Mission Post #6--May/June/July

So here's another installment in the life of the North Carolina Temporal Affairs missionaries, complete with some missionary stuff AND family stuff. It's definitely all good.
May 15 was a red-letter day in the Bosley family when Will was baptized. He is such a sweet boy and lots of fun. We surely do love him!
Here he is afterwards with his mom (Maren) and dad (Andrew). (Have I ever mentioned Andrew's website? You can see his work at http://andrewbosley.blogspot.com/. Check out his iPhone app--The Brainstormer--very cool.)

It's such a blessing to be so near family, and get to attend special events with them. Maren's boys had a piano recital and here's Hyde playing his piece. Both boys did a super job. I think it's in the genes.

Two little cousins, Nate (Maren's youngest) and McKenna (Casey's youngest) share a birthday on May 30, so both families came out to the camp for the weekend to celebrate the birthdays and Memorial Day. Our little cottage is way too small for that many people, so we did our eating down in the lodge, and for sleeping--Casey and Tim's family slept in one of the cabins, Maren and her littlest ones slept on our sofa, and Andrew and the boys slept in a tent out in back. All in all it was a VERY fun weekend.

Here's Will posting the breakfast menu for us.

After breakfast, the dads took the kids canoeing. Here's Tim with McKenna, Livie, Hyde, and Alexa.

Then the parents decided that they needed to have a race.

For a while, I thought Maren and Andrew had it in the bag, but in the end,
it was Tim and Casey who came in first.

When it came to the big dinner, Tim, of course, was our appointed chef--Old Settlers Beans, and barbecued ribs in his own sauce were the main event. YUM!!! After this, we were all so busy eating that I didn't take any more pictures.

One day in July--(have I mentioned how hot and humid the summers are in North Carolina?)--I left Stan to hold down the fort at the camp, and went with Maren to take her kids to the beach (a little over an hour away). I hadn't been to the beach on the east coast, so this was a treat for me. One nice thing was that it wasn't very crowded--unlike the beaches in California. Then, when we got there, I was expecting that nice cool ocean breeze, and what a surprise when it wasn't there. Will and Hyde had a great time. Will proved to be the "ocean dare-devil" and kept trying to go out a little too far.Maren spent her time chasing after the kids while I sat on the chair,

took pictures, and guarded our belongings.

That same day at the camp, Grandpa took Ivy for a ride on the tractor.
She finally decided it was more fun than scary.

Just so I don't give the impression that it's all play and no work around here, I thought I should throw in some camp "stuff." Here's the typical burn pile. Nobody comes around and collects this kind of "organic waste," so we just have to burn it. Actually it's really quite handy to have a pile to toss stuff onto when you're out raking, etc.
And here's my typical summer job. Mow, mow, mow. Actually, it's pretty fun. We even got a new mower that goes on the back and works better than the one in this picture. However, this one's great when you want to go back in the trees and clear out the undergrowth. (They don't let me do that, though--too dangerous they say.)

We got a brand new fence across the road from my house which I love.
I didn't realize how much nicer it was going to make things look.

Isn't that nice? If you look closely, you can see our little white cottage
through the trees right in the center of the picture.

I just had to throw in a picture of a member of our resident lizard family that lives by our door. Here's he/she is on the front step--such a vivid green and never frightened.
We have a little storage shed out in back, and in July, Stan put siding on it, and it really made a HUGE difference in how it looks. Now it matches the cottage.

Here's the step-by-step process.

Looking good.

For some reason or other, I neglected to take a picture of the finished product. So here's one I took in December after a snow storm. Gotta love the red door. Stan told me I'd have to paint it myself, so I did. Keep in mind--the roof isn't white--that's snow.

Mission Post #5--May

I just figured out that I have seven months of blogging to do in order to catch up before we go home in seven weeks. Can I do it?

Well, spring came, and everything leafed out and bloomed. Here is a patch of wildflowers we found down by the lodge. If anyone has any idea what they are called, I'd love to know. They tell me they are very rare, but I haven't found anyone who knows what they are. I love the leaves that actually look more like green flowers than leaves.

My front yard dogwood lost it's white blossoms, and looked beautiful all green and leafy.

With the change in weather, we began to get lots of work done. Here's Stan doing his least favorite job (painting), and with a smile on his face. What a guy!

The amphitheater hasn't been used for years. It was overgrown, and several of the seats had fallen into disrepair and needed to be removed. Members of one of the local stakes came out one weekend and really cleaned things up for us.

Clearing the land around it meant having to cut down some trees--even some that had grown in the middle of the seats. I'll tell you--anyone who thinks there is a shortage of trees just hasn't been to North Carolina. The trees tend to take over, just like the weeds.

Here's how it looked when they were all through. What a great job they did. Now we just need to replace some seats, pour a concrete slab for a stage area in front, get the electricity hooked up for lighting and we'll be in business. It's really a pretty area with the seats overlooking the lake.

We also got started in earnest on the new bath house. I can't wait for that to be done. Keep scrolling and I'll show you why.

