Little big Joe

Joe is here visiting with us and as we drove back from SLC he asked me as we were driving past Larsen Elementary wasn't this where he used to live. I asked him if he wanted to see his old house and he did so we stopped in and took a few pictures. Joe was impress with how his yard was being kept up. Its hard to call it his childhood home when he is only 11 years old, but it is where he did a lot of growing up.

Happy Birthday C!

Yesterday was Crystal's birthday. She probably had the lamest birthday ever as all we did was paint the house and lay tile in the bathroom. She is the love of my life and I'm so glad she and Kristie worked together at Alphagraphics.

This picture was taken some months ago when we had snow in GA and she was having fun with the kids.

An amazing sight

We are having normal summer weather in GA. Hotter than snot in the day thunderstorms in the afternoon and very very muggy in the evenings. The thunderstorms have been making it hard to work on parts of the house to get it ready to sell, but we need the rain!!

Todays storm had an extra feature. A rainbow. It had been stormy all afternoon so we were stuck inside. We were watching TV together when I looked out the window. The sky was the most amazing color of yellow. It happens sometimes after a storm here. I walked outside to take a look and saw this rainbow. I called the kids and Crystal out to take a look. We don't see rainbows very often here. Too many trees in the way! They were telling me to hurry and take the picture because it was still raining lightly!

Don't ever put "mow the lawn" on your Saturday "to do" list!

Last night I made a "to do" list before going to bed. I had a lot of really important things on there like "prepare my lesson" for church tomorrow and "get health insurance." As an afterthought I wrote "mow the lawn" because I knew that I would be home when the lawn was dry. Well ... I mowed the lawn! ... and while passing by a section of the back yard that I have always thought was ugly, I decided to rip out the old plants and put in roses and some ground cover. It took me all day! ... but it looks so much nicer and I think that it will make sitting out on the backyard swing that much more enjoyable.

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The new rose bushes

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The trees I ripped out -- that are so much heavier than they look in these pictures

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Putting in the ground cover

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The poor displaced rocks that are always looking for a home

Visit with the Simmons

Wayne and Lila, kids, and grandkids are on a wild vacation welcoming Wayne and Lila home from the Marshall Islands. They stayed here last night in between a trip to the zoo yesterday and a trip to temple square, etc today. I had a lot of fun talking to Lila about their mission and with everyone else about everything else. We got all of Mom's fun toys out for the kids and at one point as they were playing with cars on the floor, Nate looked up and said, "is that all that adults do, talk?" I told him no that after the kids go to bed we turn on the music and dance. He had a perplexed look on his face as he tried to figure out if that might in fact be true =). This morning the kids drew some pictures and wrote letters with the chalk out on the back porch. Nate drew a huge "N" that look up the whole width of the porch.

As they were here I told Rachel and Erin Joy that I had two nieces and a nephew who were going to be living close to them soon and that they would have a lot of fun playing with them. I had to laugh though as they were leaving Erin Joy turned into a cat. I told her that Emma sometimes turns into a dog and that they would definitely have a fun time playing and pretending together!

Erin Joy's self portrait

Rachel's house -- I'm not sure why there is someone falling from the sky upside down beside it

Nate's huge "N" on the left side of the picture in blue. It is a bit hard to see because it is so huge.

Not much going on =)

Matthew's last day in elementary school

Matthew has moved on from 6th grade. He will be going on to middle school next year. For the first time 8 years will will not have a child in Mullen Road. It was a nice promotion ceremony they had. We are proud that he is growing up and going on to bigger challenges.


Matthew wanted to ride the BMW for his last day at school.
Matthew got to stand up and tell some of his favorite parts of his time at school.

Middle of the night discovery

When you paint your house you end up looking at the walls more closely than you ever have since the last time you painted it! Among my many discoveries was this one.

I came across his signature on the wall last night about midnight. Last year Chas learned to write his name so it seemed a good place for him to practice! This house has a lot of good memories for us of our kids growing up so I have been very introspective as I have helped spruce it up. Normally I would have been upset to see someone scribbling on the wall but I smiled when I saw this.

We have lots of good memories in this house and leaving it will be hard. When we moved into this house Chas was just barely 1. He has spent 85% of his life here. All the kids have learned to ride a bike without training wheels on the street in front of the house, have climbed any tree that would hold them and played lots of games of pretend.

Of course I have planted trees that will have to grow tall without me and Crystal will have to make another home hers. (no red cabinets though :) )

Giving up your home is sad. There are lots of good memories attached to the property. Fortunately I took pictures of LOTS of things so we will get to keep the memories.

Baseball in Spokane

Stacy was in Spokane last week and came with us to the Spokane Indians baseball game. We had a nice time. I posted the link to Stacy's blog. If you want to see. If you are ever in Spokane we would be glad to take you to a game.

http://ihavenogreaterjoy.blogspot.com/2008/06/baseball-in-spokane.html

Happy birthday Logan.....

Logan turned 19 today, hard to believe that he has gotten that old. I don't feel 19 years older then when he was born... funny how much you change from birth to 19 compared to 21 to 40.

Happy birthday Logan.

The Tomatoes are coming!!

What was it that Paul Revere said? Oh yeah ' The tomatoes are coming'. Oh wait, he really said the redcoats are coming but he was really just expressing his excitement about the summer tomato season! :) (Kristie and Dad have read the book we gave to chas about Revolutionary War Heros as kids. The preceding nonsense was inspired by that book)

Anyway we are starting to get tomatoes from our garden. We got the first ones off this week and have had them in salads. The big ones are still green but it is nice to have some home grown tomatoes! I'm glad Michael talked me into Early Girl and Roma varieties. Sooner is always better with Tomatoes!