Mish Mash

Okay, so I've been a blog slacker again.  So I've decided to write a post showing some of the stuff we've had going on around here lately.  This may take a while.

 Jackson turned three in April.  He's really into playing with sticks, wooden spoons, play swords, etc.  He puts them down the back of his shirt like a quiver.  Like where Robin Hood puts his arrows.  Melissa made him a little harness thingy to put his spoon in on his back.  It was really cute. 

Today is Thatcher's first birthday.  Isn't he absolutely adorable??  I miss them so much!

Lizzie has found her true love in life.  HORSES!  She can't get enough time with them.  In fact, her instructor, Andrea, is allowing her to work at the horse park for a few hours a week and cutting the price of her lesson ($50. for an hour ) in half.  Even half price, that's $100. a month.  So we've arranged a deal with her that we will pay for part of her lessons and she will earn the rest of the money.  She's been working hard to pay her part.  It's amazing what a person will do when they are truly motivated!

Michelle moved back home in April and has been working full-time on getting her foot healed.  She has endured a lot of medical testing, some of it has been.....well, barbaric.  But she it tough and determined to figure out the problem and get better.  It's frustrating, painful, annoying and it keeps her from doing a lot of the things she loves to do.  But she's a rock, and her positive attitude is inspiring.   I'm really proud of her.

 Nerve Conduction Study, complete with needles, electrodes, and shocks.  Yeah, it was fun.

She calls this her cyborg picture.  Ha ha ha... This was after her second nerve block which confirmed that she doesn't have CRPS.  That's a good thing.  

 So, if we go somewhere and we're going to do a lot of walking, she sometimes uses a wheelchair or rides one of those cool, wheeled electric riding things, like they have at Walmart and Target.

 We have family home evening on Sunday mornings now, since our church schedule is from 1:00-4:00.  They were all so excited as you can see.  Well, I did say morning...

For Father's day I had each of the kids/families take a picture of each letter to spell out Family.  But we have 7 children, so Lizzie got to be the exclamation point.  It was a challenge to frame the pictures because there were so many and finding a frame was tough.  I want to update the pictures each year, so I put them "snapshot" style into a long frame.  Next year everyone will take a new photo with the same letter again.  It was a fun project!

 Ok, this was just weird, so I had to share the pic.  There had to be split-second timing for the storm to tip the stack of chairs and table at the right time to have the table "catch" the chairs.  Ha ha ha.....

We've had some exciting storms this spring.  On Hannah's 16th birthday, we had the worst hailstorm we've ever had.   The hail picture is courtesy of the Wilson boys, Tanner and Critter.  One of them was stupid, I mean adventurous enough to run out into the storm. 

This is one of the larger hailstones.  It was about 2 inches in diameter.  There were some that were even bigger.

 We had so much rain and hail that the gulch where the bike path is was flooded, big time.  The water was high enough to almost flood neighboring homes.  It was fast moving and destructive.  It eroded the soil beneath the bike path so it's no longer usable.  Some of the big, beautiful cottonwood trees in our neighborhood will probably have to come down since the soil was so eroded that it left their roots hanging out in the air.  Sad.  Our roof was totaled, the 5 vehicles at our house, (ours and visitors) were damaged by hail, and sadly, my garden was destroyed.  Thankfully we are all okay and we got to see an awesome storm from the safety of our own home.

We are really enjoying our summer break and trying to make the most of it.  The girls have been busy with EFY, youth conference, girls' camp, hanging out with their friends, swimming, etc.  I've kept busy with some projects and my new part time job, the Gumball route. (pictures to come)

 Hannah turned 16!!!!!  Woo hoo!  Michelle made Hannah a kissing license.

 Hannah went on her first date with Cameron Royce.  They went bowling with another couple.

 Matthew Barnum, Sara Hansen, and Michelle planned a fun surprise party for Hannah.

 She pretended to be surprised. She kind of suspected our plan.  But she was really happy!

 The kids had lots of fun.  They played "Bunny Bunny".  It's a weird game, but they had tons of fun playing it and going crazy.

 Hannah took this picture of Michelle and Tyler Armitstead leaving on their date (payback for taking her picture before her first date).

 Kristie and the kids came for a visit.  We haven't had them over since James deployed to Afghanistan.  It was wonderful to have them over again.  As always the kids had a blast playing on the trampoline and playing Spore on the computer together.

 Michelle has awesome one-footed trampoline jumping skills.

So, as you can see, life is good!