Henkel Family Blog: June 2014: Joys and Germs

Jim dancing with Rhiannon

June has been full of ups and downs for the Henkels. It was a beautiful month from the early garden sprouts to the lovely catalpa blossoms, but the many storms with downpours, winds and even outages made for some difficulties.

Since Mark had to go to Mason City Iowa early in the month, Hilde got to try out video conferencing through the county iPads---worked very well except for the confusion of trying to watch, listen and then take notes on the laptop. Hilde kept trying to control the laptop through the touchscreen of the iPad. Then home for three other meetings, before heading south.

June is the month for weddings and on the 7th, the family gathered for the wedding of Hilde’s niece Heidi and her new spouse Erich. What a lovely wedding, held on the Orchard farm with everything carefully set up and every country touch. Rhiannon and Rowan were the flower girls although Rowan beelined for Mom as soon as she saw her. The girls were adorable in little dresses made by Grandma Fritz. Rhiannon declared herself a princess and danced with both her Daddy and the bride and groom at the ‘ball’. Having all the Bormanns together for the wedding was special. Hilde’s mother Arlene retired early, not before she had some special words with the bridal couple, and blew bubbles with Rhi and Ro.

Mark managed to get some work done with Jim before the wedding, helping insulate and drywall. During that time, Hilde had a great time playing with the girls and kept them swinging for a couple hours. They love the playset the neighbor gave them! Kayme has been making good progress with the greening of the kitchen cupboards despite the strenuous schedule, which is really changing the look of the kitchen. Right after the wedding, Jim took two three week courses on his ministry certification….lots of reading and writing, but he got both done.

Sounds like great times, but right after the wedding, Hilde got very sick, and after it got way beyond a cold, Mark ended up hauling her to urgent care on Father’s Day. An assortment of medication helped get the green goo out of her lungs and eventually the appetite and energy came back…not before she managed to infect Mark, however. So basically for three weeks things were in icky-sicky mode in Rudolph. Hilde was improved enough to drive Mark to the doctor when he was at his worst. There are some nasty bugs out there---avoid them if possible.

Rhi and Ro, to and fro--happy!

June always means a lot of lawn mowing, weeding and more weeding. In addition, Mark re-laid the retaining wall and has been making progress on some of his radio projects, and Hilde has been sewing more, after struggling mightily with some Tshirt dresses for the girls. Having the sewing machine eat the fabric makes for a slow go on those things. Now she wants to work on some of her fabric stash!

Mark has finally gotten some of his schedule set for all the trials. He will have four 2 or 3 week trials in the next 10 months, plus they will try to fit in the re-trial of one the appeals court returned for fix-up. He will be a busy man---one is in Minnesota, one in Iowa and one in North Carolina. Hilde is planning full-time support, so things will be hectic. Most people slow down in their sixties, but Mark seems to favor a grand finale to finish with.