Just Wondering...

Does anyone actually read this?? I know of a couple that do at least now and then, but I'm just wondering if it is worth continuing this blog. I don't think that as many people read it as once did, and trying to decide if I want to keep doing it. If you do read it, will you post a comment below so I can get a count. I'm wondering if it might just be easier to stick with Facebook...

Mother's Day 2010

After church on Mother's Day we went up to the canyon for a bit and took a walk along the stream. It was such a pretty day. I just love spending time with my family! :)

Baby Chicks!

It's funny to post these pictures now, because these little chickies are all big with feathers now! But anyway, the week after we got back from our vacation we got our baby chicks! I grew up raising chickens and so ever since Josh and I got married (8 years ago) we've been wanting to get chickens, but have never had a place for them until now. The funny thing is that now its kind of a trend and lots of people, even here in the city have chickens. :) We've had a lot of fun with them so far and can't wait until they start laying eggs in the fall. We got 2 Cuckoo Marans (which lay a deep chocolate colored egg), 2 rainbow-egg layers (had these when I was a kid and the blue eggs are SO fun!), one silver-laced wyandotte, one barred rock, and one partridge rock. I just letting my kids having some of the same experiences that I got to have when I was a kid like raising baby chicks!

Spring Break - Oregon Vacation

It's been awhile since I've done any blogging, so I have some catching up to do! Just needed a blogging break I guess. The only problem about waiting so long is it's harder to remember all the details! I hope I remember everything correctly! :)

So the first week in April the schools let out for Spring Break. We took a trip to the southern Oregon coast. That Friday we started the drive up. Friday night we stayed in Lakeview, OR. The last bit of our drive to Lakeview was through a blizzard on a scary steep mountain (so much for SPRING break huh?) but we made it safely!

The next day (Sat.) we continued on our drive. We met my parents and brother in Medford and had lunch. Then we headed on to Gold Beach, stopping briefly at the Redwood National Forest.

That night we got settled in our cabin that we had rented and dyed our Easter eggs (Yes, it was a late night!).

The next day was Easter Sunday. It was RAINY! But we got some raincoats and ponchos and explored as much as we could in the rain. We saw Gold Beach and Port Orford, including the Cape Blanco lighthouse. The next day was rainy off and on too, but we continued on with our vacation. We drove north to Bandon and went to an animal park there were you could walk through and pet all of the different animals. They even had a baby leopard that you could pet. There was a funny llama that we got a kick out of because he would just strut through the park like he owned it allowing people to pet him (or her). :) We had dinner at a neat little seafood place right on the harbor where we had fresh clams, crab, & shrimp. YUM! It was so fun. We walked through the shops, then headed back to Gold Beach.

On Tuesday my brother was sick. He had gone to the ER the night before with chest pains and ended up with bronchitis and a racing heart. So he ended up having to stay at the cabin for the day. That morning Josh and I took the boys to Prehistoric Gardens. It was a little park with giant Dinosaur sculptures. It was neat. I thought the scenery was even more cool than the dinosaurs! It was just like a rain forest with moss dripping off of everything and just GREEN everywhere! On the way back the sun FINALLY came out so we hurried and stopped at the beach and called my parents to come and join us. We had fun on the beach and enjoyed the sun while it lasted. We ended up finding tons of seashells at this beach. Afterward, we went to Cape Sebastian and went on a little hike. It was a neat hike with awesome scenery! Lots of look-offs down to the coast. We didn't end up with enough time to finish the hike, so we headed back to town.

The next morning Tim was still sick, but the rest of us went to a little beach called Myers Creek where we ended up finding tons of Sand Dollars. We had lots of fun exploring the beach, then drove on to Brookings. We stopped there and had lunch on the harbor at another cool little seafood place. Afterward we headed back to Gold Beach and stopped at another beach called Cape Ferello - more exploring!

