Catching up

Hello, everyone that reads this blog.  I am sorry it has taken me so long to update but you see life has continued to interrupt my feeble attempts to keep this up to date.  Here are a few images of the last two months – A beautiful fall day about 5 o’clock and we – Mandy, Nathan and I – went down to feed the fish in the back pond. The scattering of clouds were pink tinged with the setting sun and at least a dozen dragon flies were soaring and dipping above the pond.  It was a magical moment.

 

I look out across the pasture and see my  5 year old son and his puppy running full tilt across the grass and know that I will blink and both the boy and the dog will be grown before I want them to be.

 

I am walking to the work shop and see a ½ dozen butterflies in different colors hovering over a large bush with small delicate purple flowers covering it

 

We just had a wonderful Thanksgiving week.  Kathie came in the Thursday before and we had a great week organizing and cleaning and cooking.  Cyndi and Jeremy and boys came down and Glenn came in from Washington D.C.  We had 30 people on Thursday for lunch an it was wonderful.  We had James and Sharon Miller and family (Bob’s sister-in-lway and family), a friend of Shelly’s and her son, some friends of Cyndi and Jeremy’s from Austin and of course, our Beth join us.  We had plenty of food and dessert and then everyone just relaxed.  We had a  childrens baseball game (kind of), football on the grass, fishing, boat rowing and I looked up once and one of our guys was sound asleep in the pasture in the shade of a tree.  It was the perfect day full of wonderful people and food.

 

On Friday, we celebrated Andrew’s 4^th birthday with family and plenty of dinosaurs!  Cyndi made a great cake and we had a dinosaur egg toss, dinosaur, dinosaur, dragon (done to the tune of duck, duck, goose), colored dinosaur pictures with stickers and everyone just had a wonderful time.

 

Then on Saturday, Samantha (our Sammi) Turpin turned 8 years old and was baptized by her father, Jason.  It does not seem like 8 years ago, Shelly made that crazy drive from Katy to Spring in a panic because her water had broken and had this wonderful free spirited little being we all call Sammi.  We were all very proud of her.  Following the baptism we all went over to Shelly’s house for cake and ice cream and Sammi opened her presents and spent time with her family.  The friend party will be a little later.

 

On Sunday, November 26^th our Mandy was blessed by her father, Glenn with Jeremy Selim, Jason Turpin, Bishop Stutz, and Brad Leavitt at our Ward in Magnolia.  We all came back to the farm afterward and had a wonderful lunch.  The Turpins had to head out to attend their Ward and the Leavitt’s had something in Sugarland.  Kathie had set up the Christmas tree the day before and Debbie and Cyndi put on the lights on Saturday night and then we all finished decorating the tree on Sunday before everyone took off to get back to the regular schedule of work and school.

 

So, simply we had the most wonderful week of Thanksgiving that I can remember. I hope to get Jason to post some pictures (I confess I still don’t know how to add pictures) and I will be back up to date on the workings of the Ball farm.  Oh, I forgot we are working on our first purchase of chickens that will be delivered in February and have found that our neighbors are moving and will be buying several cows from them before they leave.

 

 

1st moving day

Well, our move so far, should be labeled a classic Ball adventure.  With all of last weeks visit of Asia to see us and Mandy’s doctors appointments and subsequent stress I haven’t gotten nearly as much packing as I should have.  This morning we were supposed to pick up a moving truck at 10:00 am and so we did the usual morning things – get up, dressed, have breakfast, etc. and then continued to pack until 9:50 rolled around and then we packed the kids into the car and went to get our MOVING VAN.  Glenn drove it home and seemed to go rather slow but anyone that knows Glenn knows that is not unusual.  Anyway, he gets home and said the van wouldn’t go above 30 mph.  So, we call U-Haul (will I ever learn?) and are assured that we will have a mechanic at our house between an hour and an hour and ½ later.  So, we decided to go ahead and finish what we were doing and then decide what to pack into said moving van.

 

I need to back up a little; I have been trying to get phone service to our new residence for a while now.  First, I had to figure out who serviced that part of the world.  After several calls we were told either Embark (formerly Sprint) or A T&T (formerly SBC) but no one was sure which.  So, I called both and both said no, we can’t find your address on our lines.  Strange since I know the Knightons had a phone.  I called the Real Estate people, talked to the developer down the road, talked to other phone people.  No luck.  So, Glenn decided since he was packing his office and we still had to wait he would try again.  Finally, after going through the AT&T phone maze- he actually got to talk to a human.  WOW! And even better than that we do exist!  While he was in the midst of this call the mechanics showed up and so he switched me over to talk to the phone lady and he went outside to talk to the mechanics.  They look at the moving van and find burnt spark plug wires and fix that and take the van for a spin around the neighborhood to make sure all is well.  By the way, I am still talking to the brilliant AT&T person that found our property and then she starts talking about Dish Satellite.  Ok – the only thing Glenn was responsible for on this move was Dish Satellite and so, I asked her to wait and go retrieve my husband so that he do his manly duty and make decisions about the Satellite server.  As I go outside I discover water shooting skyward from my front yard.  What now, I think.  While the efficient mechanics were returning our moving van they ran over and broke off one of the sprinkler heads.  So, I switch places with Glenn and he talks to the phone company and I run back and forth to the garage to set the sprinklers to make sure they are actually fixed. Several times it is not.  After oh, an hour at least they leave with sprinkler head fixed and we get on the actual part of the “move” process.  We start packing boxes, etc. and finally around 4:00 we have finished and need to head out to Plantersville or we are never going to get this finished.

