Day #140

We got up Covid early and went to Sotterly Plantation to do some Just Serve gardening. 

The relief society oversees Just Serve and we’re trying to get people used to using the app to look for service opportunities for when they have extra time.

We had signed up, but it’s a new’ish thing and when we walked up and told the gardening crew there we were there to help they were so excited.

We doubled their numbers and brought the average volunteer age down by a lot. 

Bob, the garden guild president, is a spry 84 if that gives you any ideas. 

The girls started off strong, but like with the blackberry picking, got distracted easily.

Addie is a trooper and worked pretty much the whole time.

I signed up for 9-12 but didn’t actually think anyone would stay that long, but we did and it was great.

I don’t want to make service a sad thing, so I encouraged, (bribed), the littlest girls to help.

The Ray/Seagrove crew added 20 hours to our Just Serve goal of 70 ward hours donated for the week.

So now our ward has around 25 hours done for the week. Oh well. Some ideas don’t take off and I think people are pretty burnt out right now.

Service is so important and feels so good, but we often are so busy serving our families and in our callings and working that it can feel like we don’t have a lot left to give.

I am thinking since we won’t be in school this year that we’ll make Just Serve opportunities a regular part of our week. 

Papa came and took all these nice pictures for us. 

He and Frankie went exploring while she was supposed to be helping. 

I give my dad a hard time about all the pictures, because he really does take a lot, but they’re such good quality and it’s nice to not have to worry about taking pictures when he’s around. 

Addie loved that these kid gardening gloves made her hands look tiny. 

Frankie did a lot of this kind of helping. 

So did Delaney, for that matter. 😂

She’s a cute hot mess. 

And break time!

Thankfully it was a cool’ish day with a nice breeze. We were still sweaty messes, but it could have been much worse. 

Delaney did a lot of the weed dumping for us. It involved lots of walking and she could do that extra slowly, soooo. 

Even Matt recognized that each of our girls has worn these pants. They’ve held up well, and thankfully delaney doesn’t mind hand me downs. 

The girls and i mostly weeded the boxwoods. That was easy to tell what was what so we couldn’t mess it up too badly. Matt made friends with Bob and they weeded the flower and veg beds. 

It’s so beautiful there. 

Hot, sweaty, and done!

Alli worked too but declined a picture. 

We walked around and looked at some of the different buildings before we headed out. 

Addie’s cute friend Lily moved a few months ago and they had a zoom party for her today. There were even friends that came on from Australia, where it was 2am to our 12 noon. 😂

After our busy morning Addie suggested we treat ourselves to Sonic and it was a great idea. We were all muddy and sunscreeny, so when we got home Matt took the girls to the pool while Alli and I showered and then I cleaned up from birthday festivities in a quiet house, which is an amazing and rare thing these days.  

Alli and I picked up Oga’s for our dear friends who have had half their family come down with Covid. We’re all praying they get better quickly and just want to help any way we can.  Since we were picking up dinner, we also enjoyed a delicious Oga’s meal. For those keeping track - I haven’t made dinner all week and it’s been marvelous. I do love to cook, but a break is also amazing. We’re watching Harry Potter 2 on my new birthday DVD player since we finished the book a few weeks ago but couldn’t watch the movie since our DVD player quit working.