow the front yard.  After that was done, I put the lawn mower away again, but I just couldn’t stop.  So I gave in and decided to mow the back yard too.  I was just about exhausted when Kathryn came out to check on me, and she helped push me for the last couple of rounds.  Such a sweetheart!

To top off all the outside stuff accomplished, Kathryn attacked the mountainous pile of laundry that had accumulated and cleaned the house.  Then after dinner we made a double batch of strawberry jam and watched a movie!  Just a very great day.  Thanks Kathryn for being so amazing!

Kathryn’s mom recently joined the Orchestra at Temple Square.  She had her first performance this Friday and Kathryn and I decided it would be fun to drive up to SLC to see her.  We swung by Tim’s office on our way over and picked him up and headed over to the Tabernacle.  We picked a nice spot on the upper balcony where we could easily see Suzanne.  Being married to Kathryn, I’ve been to quite a few concerts, but mostly she’s playing in them and I’m in the audience with Tim and Suzanne.  It was a little strange to be with Kathryn watching her mom play.  They did a great job and the concert was very good.  The acoustics in the Tabernacle are unlike any place I’ve ever been to for a concert.  When the first piece began, and the women started singing, it sounded like they were miked and there was a speaker up behind our right shoulder.  Several of us looked around to see if there was, which there wasn’t.  I then realized that the women were turned more towards us and their voices were bouncing off of the curved ceiling above us like a parabolic reflector.  It was like at a science fair where they have the two parabolic reflectors across the room, and you and a friend can speak to each other at normal volume.  The Tabernacle is a very interesting building.
“If these old walls could talk…”

The purpose of the Sunday School lesson today was to help class members appreciate the Prophet Joseph Smith’s role in bringing forth the word of the Lord in this dispensation.  I really liked the table below from the lesson which lists some of the truths restored by Joseph Smith with an associated Bible verse.