Horseback riding, swimming and making pies

We have been quite busy this last week.  We started horse back riding, finished school (YEAH!), had Shelly’s family over and learned how to make a plum pie!

 

Mandy learning to get on the horse.  It’s not as easy as it looks, especially when your legs are this short and the horse is so tall!

 

  Whoa horse, stop.  You pull back like this.   Look Ma, no hands.

 

 

 

 

 

Our little horse back rider.  She does like it a lot.

We had Shelly and her family with us for Memorial Day.  They harvested green beans from the garden and plums from the plum tree.

   Today we harvested 2 gallons of green beans and two bowls of purple plums.  Our tomato plants have dozens of green tomatoes on them with some turning yellow.  We decided to make a pie with our plums and Mandy and I worked on it together. 

Gathering everything to make it.  Working on the topping.

 

 

 

 

     The finished product.  It tastes like a very tart cherry pie and is so yummy.  We split up and some of us went fishing and some of us went over to Saddle Creek and went swimming.  Me and my camera went swimming and that is what we have pictures of.    Jessi and Joy swimming together.  Joy loves the water.  She was so cute in her bathing suit.  By the way, Happy Birthday, Joy (tomorrow). 

Nathan is still a beginner swimmer but he is learning.                            Mandy and Elizabeth discussing something important! 

Another cute picture of Joy and Jessi.

 

 

We all had a full day of sun and fun.  We came home and had a dinner of brisquet, corn-on-the cob, salad, cantaloupe and a tomato-avocado salad.  We also had a cake and ice cream for Joy’s birthday.  Jason took all of the pictures of that.

One quick note to all our service men and women.  Thank you for your sacrifice of time and often, much more so that we can have the freedom to have a weekend like this.

A nice day in Galveston

We went down to Galveston to spend a little time with Bob, Laura and family yesterday and ended up spending this morning with them.  We had a great time on the beach and then played miniature golf and then it was time for us to come back home.  It was a beautiful and we enjoyed it.

 

Bob, Laura, Thomas and Christopher.  I kept kidding Bob about his farmer tan.  His neck and arms are brown, the rest of him is white.

Christopher and Laura playing in the sand.

Bob and crew building a sand castle.

 

Laura and Christopher watching the action.

 

 

 

    Daddy trying to dunk Bob.  Boys will play.

                             Mandy, Ethan and Thomas playing in the sand.

Sorry, there is this beautiful little weed that grows here.  It is pink with bright yellow ends. Ok, back to the miniature golf.

 

 

 

 

Ethan and Nathan with Nathan in the air after a hole in one.

 

Christopher approaching the hole.

 

 

 

               A different approach to golf

                                     Laura helping Bethany play

   Bob and Thomas playing together.  We had a very nice day.

A busy weekend

On Friday night we had a pack meeting.  It brought back memories of pack meeting in Los Alamos.  Nathan’s troop did the Flag ceremony but nobody told Nathan to be serious and so as he passed Glenn he said “hi, Daddy!”.  We had a flag ceremony and each troop had a skit, we had a sing along, and the boys received their awards and then we had yummy peach cobbler cooked over the fire and ice cream.

 

 

organizing for the sing along.

 

 

On Thursday, Glenn and I were able to go to the Temple together and that was so nice – Thank you, Sammi (and Shelly). On Saturday we worked hard around the farm and cleaned out the garage and finished some planting that needed to be done.  The apartment construction is done and next weekend we will clean up the mess made by the construction.  I’ll take another picture.  At 3:00 we all came in dirty and drenched in sweat (it has been hot!) and took showers and dressed up for Nathan’s piano recital.  It went very well but was a little long. Glenn took a video and we will see if we can put it here.

Today was Stake conference and we had some very good speakers.  The “youth” speaker talked about organizing youth conference (is that what it is called?) and the spiritual impressions she received as she studied Lehi’s dream.  We have very strong youth in our Stake and you can feel their spirits.  I find it interesting that every talk (Stake, Ward, General) conference they have seemed to be trying to strengthen the family, help the parents to teach the right principles but that may just be coming from my perspective.

Wildlife 101

Here is a picture of our update in the work shop.  Bro. Duiguid is doing the carpentry and knocked on the door and said come see the crocodile snapping turtle.  Nathan and Mandy bolted through the door like they were bullets being fired by a gun.  Here are several pictures that Nathan took of the turtle and Bull, our curious pup.

 

Bull was very curious about this thing that was slowly crossing our pasture.

 

 

Here are a couple of updates of how the apartment is coming along.  I am glad we decided to put in a window.  It will bring needed light to the room. 

 

From the outside door looking toward the apartment.  Still pretty rough but it is coming.

 

 

 

On the inside. the stairs are behind me and the main door is on the left out of the picture.

The apartment enclosed

We built the apartment several years ago because we needed room for people to stay while they visited.  Most of our family have stayed there at sometime.  We found two major flaws and have decided to rectify them.  The first problem was having kids come down the stairs at night in the workshop to go to the bathroom.  The second was there is no storage.  The closet upstairs was a joke from the beginning – totally not usable and tiny.  So, to fix that we are:

knocking out the small closet and taking off the door frame which, by the way, Oscar put on backwards.

Extending the closet all the way to the other side.  We will have a door on each side which will make it convenient for either room to access the clothing or whatever.

The solution to the 2nd problem.  Enclose the stairs.

The framing in of the stairs.  The middle space will be the door.  We are taking down the white trellis and putting a large cabinet that we had made a long time ago into the space in front of the stairs.  It actually fits nicely there and is level with the door to the apartment.

 

 

The outline for the walls.  I think this will work out well.  We are adding a light for the new hall and a window in one of the walls so that there will be some light.  We will keep you updated.

Cinnamon’s first calf

Our cow Cinnamon had her calf today.  It is her first and we were a little worried but she seems to be fine.  When she wasn’t with the herd Glenn and Nathan went looking for her and found her in a glade by the creek.  The calf is really cute and looks a lot like a fawn.                                    Cinnamon and her baby.

                               Snuggling with her Mama