 

I take Mandy in the Volvo and Nathan gets to ride with his Daddy in the moving van.  Very cool for a 4 year old boy!  I stopped to get something for us to eat and we meet at the property and drive to our new house.  Glenn said the moving van is still not working right and so while we continue to unload the van Glenn again calls U-Haul.  Should I mention that you should never use U-Haul?  We were almost finished with the unpacking when the new mechanic calls and is trying to find us.  I have a feeling that this will not be the last time someone can not find us.  Finally the mechanic gets there and starts looking at the truck.  By this time it is getting pretty late and our kids and us are getting tired.  He finally decides that the van is not going to be fixed.  It will not drive and needs to be towed and so then he starts talking to U-Haul to get us another truck.  No deal, they don’t have any other trucks – but finally they say they may have something by 9:30 in the morning – we can only hope since we have many people coming to our house tomorrow at 9 to help us load this moving van.  Then I go into the kitchen to get the kids some water and we don’t have any water. No water you say but how can that be when you have a well?  Good question, we asked the same question but no answer presented itself.  Glenn and the mechanic went down to the well house and it had no power.  That could be the answer but why?  They came back to the house and switched all of the breakers but nothing.  I did find Mr. Knightons cell number that he had left and so tried to call him but only got his voice mail.  Finally, at around 8:30 we decided to leave.  Now what do we do?  We have no moving van for tomorrow and no water if we do get a moving van so, what should we do? As we drove home we called Mr. Knighton again and finally contact him.  There are two meters on the property – one for the water pump and one for the house.  When they did the switch they turned off the water pump and kept the house on so that solved that but does a small co-op electric company even open on Saturday?  When we got home and called hoping for voice mail and actually spoke to a human being.  Two in one day – that has to beat the odds.  Anyway, we will have water to the house tomorrow by 10:00 am, yeah!  Now if we can just get a moving van in the morning all will be well.  That is all for now – It is 11:02 and I have had a very busy day.  More tomorrow.  Debra

Sunday Baptism

On Sunday, September 10th, 2006 Thomas Cameron Leavitt was baptized by his father, Brad Leavitt.  It was a wonderful experience and the room was filled with family and friends. I sat and watched Donna watching her husband baptize their son and thought about the fact that if Donna had not chosen to listen to the Missionaries this moment would not have come about.  It brought back the fact that all of our decisions have consequences for good or evil.  It is of course, our choice.  Anyway, we just wanted to share this  news.  We unfortunately forgot our camera but Donna took some so, hopefully we can get some posted here.

 

On another note on Saturday the 9^th, we added another member to our family and the Ball farm.  By the way, if someone has a better name we are taking votes.  The Ball farm is ok but we would like input if someone could think of anything else.  Our new addition is a female puppy.  She is 8 weeks old and is ½ Sheltie and ½ Welsh Corgi.  She looks like the Sheltie part and is brown with a little bit of black along her back and tail.  She has two white paws one with little spots on it and she has officially been named “Spot”.  Granted if she hadn’t had one spot she would still have been called Spot as Nathan has been talking about this puppy for a long time.  At the moment, she is still in the chewing stage and so is spending a lot of time outside.  We wanted a larger dog for Nathan to grow up with and they are becoming fast friends.

 

Glenn and I signed the papers yesterday to close on the property and the Knightons will sign on the 14^th and then 25790 Riley Road, Plantersville, Texas will officially belong to us and of course, to Washington Mutual our loan company.  Hurrah and gulp!

Labor Day

Hello, It is time to update our blog about Labor Day weekend.


On Thursday night, Kathie, Glenn and Cyndi/Jeremy and family arrived in town. It was great having almost everyone home. On Saturday morning we finished up cooking the two briskits and the sausage on a stick and the salads, cantaloupe, and so forth and headed out to our (actually it will be ours on the 14th) property. The people with all of the food and of course, everything else (meaning us) were late but it was a great day and we all had fun. We spread out with tables and chairs and blankets and had a great picnic. Then we sang a surprise “Happy birthday” to Kathie – a little early but she was here and scattered to do what we wanted to do. We were graciously taken on a tour of the house by Mrs. Knighton and decided we really like it!



Everyone wanted to take rides on the golf cart, most of the children and adults wanted to go fishing, some of us just wanted to relax in a chair under one of the great Oak trees. Mr. Knighton had tied a spare tire to one of the trees and the kids took turns swinging on it. Nathan hooked the first fish, followed by Cameron, and Becca caught a small blue gill, Jason caught 4 good sized catfish and Andrew with a little help from his Daddy caught his first fish! It was great fun to see first Shelly and Beth and then Jeremy and Donna rowing the boat around the island of the pond.



We had a great time and have some great pictures of all the kids. We all got a little sun burned and at the end we drove the mile to our other property and went swimming in the pool at Saddle Creek. Talk about having life both ways.