Here's the old bath house--circa 1940.

This picture doesn't show how bad it really is. See that black spot around the pipe going into the ceiling. Yuk! The ceiling has rotted there, and rotten stuff just keeps falling through to the ground. Ugh! I really will not miss cleaning this place.

There are about six cabins (probably built in the 30's & 40's) that sleep a minimum of 12 people. They are all going to be replaced with nice new ones, and you'd be surprised at how many people are upset by that. They have been camping in those cabins since they were Boy Scouts, and their fathers camped here, too, so they feel really nostalgic about those old cabins. I think we'll keep one for storing sports equipment, etc.

Here's one of our cabins--up close.

Check out the door on this one, and there are a couple that have holes in the floor.

But not to worry, we'll have this place in top shape in no time.

We went to Casey's in Clemmons (near Winston-Salem) for Mother's Day. What fun! Her girls love to put on plays, so of course they entertained us on this occasion as well. Left to right: Maya, McKenna, Alexa, and Livie. They are so much fun to be around. We will surely miss them when we go home.

MORE TO COME!!

Mission Post #4 (April)

On April 24, Maren and Andrew brought the kids out to Mt. Olive for the Pickle Festival. Although the camp where we live is technically in Dudley, we have to go to Mt. Olive to shop. (They have a WalMart and two other grocery stores there.) So far all I have found in Dudley is one tiny Italian restaurant that has a few tables for eating in, or you can call ahead for take-out. The food actually is quite good, and it's incredibly clean inside (although you wouldn't guess that by looking at it from the outside). Imagine my surprise the first time I went there to pick up pizza and found that it is owned and operated by some very nice Vietnamese people? Who knew they could do Italian?

So, back to Mt. Olive, which is where we do our shopping, go to the dentist, and to church. It is famous for the Mt. Olive Pickle Company which is located on Cucumber & Vine Streets. The sign as you come in to town welcomes you to Mt. Olive, the Pickle Capital of North Carolina. I wondered about the origin of the name Mt. Olive, so I looked it up on the Pickle Co. website, and this is what I found . . .

"The Mt. Olive Pickle Company is named for its hometown, Mount Olive, NC. Tradition has it the town was named for the biblical Mount of Olives. We realize it's a bit confusing. Mt. Olive is located on the Coastal Plain of Eastern North Carolina. There's nary a hill in sight.

No mounts in Mount Olive, or olives, either. Just pickles."

Well, there you have it, and so once a year, they celebrate with the pickle festival. We thought it only fitting that we go this year, so we invited Maren and Andrew to bring the kids, since I was told that they would love it. They did! Here they are with none other than the Mt. Olive Pickle himself. Hyde, "Ollie" the Pickle, Will, Ivy & Nate. (I'm not sure about that guy in the background.)
Wouldn't you know, the first thing we saw when we got there was a camel. What are the chances of that? The boys just had to have a ride. I wanted one, too, but didn't see any other adults who were like-minded, so I settled for being a spectator.

After we'd seen everything and had lunch, we went to the "fun zone" and let the kids go on some of the rides. Here's Will and Hyde, and would you believe that the Mt. Olive newspaper that came out a few days later had this picture on the front page (above the fold). Who would have guessed that the first time those boys came to town, they'd end up in the news. Well they sure are cute, and were obviously having a great time!
Back at the camp, with all the fun behind us, Stan went back to working on the siding of the lodge (that's him way up on top of the scaffolding on the right). You can really appreciate the difference it all made, when you see the part that hadn't been done yet. This is the back of the same building with the deck around it that was in my last post.
I just had to throw in a random picture taken along one of the paths here at the camp. By April the trees had leafed out, and it was really beautiful.
Last, but not least, here I am driving the bobcat. What fun. I actually did a little cleaning up with it, just to see if I could. My dad would have been proud. Why is it that only guys get to do this fun stuff?

Mission Post #3

The weekend after Easter, the regional Young Single Adults had a conference here at the camp. They were great. They wanted to do a service project, so our favorite landscaper from Kinston, Bill Moss, put them to work in my front yard, which is also the entrance to the camp. There was sod to lay, shrubs to be planted, and a wall to build. They did it all, plus some cleanup.




Here's how it looked when they were done. And there's my favorite dogwood tree. The spring version with its blossoms looking very much like the winter version with snow.

After their work was done, they served lunch in the lodge, and then gathered on the deck for talks by the area authority, Elder Ingram and his wife.

It was all fun and games after that.

A couple of weeks after this event, Stan got a phone call from Casey, saying that Alexa who is in middle school, had an assignment to make a musical instrument and then describe how she made it, and play it for the class. It had to have multiple pitches and dynamics. So, of course, we hopped right in the car and drove three hours to Clemmons, so that Grandpa could help. They made a panpipe from PVC pipe. Here they are with the finished product. Aren't they cute?! (I should add that she got an "A" for the project.)

And here she is--in concert. We sure love this darling girl.

Coming up in the next Post: The Mt. Olive Pickle Festival. You won't want to miss that!