Carpentry, Plumbing and Cake Cutting – 3/25/06

Joseph’s niece Cheyenne celebrated her first Birthday in the LDS Hospital Rehab area with Uncle Joseph, Grandma and Grandpa Taggart and her parents, Elizabeth and Denny Bird, Grandma Bird and family friends, the Smiths and the Housleys. It was a fun time. We had been planning on taking Joseph out to Leatherby’s, except he is battling another case of pneumonia as well as another bladder infection. The doctors are talking about Joseph coming home in three weeks. Mom and Dad are working with the professionals in Rehab, trying to learn all that is needed to care for him at home, as they scramble to get things ready. Dad is working on finding a vehicle etc, as we race to the finish line (okay then, the starting line).

The house is moving right along. Dad got the plaster sanded in preparation for the painter to do the priming on the front part of the house, while Mark Maxfield, the carpenter ,really ripped into the work on the addition. The floor joists went in on Wednesday. On Thursday, Doug Miles did the HVAC runs and the sub-floor was laid. The phone service had to be moved in the middle of things to accommodate the floor joist against the house. On Friday the outside walls went up. Today Scott Coleman (one of our EBM missionaries) and his buddy Brian did the plumbing rough-in, while John Connors (another EBMer) did some texturing on some ceiling areas in the house. We’re hoping to move furniture back in Wednesday. Oh, to sleep in our own bed again. Check out http://www.bringjosephhome.com/

Quote of the day -- George A. Smith on Joseph Smith, the Prophet:

“Cousin Joseph came to see me. . . He told me I should never get discouraged, whatever difficulties might surround me. If I were sunk into the lowest pit of Nova Scotia and all the Rocky Mountains piled on top of me, I ought not to be discouraged, but hang on, exercise faith, and keep up good courage, and I should come out on the top of the heap.”

(Zora Smith Jarvis, comp., Ancestry, Biography, and Family of George A. Smith, p. 54, in Joseph Smith, Encyclopedia of Joseph Smith's Teachings, edited by Larry E. Dahl and Donald Q.Cannon [Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1997].)

Photos:

1) Cheyenne Bird's Birthday Bash. L-R: Vicki Smith, Tyler and Pam Housley, Elizabeth, Cheyenne, Denny and Ethan Bird, Denny's mom Gloria, Marci Smith, Joseph's mom Gloria, and the Champ himself. Dad's taking the photo (looks better that way).

2) After Ethan gave little sis a kiss, messy with frosting.

3) Joseph's addition, with floor joists.

4) Now the sub floor is on and Doug Miles is doing the HVAC work. Mark Maxfield helps him out, in between carpentry work.

5) The first wall is up.

6) The view along the back of the family room towards the new outside door of Joseph's room.

7) Scott Coleman and friend Brian Bruce put in plumbing for the new handicapped bathroom and shower.

8) Joseph Smith by Theodore Gorka.