The Terminex folks did their magic this afternoon at the sisters apartment where we’ve been battling the bedbugs for the past couple of weeks. Here’s their report:

We want to follow up with you on today’s Terminix service as the treatment is complete.  Terminix said that they have thoroughly liquid treated the entire unit, including all bed sets (frame, topper, mattress and box), all external luggage suitcases, all chairs downstairs, and wicker three seat sofa (frame and cushions).  Corner to corner treatment.  Found live bed bugs in the bedroom on the Oceanside.

Well, we knew the bugs were there. The bug guy comes back in a couple of weeks for a followup and the work is guaranteed for 90 days. However, the preparatory work to get the apartment ready for the bug guy took several hours! All the bedding and all their clothes had to be washed in hot water and then dried for extended periods of time on high heat. Everything had to be taken up off the floor and the place thoroughly vacuumed. Nina spent four hours helping and supervising. She was definitely tired when she finally got back (after taking the sister missionaries out to lunch). While she was doing that I finished cleaning our apartment, doing the laundry, and ironing my shirts (11 white shirts and three other shirts).

But wait, that’s not all! Yesterday one of the sister missionaries in another apartment reported finding a bedbug crawling on her arm. So, yesterday afternoon and evening was spent treating that apartment. Again, everything had to be washed and dried, carpets vacuumed, and bug spray applied throughout the apartment. Meanwhile, I drove south to Walmart to buy mattress and box springs zip-up covers — an hour down followed by an hour back. Nina has spent eight of the last 24 hours fighting bedbugs. Those little suckers (pun intended) better be dead, that’s all I can say!

On the other hand, we now have two very clean and very tidy sister missionary apartments.

In the middle of that effort yesterday, we got on a Google Hangouts call with our son James and his family in Kentucky to watch our grandson Steven open his mission call. That was great fun! He’s going to the California Fresno Mission (English speaking) and reports to the MTC on October 7th (33 days from now). He’s beyond excited! We’re so very happy for him. He’ll be a great missionary! His brother James Jr. isn’t far behind. He’s got a (minor) medical issue they’re waiting to verify that it’s cleared up and his paperwork will be submitted.

We’ve had a full day of rain today. A low pressure trough passed through the islands today bringing thunder and copious amounts of rain. One rain storm parked itself on the east side of Honolulu for about 45 minutes causing some serious flash flooding and closing parts of the freeway for a period of time. Up here we just got rain pretty much the entire day. There aren’t any hurricanes close by at the moment although there are three active hurricanes in the Pacific at the present time. Combined with the low pressure and the after-effects of Hurricane Ignacio we have had heavy surf all along the east shores.

That meant we needed to go see this heavy surf. After finishing up the bedbug work, Nina and I drove out to Laie Point (about a mile and a half from our home) to watch the pounding waves. The tide was going out, but still we were treated to quite the wave action show! A couple of pictures are at the top of this blog entry.

So, that’s the story of this Preparation Day. We will be back at the Visitors’ Center tomorrow afternoon and will have time to do some family name sealings at the Temple in the morning.

Life is potentially bedbug free….