Planting Time

Breathtaking! That's all I can say about the views on top of the canyon. It reminds of Scotland...or a fairytale. It's amazing. My phone camera likes to FLATTEN everything though! It's much more amazing in person.

OUR ADDRESS TAG CAME!

Audra and I stopped for a really cheesy, huge and
deliciously unhealthy burger
at a local restaurant.
It's owner is also our contractor!
Oh and our kid's baseball coach! Small world around here.

The men started planting a few weeks ago. Planting and harvest are a big deal here. Every prayer in church and around the dinner table includes praying for good weather. Sometimes they need rain, and sometimes they need sun. 

I was driving home the other day, and I couldn't believe what a good decorator God is. They really know what they are doing up there. Summer will come with lots to do and then once fall and winter arrive, it's time to settle down and kind of hibernate for a little while. I will LOVE hibernation in my little house. 

The permits have been drawn and the loan is closed. It's a little scary. We signed our lives away to a Mort-Gage. Yep, mort means death. 

We have an address now! Just no house on it yet. I was kind of hoping that we got to pick our own street name and address number. I may have had one picked out, but I guess that's not how it works. And I guess we don't actually have our own street, just a looooong driveway. 

We had a scare when we were told we may have accidentally dug our foundation hole on the edge of our lot, possibly overlapping my parent's lot! But, I caught the surveyor coming up the canyon and he assured me that we are OK! Phew. 

Concrete finally came after two weeks of tsunami weather. We are two weeks behind our schedule already, but I guess I mentally prepared myself for that. Now that framing is going to begin, it'll start going faster.

The boys tried out for All-Stars baseball team...I assumed they didn't make it and I was ready to be done and focus on something else....

FUNNY STORY!!!

Well, I got a text from the coaches...I thought the text was for practice from Kyler's coach (Kyler is 8), so I dropped him off and realized afterward that it was actually Shad's first All-Star practice! (Shad is 10) He had made it and I missed the text saying that Shad was on the All-Star team. Kyler was fuming mad that I left him there with all the big boys. They kept calling him little dude and tried to figure out who he was and why he was there! I'm laughing so hard I could cry! They let him practice with them anyway which was so nice. But really, for an 8 year old to have to play with 10 year olds and he wasn't supposed to be there...poor Kyler! He was a good sport about it. So it's back into the swing of things with baseball...no pun intended. 

Spring in Pony Creek

Sometimes we'll get a random snowstorm and it has been rainy this week. But Spring is definitely here. We took a day off and just played in the dirt. I loved watching the little kids. They were completely caked from head to foot without a care in the world. They seem to know that someone is going to clean their clothes and give them baths and feed them and tuck them in a warm soft bed when playtime is all over. How nice to be so carefree. 

Last week we went to Aunt Rylee's family farm that sits in a little valley surrounded on one side by a ravine with trees and the other side is green fields covered in dandelions. They raise cattle and they invited us to come witness the branding, castration and debudding routine with the calves. I was a little nervous and I'm glad we missed most of it. We got there at the tail end and the calves didn't seem to know that anything had happened, they just wanted their moms. 

The big boys also got the interesting experience of watching them check a mama cow for pregnancy. I certainly felt for her! I think they were a little disturbed, and it led to a great conversation later on!

Watching the Uterus Check

I wasn't sure why he looked so melancholy. When I asked he said,
"I'm just thinking how much a hot dog sounds good right now!"

This was at the end of the day...a very long day. She was so tired
and does not like being away from home or her nest for very long.
She laid in her bed like this for 30 minutes without moving
and didn't want to be touched. Then she finally fell asleep
and slept the rest of the evening away. 

Learning to Work

It has been a challenge to find ways to teach the kids about work. There is only so much to do in a little house with a yard in the city. They helped with dishes, housework and yard work, but sometimes they want to save for something and eventually they will need real jobs to save for missions and college. 

This week they worked in the greenhouses with Grandpa, picking delicious hydroponic tomatoes.

We also helped Grandma with the hot springs wash. They have an old washing machine and wringer from the early 1900's...they used these somewhere between the metal wash boards and the closed, electric washing machines we have had for decades. 

First, we filled the washer with soap and hot water from the hose. The hot water is straight from a natural hot spring.

Then we filled two rinse pans with more hot water. Warren put the clothes in the washer and turned it on. The kids helped swish the clothes around. Then Warren fed them through the wringer and we guided them into the first rinse pan. Then it's through the wringer again and into the second rinse pan with fabric softener. Then a third time through the wringer and into a clean laundry basket, then out onto the clothes lines to dry in the sunshine. 

Warren and Shad learned to drive the ranger around the grounds and we drove the laundry baskets up and back from the clothes lines. 

And the excavating is FINALLY DONE! Yay! James and his brother have been out digging and tamping for days now. It's time for planting to start, and they are glad to be finished with one of our big projects. The concrete guys come next week to pour the footings. Then we'll back to fill and tamp around the walls. 

We love being up on our land. The kids love to explore and run around in all the grass and climb on big rocks that James excavated. The most fun part of being there right now though, is climbing on the huge dirt mounds. Aunt Rylee is about to have her fourth, so I took her big girls one afternoon and we spent it playing on the dirt pile. 

I love seeing how carefree the little kids are. They get dirt in their ears, under nails, inside pants and all over their faces and arms. They don't care! Someone will wash their clothes and scrub their bodies and dump out dirty shoes and then feed and put them to bed. They don't have a care in the world. Everything is taken care of and they can enjoy every sensation and smell and taste of their fun without worry. I stood their smiling and watching them, but in the back of my head I was counting nine showers, nine pairs of dirty shoes, nine outfits to be washed, and nine seats in my car that would be covered in dirt. 

Thank you Warren for vacuuming my car at the shop today!

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FINIS!

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