Back to school

The rope bridge is a main place to play. Here the girls and a neighbor are putting on a "dance" to the music from "The Man from Snowy River".

The boys did several wheel barrows of wood.

Tara and I put this trim in one of the bedrooms downstairs. This lime green wall color was not my first choice for paint, but the girls love it!

First day of school!

Boys will be boys!

Landon, Michone and Ashley in their "house." This is complete with a clothesline, seperate rooms, and even an oven (the tire).

Summer activities

Kalli and Landon played t-ball in June. I get to coach their team and I loved it. The improvement is tremendous throughout the 4 weeks we play.

Tara and the children went on a day trip into the mountains. Here the children are playing in "warm river". The river flattens out here and the girls could walk all the way accross.

This is death row for Big Red. He had been getting really aggressive toward me and finally got into Ryan's face one day. He met his end shortly thereafter.

Kalli and Ashley preparing the sheep for 4 H

Michone and Ashley showing their lambs. They both did wonderful. Michone's lamb had great genes and she won Grand Champion for quality out of all the lambs at the fair. This is the girls showing their lambs for the auction.

After a summer full of working with their lambs every day, the unfortunate time to say goodbye......

Michone was not this smiley a year ago!

Rope Bridge

Well, time to do an update on the happenings at our house. With the warm and dry weather finally coming, the children have been outside most of the time. Our neighbors, Ben and Danny, have a little pond and the children have been having a grand time playing and floating. So far, the only problems are the bright red skin and now Landon has a hard time figuring out why his skin is coming off.

Michone and Ashley are getting their lambs ready for 4H (in August). Kalli had her first rabbit 4H meeting this last week. And I noticed tonight that Ashley and Kalli had three chickens seperated into a cage - some of the same ones that were prize winners from last year's 4H. Their names are Pecker, Crowy, and Angel. Speaking of chickens, our 20 Easter chicks are about grown and we are excited for the extra egg production. However, our free range loving chickens have become the favorite night time snack for something. The last two weeks we have went from 16 down to 6! We put them in with the big chickens but they are not getting along and the younger ones take off as soon as possible.

We got our raft out and floated down the river yesterday. Lots of fun, but Ashley about had a mini heart attack when she asked Tara if that was a snail on her leg. Tara said no, it was a leach and Ashley needed to pull it off. When she tried and it would not come off, she started to get very concerned. When Tara pulled it off there was a blood spot on her leg and Ashley was quite worried about dire consequences.

Finally, we tried putting up our rope bridge last Saturday. It had taken a lot of time to get the rope pulled through all the boards and then get the side/hand rails on. To make a long story short, I think I want a refund from the architect who modified the design from the treehouse book.......

attaching the south end of the bridge to the tree.

view from the ground. As you can see, I put a rope in and out of each floor plank on each side of the plank. We then attached support ropes up to a rail rope about 42 inches above the planks.

we attached a chain to the north end of the bridge and used a tractor to pull it up. With over 70 18 inch wide 2x6 or 2x8s, this was very heavy.

About here we realize I put way too many planks in and so we take out about 10 feet. The guy in the picture is my neighbor - Ben.

Going up.

I'm in the tree pulling up the bridge (with the help of the tractor!). This is seconds before snap crackle pop and the engineering modifactions flaws I added become apparent.

Here is what it looks like up. As you can see, there are a few holes in the floor. These happened because the floor ropes which were weaved in and out of each plank were being pulled so tight that when they straightened out, it caused the plank to buckle upward in the middle. I think about 8-10 boards popped from the pressure. I was ready to take the whole thing down, but Ben said after spending so much time getting it up, he was going to do an Indiana Jones accross it no matter what.....

This does not give credit for the precarious angle Ben is at. The first five boards were very steep. In other words, every muscle is tensed!

Here I am with a no hands two thumbs up pose for this picture. Seconds before another board had "popped" while I was out here. Everyone had a good laugh except for me!

Here is Ashley. This one is for you Grandma and Grandpa. By the way, who is ready to bring their children for a visit?

Memorial Weekend Continued...

Again, the dates on my camera are on the default mode and this was really taken Monday, May 26th.

After swimming on Saturday the 24th, Jason, Josh, and Jeff constructed the base of our first tree house. This was not an easy endeavor as there was rain off and on and the base of the tree is 17 ft 3 in off the ground! Our longest ladder is only about 12 feet high so they had to build supports to stand on to be able to properly secure the base support beams.

