More of a Sunny July

(Second post of 8/21...first is below)

July 11...

The retaining wall looks so much better. I'll show you a better comparison later on. Now if only the siding was on the house....

My son took me out to lunch at a little tiny place called The Red Couch. Great sandwiches!!

July 12...

Nick really enjoys playing pool and talks me into it in the middle of the day now and then. (He's not 21 yet so he needs me to go along).

The girls flew in this evening. I held Olivia and we both cried for 5 minutes on the floor of the airport. It was really hard to be apart that long!

We took her to Pike's on the river for dinner and miniature golf before going home.

July 13...

Started out innocently enough swimming in the pool with the kids.

Then we ended up going with them down to Angry, Young & Poor... a free, all-day concert at the park with lots of bands.

We knew the drummer. He played hockey with our boys. By the lead singer you can tell this is screaming heavy metal and not quite my thing, but wanted to be supportive so I tried head banging. Think I hurt my neck... lol.

Ended with some of Nick's friends coming back to the house and this is 1:00 am swimming. Time of day means nothing in an Alaskan summer. I ended up visiting by the fire until 5:30 in the morning!! Oh my... I am entirely too old for that!

July 14...

Sunday Tisha came up with the kids and the makings for BBQ. Very lazy day after such a rowdy night! Well.. lazy for me. My husband hauled gravel the first half of the day.

We've been playing a lot of obstacle croquet. It's a lot of fun.

A Perfect Moment

Not every day is perfect. In fact, most days are far from perfect. It's important to try and find a moment of good to take with you and hold on to.

This is our moment.

Emily, Olivia, Lucas and I went back to Creamer's Field to see the birds.

Who is out there today?

A Canada Goose, a Sandhill Crane and some Pintails.

Let's hit the trail!

Some help with who we are watching.

Trumpeter Swans

Mallards

Amid the turmoil of the day these three make every breath worth taking.

A loving pair.

A well laid log...

...can bring a lot of fun.

A beautiful moment to take with me.

Around the White House

Would you look at this scrap booking mess?! I do four or five layouts simultaneously in organized chaos. I'm pretty sure I was meant to be medicated.

I went back and forth between cutting and pasting and blogging with Roxie in my lap. Did I mention I must have an attention span problem? :)

Roscoe was very happy to have some breakfast.

There's Gertrude the Goose that hates me sharing some bites with Daisy. Neither were in the mood for a photo session.

Olivia was giving Mother Nature a helping hand.

Lucas was embracing the snow.

See the raven? See Gertrude below? She was very nervous.

He was making quite a racket.

My big bad goose ran and hid behind the dimwitted sheep. These two are perfect for each other. I read some history of England about how farmers had problems when ravens would land on the backs of sheep and eat them alive. Apparently, sheep do not roll on their backs. Come to think of it, I've never seen Daisy frolic about in such a fashion. Don't misunderstand me. We do love our Daisy, but I'm here to tell you sheep are stupid. Or at least mine is.

There's been some talk around the White House about getting a horse for the girls. See that bale of hay? It cost $15.99 down at the feed store. I choked. Then when they said $24.99 for a bale of straw I gagged and let them keep it. Supposedly, it was Washington straw. I do not find that impressive enough to pay such a high price. Time to get into contact with a local grower. The horse is further from reality than ever before.

No trip out to do chores is complete without a ride on the 4-wheeler. Off down the road we went dragging the trailer behind us because I couldn't get it off. Damn it! To all the women-libbers out there...I need a man around. I'm glad we only passed one truck. I'm sure he was laughing at the crazy lady who couldn't take her own trailer off her own 4-wheeler. By-the-way, that sun is not nearly as warm as it looks. I froze.

Rusty is helping me write this post and trying to warm my lap up. It's about 34 degrees out. No more 4-wheeler rides until I see +50! I'm a wimp.

Yesterday, I planted 1.5 flats of Sweet William, 1/2 flat of Impatiens and 51 Petite Mix Marigolds. Progress is so slow with little people helping. Rewarding, but slow.

Oh, and I can't count. I made 11 (not-so-fancy) scrap pages yesterday. If you are a scrapper bored to death you can see them here. I made 4 more this morning, but haven't photographed them.

It's only 1:30pm. So much day left. I could clean, scrap, knit, sew, plant, but what I really want to do is take a nap. You know, one of those naps in a really warm room with the sun beating down on my face. It isn't going to happen, but it sounds so nice. You'll notice "clean the house" was not on the list. That is the one and only positive to my darling hubby being out-of-town. I don't have the clean the house until he comes home...the kids don't care! :) (He really doesn't care either, but I try to keep it a little bit straightened out for him).

Around the Farm

Life on the (I-Wannabe-A) Farm

A little swing time.

Hello Roscoe.

Happy to see me Miss Daisy?

Well, hello there Gertrude.

Mom and Lucas off to get the paper. (Objects appear larger than they really are. Okay, not really, but I would feel better if that were true!)

Oh, my driveway has become such a mess.

It's too high...

...and too slippery to climb.

Mama helped me out!

So much snow.

Hello friend.

See you later...

Hard to imagine I am going to plant flowers and the kids are going to swim right there.

Look what's growing!

Planted last night and this morning:

42 egg plant

222 broccoli (give or take a few seeds)

20 California Wonder Peppers

2 flats of Royal Carpet Alyssum

The whole egg plant deal is kind of funny. While shopping for seeds Nick thought I should grow egg plant because he wanted to try it. My mother grew egg plant in her greenhouse. I never tried it then and I'm pretty sure I won't try it now, but I'll grow it for fun! Obviously, I do not need 42 plants so I'll give a bunch away (if I don't kill them first!). It's all a crap shoot, you know.