Spring has sprung!

 Week of April 21-27

                                                  

                                                The tree outside our apartment.  It's so pretty.

Since our Audit, I have been going through each of the Housing Apartment files and making sure our files match what we are paying.  It is a pretty big job.  If we don't have a lease or something in writing about how much the rent is, I have to write, call, email or text them and get them to send me something.  It hasn't been easy to get landlords to respond to me.  Or when they do, they raise the rent.  But I have to have the documentation and it has to be in the file and on the computer.  So whenever I'm in the office I am working on that while Dan works on the emails, signing new leases and getting Insurance for each apartment.  So that is what we did on Monday.

Tuesday, Dan went and delivered a washer over in Illinois.  Brother Riechelt, our housing inspector there, met him and helped him put it in, while I stayed in the office and worked.

Wednesday was a long day.  We drove to Effingham, IL, 2 hours away to move some missionaries into a new apartment.We first met them at the Anderson's house.  They were a Senior Couple there in Effingham that just went home.  We had to clean that house out and close it.  So we told the missionaries that they could have any of the furniture in the house that they wanted or needed.  They were so cute.  They wanted everything.  So we loaded it up into the trailer and brought it over to their new place.  Then we went over and got a few things from their old apartment to being over.  They had done a nice job preparing and getting most of the little things, clothes, food and kitchen stuff over to the new place before we got there.  The Branch President met us there and told us he would be happy to go and dissemble the weights and the equipment the missionaries had.  So he spent a good time doing that and then after we brought it over to the new place, he reassembled it.  Thank goodness!  Dan did not want to even bring the weights, so to have him do all that work was such a blessing.  The missionaries got pretty settled in to their new home and we were pretty tired, so we started home.  We'll go back and finish cleaning and closing the 2 apartments later.

Thursday and Friday we spent in the office trying to keep caught up and trying to rest from the move.

Friday night we had all the Seniors over for dinner.  There were 12 of us.  It was so fun.  The Bryan's are going home in a week and the Jones are leaving on Monday.  So we had a "See Ya Soon" good-bye party for them.  It was great.  Everyone brought stuff and I made Lasagna.  After dinner we played Never have I Ever...game.  It was crazy.  They liked it so much that they kept playing till no one could even think of anything else to say. 

 

Saturday was another Madelyn Waidmann tour!  What a great day.  Madelyn knows so much about the history and lots of fun trivia.  She just talks the whole time and it's just a great time.  We started at the Lone Elk Park.  It's a wild animal park where you drive through and see the wild life.  She told us that sometimes you see animals and sometimes you don't.  We saw Elk, Buffalo, Deer and a huge Vulture sitting up in tree.  And the grounds are just beautiful.  Everythings is so pretty and green right now.  I love it. 

Elk

A Deer ran across the street right in front of us

More Elk

This one almost didn't look real, until he turned and looked at me.

Buffalo

Then we drove over to Meramec Springs.  WOW, it was amazing.  Thousands of gallons of water come up through the springs a day and flow into a huge river that connects with the Mississippi.  They have trails around and the grounds are so pretty, wild flowers growing everywhere and so many pretty trees.  There is also lots of fish there.  In one spot you can fish and the rest of the springs the fish are safe and you can feed them.  That was fun.  When you throw the food out to them, they go a little crazy and it reminded me of Parana eating something in the movies.  We walked all around, we just loved it.

Madelyn Waidmann, our Tour Guide.  We love her so much.

Fish eating the food like crazy!

Best Tour Guide Ever

 We had lunch at a "famous" hamburger joint and then later had an ice cream at another old ice cream place.  What a great day.  

This crazy Canoe tree was across the street from the Ice Cream Place.  

Sunday we were tired and so after church we just came home and rested up for next week.  We have the 2 Effingham apartments to get cleaned up and closed.