How Fun!

I saw this on someone else's blog & thought it looked fun!

Elder James!!!

So, my big news of the day was going to be that I did my civic duty & voted in the primaries today, but I have much more important news!!

I received an email today from Elder James. They had transfers this week. James has been serving in Rincon since he arrived in Puerto Rico. He wrote today to let us know that he has received his first transfer! He has left the island of Puerto Rico & has, in fact, left the country! He has been transferred to Curacao, which is a small island that is just 170 square miles. It's just about 40 miles off the coast of Venezuala. He will be learning a new language, Papiamento, which is a combination of French, Dutch, and Spanish. He is very excited & very nervous. This is truly a terrific opportunity for leadership for James & I am so excited for him!!

The Garden

So finally, after one of the screwiest springs we've had in awhile, it's finally warm enough to be putting in the garden. Of course, I'm sitting here typing this in the afternoon because I've been chased inside by a cold wind & rain, but Saturday and this morning were beautiful! I took full advantage of it by getting the garden going. Of course, I had to take photos, as they make the blog so much more fun!

Above & below are two rows of tomatoes. We decided to try a few different varieties this year.


Above, Josh uses the awesome tiller that a neighbor loaned us to prepare the next row so that I could plant the pepper plants. Below, Josh rakes the row smooth.

My mom watered all the new little plants after I'd put them into the garden.

These are three of my strawberry plants! I planted 10 plants last year & got a few strawberries. I couldn't believe how many not only came back, but shot off litle babies! I think I've got about 20 now!

Sadly, even after all this work, I'm not done. I still need to get corn, beans, squash & cucumbers in. Oh yeah, and lettuce.

Memorial Day

A friend of mine posted this on a chat blog we are both on & I stole it from him, because I really liked it. Today is Memorial Day. I think that alot of the time, we don't really think about what that means. Memorial Day weekend is a time for a family trip, BBQ's, big sales at all the stores, etc. I hope that somewhere in the midst of all the excitement & fun of Memorial Day, we're able to stop & think for a few minutes as to what the true meaning of the day is.

My dad chose to make his career in the US Navy & served 25 honerable years, retiring as a Commander. He & my mom instilled in all of us a deep pride & love of our country. I am so thankful for the men & women who make the decision to dedicate their lives to preserving the freedom of our country & have so much respect for the bravery of them & their families.

Today on this Memorial Day, my prayers of gratitude are turned to those brave me & women who have willingly given their lives in service to our country & who continue to serve, regardless of the danger.


Our little local cemetary always has a beautiful Memorial Day ceremony. We went to it this morning, as we do every year. We always have a speaker & the local VFW is always there to do a gun salute. It was very cool as always. The photo of the flag above is the flag flying in our cemetary that Josh took a photo of. We also took some photos of the group at the cemetary & of my dad's headstone, decorated with his American flag for being retired military & the lilacs from our beautiful bush in our yard.

Breathtaking Beauty

I have a freelance job with an Insurance Inspection company. With this, I travel to Boise alot. I had been collecting jobs in the small towns in the mountains north of Boise all through the winter. Because we had such a snowy winter this year, I couldn't make the trip north til March. So we decided to take a family trip to Boise at the end of March, coinciding with Josh's spring break. We spent four days in Boise & spent an entire day driving through the small mountain towns north of Boise. We went as far north as McCall. When we left Boise, the temperature was in the high 70's. As we went north, we realized that it was still winter there! It was cold & I couldn't believe how much snow there was. It was absolutely beautiful up there & although I'm late with it, I wanted to post the photos from the trip.

Chickens

As a family, we have been talking about the need in today's uncertain world for being more self sufficient. Someone came up with the brilliant idea that one of the ways to be more self sufficient is by having our own chickens. We used to have them years ago, but haven't had the pleasure of having these squaking critters around in over 10 years. I am not sure how I feel about it, but we will be having a couple dozen baby chicks joining our family next month. So we are busy trying to get a small chicken coop built before they arrive. I have to admit, I do love having fresh brown eggs available & have you priced eggs in a store lately??? They are outrageous & who knows how old they are? So for any of you who are close, come October, if you are interested in fresh eggs, give me a call!

This is Pipe Moving

So I have alot of friends who are not from around here who wonder what in the heck I'm talking about when I say that Josh moves pipe during the summer. I dropped Josh off the other day to go move pipe & took a few photos of him. They're not super good, but they'll give you an idea as to the joy of a 14 year old boy that is moving pipe. The only times during the summer that Josh likes his job is when he gets his paychecks! How else can a 14 year old kid earn $400 a summer?

And yes, the little speck of red you can see is Josh. What can I say? My digital camera is getting old & doesn't have a good zoom on it. I need to save up for a new one!

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day to my wonderful mom!




We get to celebrate the day by talking to James today! YAY!!! We are so very excited! He gets an entire hour to talk to us today. It will be great to get to talk to him after weeks of short email updates. I can't believe he's been gone almost 5 months!

Happy birthday as well to all my friends who are mom's! You guys are awesome & I hope you enjoy your special day!

I am fast!

So I followed a link to another blog on Jason & Heather's blog & was introduced to Holly, who made me laugh. She took this typing test, so I just had this compulsive need to take it as well.

88 words

Speed test

What's funny is that Holly scored a 90 on it & I'm ticked that I didn't do as well. I can see my compulsive need to continue taking that darn test til I do even better beginning to form!

Falling off the face of the Earth

Ok, I haven't really fallen off the face of the earth, but when I just went & looked at how long it's been since I blogged, it sort of seems like I did! I have been around, just super busy & dealing with some stuff & haven't had the extra energy to put into blogging. But I am going to try to be back on the blog & keep it up.

While it doesn't seem much like it today, it is finally spring in Idaho!!! The buds are out on the flowering trees, the ends of the trees are getting green, I had to mow the lawn this week & it's been warm!! However, this morning, when my plan was to spend the day in my yard & garden, it is 32 degrees and incredibly foggy. Isn't that just my luck? Oh well...here's hoping that it clears off & I can get out there today.

Hopefully later I'll get time to put up some photos from our little family trip to Utah last weekend.