May

May was quite the full and busy month. The younger boys had program practice at school most days in the beginning.

Thomas and sons also did some work at a retreat in PA, being gone a few days and leaving Melvin, Christopher and I to see after things here. This included mowing the church lawn. Inexperienced me took Melvin and mower to church with truck and trailer. He did the mowing.

One Monday Verina and I with a few of our children and Mama did up a cow. That means we cut the meat off the bones, ground some of it and packaged it all for the freezer. It is so nice to have meat in the freezer once again.

Stephen spent a week in Texas May 8-15. His friend Samuel teaches school in Lott. Stephen has been wanting to visit him for quite some time so he decided this was the time.

To his dismay as he took in Samuel's year-end events he missed everything here at home. Year-end school events were in progress here as well. And we had a baptism at church that Sunday for four young people.

Christopher, Melvin and Matthew dressed up for the program. 
(I'm not good with photography. The lamp appears to sprout from Christopher's head. :( )

The whole group, singing

Two of my sisters from TX planned to spend a week here in May to help our parents move into their new abode across the yard. Thomas' brother Caleb planned to come to WV for a couple of weeks. 

My niece from TX (right) came along and spent time with Verina's daughter (left). Christopher looks on

This is an unusual sight in my kitchen :)

We asked these travelers if they could plan their arrivals at approximately the same time so we could make only one trip to DC. This they did, with all flights potentially arriving on the evening of May 15.

Things didn't work out quite so well in real life. Caleb's and my sisters' flights came in late and Stephen's was delayed. As we sat around eating and waiting for him, he kept being delayed. He boarded his flight and then all were deplaned.

We finally decided we would head for home and when he came in later, his friend from home would come get him. As we traveled homeward, he called and said his flight was cancelled and rescheduled for the next night at 10:30 PM.

The cause for all the delays was thunderstorms in DC. No flights were coming in and none were going out. Stephen stayed on standby from early morning the following day until 3 PM when they gave him a seat.

Melvin and I went to pick him up. We were thankful that his flight was a bit earlier in the day. With all the evening storms, we were afraid the scenario would repeat if he came later.

The week was a very rainy one. We slogged through lots of mud and water as we worked on final things at the new dwelling and pulled the moving trailer in there.

Freshly painted bedroom with a blue accent wall

There was painting to do and brother Tim came to replace the carpeted bathroom floor with marble tile (he had leftovers from a job). 

This shows the new floor as well as the cabinets that Matthew painted

Work completed and time to rest

My role during this time was to feed everyone. This was a full -time job. Sister Verina helped by making some meals. One evening we enjoyed a mother-daughter banquet our church put on.

Verina, Rosetta, Mama, Rachel, Me

During this week Thomas' mother was also preparing for a yard sale. I asked a friend to help her out and Caleb helped as well. We had church spring cleaning which we are responsible to oversee. Verina's father-in-law was also very ill, so the family was a bit stretched, with outside cares on top of the heavy load here.

The Lord always makes a way through.

I had an interesting experience that week. We had been praying that the power company would come and get electricity hooked up to the trailer. I woke up Friday morning and thought about it. I don't remember if I was praying but in my spirit I had a knowing, "The power company is coming today." 

After awhile I decided to share that conviction. Thomas doubted me. "It's been so rainy and they have power outages to deal with." But as he headed out to a job a while later, he called back to report that they were indeed on their way! 

How happy we were to have lights in the new place. Dim, rainy days and loud generators don't make work situations the most pleasant.

We ended the month in PA. Thomas and sons had one more floor of the hotel to paint and they wanted me to go along. I did and thoroughly enjoyed the time there. 

And I've been working on this post way too long. Here it is the middle of June already. 😊