Thursday morning we got everything ready to leave. We said goodbye to Mom, Dad, & Tim and took one more walk to the beach. Then we started our drive to California to visit Josh's brothers on our way home. We stopped at in the redwoods for a bit, then again at Medford to see the temple. That evening we arrived at Josh's brother's house in Dunsmuir. We stayed there for two nights and spent the whole day with them on Friday. They took us to a park in town and we walked to along the river. The next morning (Sat) we had to start our drive home. We stopped to see a waterfall in Dunsmuir before we left then headed on to Weed to have lunch with Josh's other brother Daniel. After that we headed home. We spent that night in Battle Mountain, NV and then on Sunday we drove the rest of the way home. It was such a great vacation. We had a lot of fun despite the few rainy days. We had TONS of pictures, so I put them all on a slideshow:

Another free slideshow by Smilebox

March Weekends

We had a couple of really nice weekends in March. One weekend we decided to bust out our new fire pit that my parents gave us for Christmas. It was fun! We just built a little fire in it and roasted hot dogs for dinner. It was nice to spend some time outside.

Another weekend, Josh and I built a window well! Parts of our house were left unfinished. The window wells were one part. Instead of the traditional window wells, we were given the advice to build rock window wells because they let in more light. So we got some rock and built one of the wells. It turned out really nice and was easier than we thought for sure! We still have 3 more to do though!

Rocks!

Last Friday, Isaac had a day off from school so we took the kids to the Timpanogas Gem and Mineral Show here in town. Isaac wants to be a Geologist when he grows up, so we really wanted him to have a chance to see all the rocks and gemstones. Josh's sister Melissa and her kids and boyfriend also came. It was really neat! Every rock you could imagine they had displayed or for sale. So many different beautiful rocks! They even had a dinosaur walking around:

He tried to eat Chris!

Bryce had fun, although most of the time he tried to find ways

to get out of his stroller and take off. LOL

Parker & Isaac by one of the displays:

The dinosaur came back and started munching on Parker & Bryce:

This was Bryce's favorite display. He loved the ball shaped rocks.

He kept saying, "Kick ball! Kick ball!" (He calls anything spherical a kick ball lately):

They even had some glow-in-the-dark rocks:

One of the displays:

It was a fun experience. The kids came home with bags of rocks and little rocks they won in a game of chance. After the rock show, we went up to Provo. Isaac had won a gift certificate to Brick Oven for doing so well in school. So we took him there for lunch. We had a really fun family day!

St. Patrick's Day!

We celebrated St. Patrick's Day by making a GREEN dinner! We actually made the same thing last year, and it was really yummy, so we decided to make it into a tradition and do it again! :) We made Fettucine Carbonara with green spinach noodles and green Caesar salad on the side.

For dessert we made some rainbow cupcakes! These were so fun to make! You just layer different colors of cake batter into the cupcake papers. We topped them with whipped cream (so it looks like a rainbow with a cloud). It was a fun night!

PS - Our camera has been really bad lately - hence the not so great pictures. We actually ended up getting a new one a day or two after this, so hopefully no more bad pics!

I love this picture. Bryce was so happy about his cupcake!

Our New House

I've already posted these pictures on facebook, but I thought I'd post them on here as well for those that are not on facebook. We finally moved into our new house about a month ago! It's been so nice. We still have a lot of work to do, but it's just nice to finally be here. The painting was left unfinished, so we need to go through and paint the edging on all of the walls and do touch ups. Because of time and money we had to choose one color for the whole house. We also still need to seal our grout, grout the fireplace, make a mantle, stain the banister on the stairs, window wells, a back porch, and a few other things. We'll get there!

Right now we've been super excited about our new yard and getting everything planned and ready to work on that once the snow is gone for good. We're working on getting topsoil and compost in so that we can plant a lawn and a garden. We are also going to build a chicken coop and have already ordered our baby chicks and garden seeds. Lots of fun stuff! Josh and I have been wanting chickens ever since we first got married, but have never had a good place to keep them until now. We're excited!

Here are some pictures of the new house (taken right before we moved in). I think the only things I didn't get pictures of were the kids bedrooms, the office and the pantry.

Kitchen/dining area:

Family room:

Living room/entryway:

Stairs from the front entryway:

Looking upstairs from the living room:

Master Bdrm:

Upstairs bathroom:

One view of the master bathroom:

Another view of the master bathroom:

Linen closet in the master bath:

Part of the master bdrm closet:

Another part of our walk in closet:

Downstairs bathroom: