BEE CLASS!

                                               First the bee suits! 

                                               Observing the bees.

                                              Dad holding a frame full of honey!

                                             It really is amazing they make these perfect
                                             shaped honeycombs over and over.

                                               Bees snacking on their honey - they love it too.

                                               A very healthy hive - we even saw the queen.

                                            The yummy end product we were able to taste.
                                            Lots of different flavors depending where the
                                            hives are.   Eucaliptus, lavendar, and wildflower.
                                            We had lots of fun - Dad did get one sting through
                                            his gloves on his finger.    Thanks everyone for the
                                            anniversary gift!    We learned a lot.

A Backwards Post

I meant these pictures to be in opposite order; oh well.  Anyway, here's our happenings, with the most recent first!

 

When we moved, we gave our chickens away.  The girls were inconsolable, so we explained we would take our coop and get chicks when we got up there.  So we got seven baby chicks last week.  (list of breeds (for dad!): 2 buff orphingtons, 1 ancona (she's the one with the worm), 1 golden-laced wyandotte, 3 barred rocks)

 

I've been putting them outside for a few minutes the last 2 days (they are currently inside with a heat lamp).  Today I gave them a few worms to see what they'd do.  It was high entertainment!  They are just like kids; they all see the worm and none of them cares until one of them snatches it up and runs away with it- then suddenly they all want it and run after it, too.

 

Haley had A LOT of fun with them!

The move was....stressful. exhausting. mind-boggeling.  But several factors came together to make it manageable!  First, we were given a little reimbursement from Rod's new company to move, so we were able to get packers, movers, etc.  That was awesome.  Second, getting our house ready to rent was only possible because of awesome friends.  I had a "painting party" and 8-10 friends came and spent their morning paint the last unpainted room in the house- baseboards, doors, etc.  It was awesome!  Friends like these are few and far between! 

 



The first day of school.  Well, their first first day of school this year.  This was in Vegas.  They were so excited!  School here in our new city has gone well, too.  Their first day happened to also be picture day (so they'll be in the yearbook-yeah!).  They go to a GREAT school- they are really loving it. 

 



I had a preschool arranged for Abby before we moved, and she was all hyped up for preschool.  She didn't understand that that wasn't going to happen once we found out we were moving.  She was fixated on going to "preschool"!  So a good friend had her over a few times for "fake preschool!" I just sent her with a snack and some art supplies in her backpack and my friend had her over! It was great!  Here in our new spot, we're doing preschool at home, mono-a-mono, because preschool here is NOT $25 month! Abby is actually really enjoying having me all to herself; we put Haley down for her nap and do our little routine to make it official preschool, and she seems to be loving it. 

 

 



 

We miss our wonderful friends in Vegas, but we are making ourselves home here.  We LOVE living on a court, having neighborhood kids for our kids to play with, grass, trees, shade, crisp morning air, birds, walking to school, and a little more of a small-town feel. We hope this is it!!!!

Birthday Weekend!

                Thanks to the Farrells, we had a fun time kayaking in Lake Tahoe Sept. 7th.
                                 when we were both ONLY 57 years old!

             We went from Baldwin Beach to Emerald Bay.   Here is a view  from the little island
                                                             tea house.

            

      Just a side note,  I felt really sorry for the hen that laid this one!  It was Ginormous!!

Calling All Superheroes!

My baby turned 5 this summer! We had a superhero party at the park. Dev and Cam helped out a lot which was really nice. They made paper plate bad guys and hung them around the park, and the kids each had a nerf gun and had to shoot the bad guy. I told the kids to be extra careful because a super bad guy named Skeletron had escaped from jail and was last seen in White Salmon. More on that later. He got two Captain America shields, you can't have too many of those if your a boy :)

 

 

He and his buddy Gunnar, who recently moved to Milpitas, so we'll get to see them once in a while when we are in CA.

 

We had cheese puffs in superhero cups, cupcakes and some sugar drinks. Lots of health food :)

 

I saw these incredibly easy superhero suckers on Pinterest.

 

Wait-is that Skeletron?! It is! Cameron dressed up as the bad guy Skeletron and made an appearance at the park. I gave the kids a can of silly string and told them the silly string was the only way to defeat him. They had so much fun spraying Cameron. He was a great sport.

 

They felt pretty cool that they had saved White Salmon from destruction!

Help

Hey, can anyone help me?  How do you browse and post pictures with this new format?

Camping

 

Continuing my summer blog catch up; we went camping with some friends in June. Camping is a very, very different experience for parents and kids. Sometimes it just is not fun as a parent! Bringing your kitchen with you, trying to cook and clean up without the amenities of a kitchen, not sleeping well, feeling dirty and tired....and as a kid just not caring about any of that, and why would you? It doesn't really affect them anyways! We DID have a good time, I'm just so glad mom and dad took us camping and gave us lots of good memories even though it had to really stink sometimes. (like vomiting kids in the middle of the night...)

 

We went to Panther Creek, which is abotu 45 min from our house. I think mom and dad saw it when they came up. It was very dense and pretty. We saw zero wildlife there. It was weird. No chipmunks, bugs, even birds. There was a really nice waterfall a few miles away that we hiked down to.

 

 

 

 

July

 

I'm tired and don't feel like typing much, so I will be brief! In July for the 4th we went to our friends house with some other families. It was a perfect day and evening. I love the Fourth.

 

 

Audrey and her friend Maggie posing on the tire swing. Why do girls love their pictures taken and boys hide from the camera? Each family brought a bunch of fireworks, which the big boys had great fun with. Our friend Tim is about to set one off with these munchkins looking on.

 

Our friends had a ping pong table, which also occupied the big boys.  There were some pretty intense matches! It was fun to watch.