I thought I'd be able to help, however once I climbed into the tree and leaned over the side to assist in attaching the 7 inch lag screws, I became dizzy and was only able to hand tools. I am very grateful Jason and Josh were so willing and devoted to getting it done. They worked on it until after 11 pm Saturday night by spotlights from the house

pointing up into the tree and finally got

the floor completed.

Jason was kind enough to stay long enough Monday to help Josh put the railing on ALL the sides to make it safe for the kids to climb up.

Here's a view of how far off the ground it is. SCARY but VERY SECURE!

Jason and Josh are putting on the finishing touches and Ashley and Kalli are patiently waiting to be the FIRST ones up into the tree house!

These are the proud owners and first ones into the tree house. From left to right, Ashley, Michone, Kalli, Sierra, Megan, Ace, and Caden. We have since added orange bailing twine criss-crossed every 4 inches between the railings providing a "safety net" effect. We are soon to replace the bailing twine with UV and weather resistant brown rope which will look nicer.

Memorial Day Weekend

We were so lucky to have Uncle Jason and Aunt Stacy come with their family to visit us for the weekend. We love to have company and extra help. They arrived Friday night and everyone was excited to see each other but we made it to bed I think by midnight! Saturday was an exciting day! Not only do we have fun cousins to play with, but our good friends the Yeck's came to visit with their children. Jeff and Aunt Stacy had butchered chickens before so we decided to trust their experience and let them help us butcher our two meat chickens. All the children wanted to see so we headed outside. If you click Jason and Stacy's link Stacy caught some great photos of the kids and Jenny's face.



The dates on these pictures are obviously off. This is the default date when I changed my battery. This really was this last weekend May 24, 2008.

Jeff had this great Idea to cut the top and bottom of a milk jug off and stick the head through the hole. This hole wasn't quite big enough so they had to cut a little more of the jug off after I took the picture.

Once in the milk jug a quick cut with the ax and it is all over. The milk jug keeps the wings from flapping and keeps the bird clean. There was quite a bit of blood but as you can see Jeff just held it upside down and the chicken fulfilled the measure of its creation. We are excited to try fresh, home grown meat.

This is Jason skinning it. It wasn't too hard to watch this part but Jason thought we should put it in the freezer with the legs on. That was quickly vetoed so he cut the foot off. The kids had fun making the toes wave by pressing on the fat pads of the "palm". This was very educational as the children learned what the heart, gizzard, intestines, lungs, craw, and a few other things looked like and felt like. I really didn't love these chickens like I do my layers but as they died I felt bad for telling them how bad they stunk and how stupid they were for ALWAYS pooping in their water and tipping their food over. I am grateful they loved to eat and could fatten up so fast (about 6 weeks).

After the butchering we all went to Green Canyon Hot Springs just 20 minutes away to swim. That is 15 children (ranging in age from the oldest almost 11 years to just turning 1) and 6 adults. The water is usually very warm but this time it was quite tepid. The older kids and Landon loved going off the diving board. I only caught a few pictures but here is Landon doing a flip off the diving board! Josh is there to catch him.

This is Seth being "Surfer/Boarder Boy" and really got up quite high! Way to go Seth.

While the kids were having fun and dad's were supervising, we women found a spot where the warm water was coming in and gathered around it like we were tin foil dinners trying to cook in the coals. It was fun talking and just being together.

Melody Makers Performance

Grandma and Grandpa Baxter and Grandma and Grandpa Bingham both made it over for the girls Melody Makers Performance which is their singing and dancing recital. They each had their own solos and did a terrific job. The theme for the recital was music from the 1900's through to today. They had costumes and dances from each of the decades. This was taken just before dress rehearsal and then they put costumes over the top of their white shirts.






Kalli was the first solo from our family and she sang, "Yankee Doodle went to London, just to ride the ponies. She had a cute sparkly hat and vest and didn't even act nervous. My pictures didn't turn out very well because it was at the High School auditorium in the dark.

Ashley was the next out of our family, and she had this gorgeous pink puffy dress with a large hat like on "My Fair Lady," and sang an army song "Come on and hear, come on and hear Alexander's ragtime band...it's the best band in the land."



Michone was Elvis. She had a really fun white jumpsuit with rhinestones and big sleeves, and awesome wig and BIG sunglasses. She did a great job sounding and acting like Elvis. Her song was "Jail House Rock." She ended with a curled lip saying, "Thank you, thank you very much!"

I wished they'd had more solos but it is so fun to see them perform together. We really appreciate the extra efforts both sets of grandparents made to make it here and for Tonya, Brad, and Jackson (18 months) for staying for the whole show. We love all your support. The girls felt like STARS!

Our first spring picnic!