This is the Place! Or Tim's End of the Year Field Trip

Just think, a day away, back in time to a simpler life. No hustle and bustle, just simple living with no chemicals, additives, etc....... AND A BUNCH OF FOURTH GRADERS!!!!! That set the stage for Tim's last field trip of the year to This Is The Place Heritage State Park.

Here is Tim with some of his classmates. What energy! This is the bowery where we ate lunch.

Cabin row. These are a lot of the early settlers homes.

There are a lot of cool house they have either moved up here, or built replicas of. I love old houses, they have such character.

Huntsman Hotel.

Drug store!

Tin smith.

Not sure why there is a boat up here since we are no where NEAR the ocean. Must be from the Great Salt Lake.

Indian Village.

Church.

One of "Brother Brigham's" homes, I think.

We caught all of these lovely photos while on the train ride.

Here is the actual monument. It has been YEARS since I was up here. This was the only thing up here when I last came.

Then we got the guided tour. We stopped off at the drug store.

Too bad this bottle was empty!!!

Next we went to "school". The gal that played the school mistress was so cute. So authentic!

While we were in school, someone robbed the train!After school was dismissed, Tim and I were straggling along behind the group. I am so glad we did because Tim found a little bunny in the bushes. My camera kept focusing on the foliage!

It was a great time. We had a blast. We didn't get time to pull handcarts which was a bummer. It would have been great for the kids to see what it was like to have to pull that huge thing for hundreds of miles!!!

Tune: Cotton Eyed Joe - Rednex

My Flowers

Wow, look at my flowers! I wouldn't be posting this, but these particular flowers require a lot of patience.
The columbines I had to start from seed in the house.

Then, once you plant them, you have to wait two years for them to bloom!

The purple flower is called a Clamatis. Is is a vine. It also takes two years.

I have been trying to cover this side of my house for a long time. One, because it is all white on that side with only a small window so it is quite boring to look at.

Two because all of the TV wires and the electric box is on the side of the house that EVERYONE sees when they are driving by. Could the builders put it on the side that no one sees? NOOOO! Not very good planning if you ask me!

You'll notice the stones aren't all there for the border yet either! Patience people, I can only buy so many at one time! Now I just need a flowering bush that grows about 7 feet so I can hide the utility box!

Tune: Flower Duet - Charlotte Church

Author Party

Topher's class had their Author Party this week. They have been working on writing their own book for some time and they unveiled their creations at the party.
They also sang songs for the parents.
1. Helpers in the Community
2. Continents
3. Oceans
4. Five Pennies

Then they read the story "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie".

Here are their books. Just look at that spread!

Here is Topher by the big reading bear. His book is all about monkeys. Go figure! He got to read it to me while we ate cookies!

Here he is with his teacher. She is so awesome! Tim had her too and I have absolutely loved working with her both times. I am fortunate that I can go and be a big part of their classroom. I just got to know all of them by name, and now school is over. Bummer!!!

Tune: Into the Ocean - Blue October

Zach Graduates!

I started doing daycare when Topher was born. That is when we really met our neighbors, the Brannons. I used to take care of Zach and now he has graduated from high school. Time flies! Here he is with his beautiful girl, Morgan.
Silly pics!

These balloons looked cool against the setting sun.

Topher and I messing around.

Party goers

We had a great time! Congratulations, Zach! Good luck for the future!

Tune: Graduate - Third Eye Blind

Utah Project

Tim's class presented their Utah Projects on Thursday. The whole class did a great job! There are so many plants and animals that I learned about. Here is Tim's teacher, Mr. Spencer. He did a dive bomb and put on a hat when I told him I was going to take his picture.
Of course Tim doesn't like his pic taken either. His poster is on a bird and I am so terrible, I can't remember the name. Nice, huh!

I took more pics of his classmates, but I figured their parents probably didn't want them on the internet. I have to be careful of that now.

More pics to come this week, it is packed full of fun things for the end of school!

Tune: Three Little Birds - Bob Marley

A Night Under the Stars

On Sunday we took a little break from the work (ya know, to keep the Sabbath holy! :) ) and decided to turn the life guard pad into a true pad with artificial turf. Because we put the pool and the playground in, Terry capped off the sprinkling system so it wouldn't run underneath. It meant that I had to HAND WATER the life guard pad! I know, boo hoo. He also had to manuever the lawn mower in to mow it. I won't repeat the stream of expletives that usually come floating out of our backyard during lawn mowing day. Anyway, we figured, if miniature golf courses could do it, so could we!
The kids thought it was so great, they asked if they could sleep outside on the new turf. This was their first time sleeping outside.

Of course, this ain't your daddy's sleeping outside! They HAD to have their t.v. Remember when we had to watch the stars for entertainment? I hope they watched those too!

Don't look at the weeds in the picture, I haven't gotten to the pool yet! Here they are all cozy. I was up all night waiting for them to come in. I didn't think they would make it all the way through the night.

When I woke up about 7am and I hadn't heard anything, I snuck out to see what was up. This is what I found. You can't even see Topher. They had a great time and they truly broke in the new back yard!



Tune: Sleeping Bag - ZZ Top

How to Kick Your Own A$$

So this is a sorta before picture of our new garden space. I wish I had thought about taking a picture earlier because this does not EVEN do it justice. This area was filled with grass and it took the ENTIRE family about 4 1/2 hours to clear it out. We did that on Saturday. This is Monday morning as we are preparing to till it (I'll post what we did on Sunday coming soon). Terry is literally shoveling #$%@.
But....a thing of beauty is a joy forever. Just look at that new garden! I can't walk upright, but hey, we will have some fresh veggies come end of summer. It really doesn't look like much, but this took me HOURS to complete. It took me a lot longer than I expected. This garden has been about two years in the planning phase, so it is great to see it finally become a reality!
The reason we started on this side is because no one wanted to clean out the pool. It SEEMED like a daunting task. However, after doing the garden, the pool is going to be CAKE!!!


Tune: Everybody's Working for the Weekend - Loverboy