Camping in Hartbar

Setting up camp

One view of camp

Another view of camp

Wyatt reading RugRats Campout haha

Kayla ziplining

Wyatt ziplining

Kennapoo ziplining

Everett zipining (he was an animal)

Tanners turn

Kayla lol

I Loved this pic of Maddi, the lighting was just perfect

This one too

The river that ran through our camp

The kids made a damn with Nate so they could swim

Everyone having a reading moment before dinner

playing in the river

We went up to hartbar last month and stayed a few nights. We got a GREAT campsite with a river running right through it. Nate put up a zipline accross the river for the kids. They had SO much fun. We fished, hiked, fished some more, played, read books and just enjoyed ourselves. We ate s'mores and hotogs to our hearts content. The last morning it was VERY cold so we all got up and got in the car and drove a ways to the nearest town and got breakfast and warm coffee. I guess you could say we wimped out, but it was part of the adventure. :)

Our Newish Horsey-Dolly

I have been so bad about not blogging lately, I completely forgot to mention our new horse. We got Dolly about 2 months ago and she is a wonderful mare. She is 10 so she has maturity and wisdom and is past being afraid of all the silly things that our baby horses are afraid of. We love her to pieces, she's a keeper for sure and beautiful to boot.

The Regional Park

I am a little late blogging this, but this was from our trip to the regional park in June. It was a fun day with all our homeschooling pals and it was nice for Nate to be able to come along as well as Jenahe and Lexi.

Random Summer Enjoyments

Playing with the puppy

Training Wild Mustangs

Making silly faces

Reworking the good horses

Having beautiful Sabbath day dinners

        Climbing  trees                                    Cuddling up with Sippy cups

Ah the random joys of summer and all it brings.

Summer Fun

Following the kid's interests always proves to be fun. Wyatt was reading a Toy Story book to me the other day and random enough the toys were building Teepee's and he didn't know what a Tepee was so we looked them up online. At this point, everyone became interested and they asked how they could make one. I told them to gather sticks and some twine from the hay bails. We worked together to tie all the sticks and make their very own Tepee. It was a fun project and it led into topics of Indians and other forms of housing.

21 Weeks Pregnant with Jesse Bear

The pregnancy is going beautifully. In fact, I have been so busy, I hardly remember I am pregnant most days. My belly is gettin a lil bulge going for sure though not many strangers are bold enough to ask the million $ question, "are you pregnant?" quite yet. :0) 

Summer 2010 Garden

We decided to just throw an assortment of seeds in the ground with only 2 bags of topsoil and see what would happen. We basically didn't want to put the money into an overly expensive garden. Well much to our delight, we have 37 healthy pumpkin plants, around 10 sugarbaby watermelon and 10 cantaloupe plants, zucchini, squash, tomatoes, onions, lettuce, peppers, 20+ green bean plants and a lot of peas all popped up. The crazy thing is that we ended up finding out we have to move now mid-garden season, but God always makes provisions. I was recently at Big Lots and saw they had topsy turvys for only 4.00 on clearance. I went home and did some research and guess what, I will be able to plant all my lettuce, onions and herbs, green beans and peas in the tops of the them with the squash, zucchini, tomatoes and other things coming out of the bottoms. I am basically going to take our garden with us in topsy turvys! How exciting!! We will take the pumpkins and watermelons up in planters and just put them in the ground up there. I ended up going back and purchasing lots of topsy turvys after doing a little research and we will have what is called, a "hanging garden."

Summer Bible Blast

It was a circus theme as you can tell and the concept was "The Great Transformation." The Butterfly circus was a metaphor for the kids to understand transformation of a sinful soul or ugly caterpillar into a beautiful butterfly or life washed clean once they accept Jesus. It had a huge turnout and the kids had so much fun. They came home with neat stories and circus crafts each night. They ate circus food for snack everyday and I can tell that the entire concept really resonated with all 4 of the kids. Even little Tanner seemed to understand everything that went on. The church did a great job and interesting enough, we seen some old friends from the LDS church there participating.

Rest in Peace

Today marks 1 week from the day we had a terrible tragedy. Last week on Monday everyone was working to clean out the suburban. Each child had been assigned a different section of the car to just grab all of the stuff and trash out of. Ringo came from the pound as an owner surrender because his previous owners were homeless and had him living in a car with them. Because of this, he was fascinated by being in the car. I believe that while one of the kids was cleaning out the back, he jumped in and by the time the last child got finished(Tanner who is only 5), they shut the car doors not realizing Ringo was still in there in the back. The car was closed up and we came in to eat lunch, then we were outside all afternoon. Had he barked or whined even 1 time, we would have known to get him out. For whatever reason, he didn't. Although it was only 85 degrees out, he must have died shortly after being locked in. Everett went to get something from the car about 5pm and found him. It was horrific. I went in there and shook him, begging him to wake up. I thought I could somehow save him, but when I went to try to pull him out I realized he was completely stiff and I couldn't lift his nearly 70lb body from the car. I became hysterical. I lost it. My best friend, my loyal companion was gone. I couldn't and still cannot believe it. Ringo was by my side faithfully each night standing guard at my bedside while Nate was at work. He enjoyed watering the garden with me each day and jumping and twisting to bite the water coming from the hose. He happily ate all the leftovers and scraps I fed him as he wasn't a big dogfood fan. He was playful, but he also knew when to be quiet, calm and loyal. He loved me so much. He would wait patiently on the living room rug while I talked to him as I mopped the floors. I don't know how he knew, but he never walked on the floors until they dried. I still can't teach my kids that trick. I have cried so many tears, I just never knew how much a person could bond so tightly to an animal, but my dear Ringo was proof that you can. I will never forget him and I wish through all the pain each day that I could bring him back. I am now gulping back hard swallows so I need to leave this post at this. Ringo, I love you so much buddy and if your up there, just know how very sorry I am for not checking that car when everyone was done cleaning it out. I am only sorry I couldn't be as loyal to you as were to me.