Aloha Garden of Peace

Dear Friends,

We have decided to put our Hawaii plans on hold for a while (maybe a few years?) because the pull to be with family is strong :).

We are settling into life at the Singing Woods.  The Burrow is a cement room that Mark built several years back.  It is attached to the Altier on the South side.  The plan is to build a greenhouse in front of and on top of the Burrow.  The greenhouse would reach up to the Altier’s roof, so it will be a 4 story greenhouse spanning the whole South side of the Altier.  Andy, (Mark’s brother), Sam (Andy’s wife), and the girls (our nieces) are giving full support.

I help Evelyn (Mark & Andy’s Mother) with the dishes daily and laundry often and Mark and I have driven Evelyn to every concert of hers this summer (Sunday and Wednesday evenings).  She is in the Peoria Municipal Band.  They play a lot of marches and each concert has a theme.  Very fun!  The last concert will be Sunday evening, August 14, at 7:30 pm.

We have been to two water parks with the girls and at the last one, we got free passes so we went back last Tuesday.

It is hot here and very humid most days.  (It was when I wrote this 3 weeks ago.) Sleeping in the Burrow is great though.  It is typically in the low 70s without any AC.  The room is a cement box and has earth burmed against the East and West sides and a little on the north wall underneath the Altier basement.  Mark was worked hard to empty and clean out the burrow.  Mark and Andy installed two more plywood boards on the North wall.  The room also has a thick layer of insulation throughout.  This week, we have been working on getting the room ready to paint.  Today, we hope, we will apply a few coats of primer.

As soon as the room is painted, we’ll move furniture back in and be able to have our clothes in the Burrow instead of in the Altier.

In addition to finishing the Burrow and building the greenhouse, there is the work of sorting and deciding what to do with/keep/sell Mark’s belongings.  Before we got to IL, he had two storage units that are 12×40.  We put our CA belongings into a third one, along with the stuff that was in the Burrow.  This third unit is also a staging ground to help us have room to sort the stuff in the first two.  We hope to use, sort, sell, or give away everything in storage by the end of January.  That is our goal.

So you can see, we are working hard!

Much love,

Rachel and Mark