Level 46

For my birthday, Lorna and I went into Tyler to get our free Bundt cakes.  They were so good!  I made a cheesecake for dessert with either a strawberry or dewberry sauce.  Mhari was at work so we waited until the next night to do presents.  Clark got me dark chocolate, Lorna got me kitchen knives, and Mhari redid an old necklace I used to wear into a shorter necklace and a bracelet.  It was a nice time with my family. 

 

Happy Mother's Day

It was a nice day.  The ward had Bundt cakes and fruit for the ladies second hour of church.  I got to talk to all of my 3 kids who are away.  I talked to my mom and caught up on life a bit.  Lorna made me my own cookies.  Mhari gave me chocolate dipped strawberries (that she made herself).  It's nice to have my kids do nice things for me.  They really are great kids. 

 

Wedding

After making home from the road trip, Jeff and I had just enough time to get ready and go to our friends, Katie and Tyler's, wedding.  We don't go to many weddings so it was fun to be there.  It was a sweet service and we wish them many years of happiness!  It was also fun to check out their wedding venue and talk ideas.  Jeff is always dreaming of new ways to use our ranch property :)

 

Road Trip

Sandra bought a '03 Ford Ranger!  That meant Road Trip!  I helped drive to get her and her truck back up to Idaho.  Well, I stopped in Utah, but you get the idea.  The first day Sandra drove for about 8 hours and I drove the last 4.  We stopped at a hotel in Albuquerque, NM for the night.  The next day Sandra wanted to drive the whole thing herself.  She was a trooper and did it!  We made it to Paul and Karen's house in Cedar Hills, UT.  They were out of town on an anniversary trip, but their 3 youngest daughters were home.  We had a fun night visiting before crashing into bed.  Saturday morning I was up at 5 am to get a ride to the airport for my 7:50 am flight home.  My friend Melissa Rice was so kind to pick me up and take me to the airport.  We haven't seen each other in 15 years!  So crazy how time flies.  We have been catching up on Marco Polo recently so it was awesome to get some in person time!  Jeff was waiting at the airport for me at DFW.  It was a long day with not a lot of sleep on the trip, but we made it home after a "quick" 2.5 hour drive ;).  

 

Survivor

I am an early morning seminary teacher survivor.  My co-teacher, Shellie Eldredge, and I survived our first year of early morning seminary.  Sadly, she won't be returning in the fall, but I'm sure I will.  The last week Shellie taught and did a great job of teaching with games.  The last day was pajama day, that she totally forgot about.  I wore my comfy clothes and my new rabbit hooded blanket.  It has been a blast teaching with Shellie and I'm going to miss her next year!  The kids have been great, but we are all so tired at 6 am it's hard to enjoy seminary.  Here's to a lot of sleeping in and summer!  Fall will come all too soon!

 

The Kid Life

Since moving onto the ranch, the kids have had a pretty good life.  They are finishing up school for the year and once they are done with their work they take turns on the x-box.  Lorna likes a Sims game and Clark plays Arc.  Getting them out and about to check on the ranch and animals is still a chore.  Relaxing and napping are more important these days.  I will say Seminary has been wearing us all out (except for Lorna who doesn't have to go yet).  

Cooped

We've been working on building a chicken coop.  We have the main frame all done.  The kids need to wire the netting sections together, put a tarp on and secure hardware cloth around the perimeter to secure it from predators.  Well, until the details are finished the kids took the chicks out to check it out today.  I'm sure looking forward to getting them out of the house.  They are big and smelly now.  

Also, the road on our property has been washing away.  It has gotten really bad.  Jeff took the tractor and smoothed it all out.  It looks so much better.  We need to fix it with rock, but for now at least I can drive my new car on it again!  

Installed

Now that Sandra is done with her quilt we needed another project to work on.  The huge microwave box has been bothering me and so I wanted to figure out what we needed to get so we could install it.  We opened the box and looked over the instructions.  After lots of reading and looking it appeared that we had everything we needed to put in the microwave!  It took us a little while (few hours) and Jeff came in for part of it... which we then asked him to leave so we could finish, but we did it!  We installed the microwave!  I'm so proud of us! 

 

The rest of the kitchen cabinets and handles have also been installed.  The only thing we are missing now are countertops and a sink!  It's getting so close!  I love having all of my kitchen stuff put away in my cabinets.  Having OSB countertops isn't great, but it's better than nothing.  We are getting there one step at a time :).  

 

Present Fun

Mhari got Lorna a cute unicorn hooded blanket for her birthday.  After the celebration was over Mhari came out with her own hooded blanket animal, a bear!  Then she surprised Sandra with a fox one and then me with a rabbit.  Of course that meant we had to take photos!  Mhari was too sweet to get them all ... and now we all match :).  

 

Beautiful Night

We were outside working on chicken coop stuff.  It was such a nice evening.  The girls were adorable on the fence so I had to take a photo.  Then the sky was amazing :).  Trying to take a good photo with my hubby... always tricky!  Love our ranch life!

Quilting

While Sandra was in town, she wanted to make a quilt.  We went shopping for fabric at Joann's, since they are going out of business.  She found the colors she wanted.  She spent several days cutting out squares and then sewing them together.  Once the rows were set she had some adjusting to do to make the rows line up.  Once the quilted side was done it was time to line it up with the batting and start pinning the front to the back.  She sewed it all together!  She did a great job.  It was her first time doing a big sewing project like this. 

While at the store (to pick up my sewing machine from being repaired) she got the idea to make a dress.  I had to kill that dream.  I knew how hard that would be and how limited her time would be to make it.  She struggled a bit with the quilt, but came out victorious.  Sandra has big dreams and can accomplish them all, even if it's difficult sometimes!  Way to go!

The Last Teenager!

Happy birthday to our sweet Lorna girl! 13 years have flown by! She's a teenager and is 5'5.5" tall! She has decided she loves doing hair and is interested in doing cosmetology when she's older. She still loves horses and she is a good sister. She may be the youngest but she keeps up with her older siblings. She loves her friends, and getting and giving hugs!

Today she helped pick dewberries for her cheesecake she made for dessert. It turned out so good!

Time is a thief.... the kids have grown up way too fast!

 

Dewberry Season

Lorna and I went dewberry picking.  It rained hard yesterday and there didn't seem to be many berries.  I guess all of the ready to pick berries got knocked off in the storm.  Luckily, we found a spot that still had plenty of berries.  It was a pretty good haul, but I'm sure we can get more.  It was so hot and humid that we lasted maybe an hour.  Now I can make the sauce for Lorna's birthday dessert ;).  Hopefully we will make it out berry picking again and get to make jam again!  While these plants are not what we want in our pastures, I will take the free berries while we still have them!

On our way back we found some animal prints.  Not sure what they are, but I would guess wild pigs.