Conference Weekend

 Jason and the kids cooked our traditional conference morning breakfast in the dutch ovens. It is always so delicious and begins the day wonderfully. It was 40 degrees this morning and the kids thought it was freezing! We laughed at all their layers and winter clothes. Grace even found a coat for Molly. Having traditions has created a very special weekend for us a family. It was especially nice as Jason has been out of town for more then a week in Sweden. He is not very jet lagged and has been able to enjoy the day with us.

 The weather was beautiful today. It is always so refreshing when fall temperatures cool things down here. I finally got our hammock set up. It was on my to do list all spring and summer. The kids have been playing on in between sessions. Jason was on it playing with all the kids too, but as soon as I climbed on with a few kids we collapsed and I got a chain to the back of my head! Being the intrepid farm girl that I am (not) I took the hook, put it in Jason's vice, and fixed it with the hammer.But no more piling on the hammock.

 The kids found a dead blue jay this morning. We think a fox got it. Grace and Sophie buried it, complete with a plastic bag to try and keep the chickens away. Not much deters chickens we are learning. They promptly scratched it up. I think the bird seed scattered on top maybe was not a great idea. The girls reburied and put rocks on top. Again, the chickens got the rocks off and dug up the bird. So a small fence was made out of sticks and string. We will see if it lasts. I am actually hoping the fox comes back tonight so I don't have to look at a nasty dead bird right by my house.

Just keeping it real. In case anyone wonders if our weekend was only peace love and harmony. The boys had a great soccer game yesterday morning. It was soooooo nice to watch them and not drip sweat! The boys had several shots on goal and played great defense. I am glad fall is finally here.

The messages at conference were wonderful, as usual. I especially like Elder Oaks talk on love and Sis. McConkie on sacrament. Lots of good things!

Kitty Love

End of the Summer

 Luke and Noah played basketball this summer at the YMCA. They had a great coach and learned a lot. Both boys can actually make a left handed lay up! I'm not sure I can, but they practiced it over and over. Lots of fun inside in the air conditioned Y!

 These girls, the 3 musketeers. The last sleep over of the summer Abby helped build a HUGE blanket fort in Grace and Sophie's room. There were blankets covering everything, everywhere. The plan was to sleep in the fort. Grace bailed and climbed into her bed, she is mama's girl! Sophie and Abby stuck it out and slept in their creation. We love Abby. She is a spitfire and always up for fun. I love that she also likes to play with the boys and lets them tag along most of the time.

 We went swimming at Fairy Stone as our last adventure before school started. It was cloudy and a bit cool, but we made the best of it and had fun.

I had to include this picture of Cami. As I was loading pictures for this post I found about 20 of her sleeping on the lawn mower. Really. Made me laugh, especially since she looks so excited about having her sleep disturbed to have a picture taken!

First Day of School

I can't believe sometimes how quickly time goes. Grace and Sophie let me walk them to their classes for the last time today. Sophie made sure I knew this morning that in Middle School she was sure parents don't walk their kids in on the first day of school. In my defense there were many other parents also walking their 5th graders to class. Noah held my hand in the parking lot until we got close to the school and then let go. Happy and sad. He and Luke especially seem grown up lately. 2nd grade just is so much older to me then 1st. I feel blessed today and so grateful for my kids. Also for the good school they get to attend.

Summer Catch Up

 Our first time harvesting honey! We did everything by hand, low budget. The honey is sooo delicious. We have harvested again from one hive this summer. So exciting! And we bought a small extractor. Makes an enormous difference in how long, and how messy the process takes.

 Happy Father's Day to our awesome dad!

 On the last day of school Abby spent the night. The kids convinced me to let them burn all their old school papers. I think we have created a new tradition! Noah and Jason were camping in the woods so they missed out on our fun, but had a great time on their own.

 Catching fireflies never looses it magic. At least not for me or any of the kids yet. We have spent many an evening on the front porch watching while the kids catch them this summer. I love that it doesn't hurt the fire flies at all.

 Jason couldn't come on our camping trip to the beach in July. We missed him, but had a fabulous time at the beach! The hot, humid, sticky, dirty camping part was not so great.

 Our boogie boards were literally falling apart. I let each of the kids pick out a new one. They spent almost every second from then on body surfing. So fun! We also found some beautiful shells, the assorted clams and a small starfish. Luke found it first. It looked like a tentacle from some creature, but it was a tangled up star fish. We kept it in our bucket for a bit and then put it back out in the surf. Fort Fisher beach is our new favorite. I can't believe we have never been there before!

 

4th of July 2014

 Happy Fourth of July!

 We had a great time at the Greensboro parade this year. Our expectations have definitely changed and we just enjoyed what was there. Hurricane Arthur had blown through the day before and brought temps in the 70's. It was wonderful! Grace and Sophie continued their tradition of Patriotic toe nails this year. Grace let me put a red, white and blue thing in her pony tail but I admit that I miss the days when I would dress them all up and have fancy patriotic hair things.

My favorite part of the parade is always the Revolutionary war reenactors and their drums and fifes. This dancing hot dog was a close second! Not attached to anyone else marching, just dancing her, or his, way down the road. Super awesome.

Later we went to an outdoor symphony concert and fireworks. It was fun to watch fireworks while Sousa marches were being played. Not so fun is the hour it takes to get out of the parking lot. But again, at least we knew about it this year and were prepared.

Adventures in Beekeeping

 So I thought I would post some pictures of our beekeeping adventures. Jason and I are learning a ton, bees are really cool! But they are unpredictable and beekeeping is an art and a science. There are a lot of different opinions about how and why to do different things with your bees. You kind of just have to jump in and get started and figure things out as you go.

This is our first swarm. Sigh. No idea why. I had a camp out for the yw in our woods this weekend. Just as we were coming back to the house Saturday the kids ran up and said that there was a whole swarm of bees by the garden. I of course, totally thought they were exaggerating. But they were right, there was a swarm that luckily settled in a tree right by our garden. You can't know for sure why bees swarm. We suspect maybe the queen for this hive was just weak. But we really don't know.

 Our friend Peter Lindsay was over helping with the camp out while Jason was at soccer. He was super interested and wanted to help. Luckily we still had the boxes we brought the bees from the farm in. Jason climbed up and gave the branch a good knock and they fell back in. We did this a few times to get as many as we could. Luckily bees fill up with honey before they swarm and are super mellow. No one got stung and bees were everywhere. I had a few fly right into my forehead and bonk off. It was funny.

This is Luke and Jason adding frames to the "new" hive. So far everyone is ok with their new homes and we now have 3 hives. The down side is that we won't be able to harvest from the 2 small ones. But I am soooo glad we got all those bees back.

Abby and Grace picked the whole row of peas and then shelled them for dinner. There was actually a few cups of peas to be eaten!