This guy is cute!

He's pretty nice too. But when he gets mad - he is a screamer! Right up there with Charlie.

the basement

Finally getting around to posting about this.

This used to be our basement floor. It used to be a nice fir floor.

When we ripped up the top floor, this is what we found. All the support beams underneath were totally rotten. We knew that many of them were rotting because parts of the floor were bouncy. But EVERYTHING was rotten. We didn't find one dry piece of wood.

Here is all the wood piled up in the driveway. Ready to get hauled away. It took Dan and I about 4 hours to get all the wood off the floor and out of the basement.

The boys were enlisted to clean up some of the tar paper and rocks. There ended up being a bunch of concrete slabs in between each support beam. So Dan and the boys hauled out about a quarter of it that day.

Ready to pour the concrete.

It was pretty cool to watch. We all watched the whole time.

All finished! Dan also knocked some more plaster off this wall. There has been so much water damage over the years that the plaster just falls off. We are planning to paint the walls and ceiling white (they're all that horrible green). We need to make sure there's no more water leaking in before we frame in the walls and sheetrock. Anyone know anything about waterproofing basements?

stuff

I did find my camera. Yippee! But then I decided that I should just do separate posts for most stuff. It will be better that way.

These are one of my favorite flowers of all time. Favorite color for sure. Forget-me-nots.



I planted a packet of these seeds a few years ago and they kind of move around from year to year. So cute. Johnny jump ups.

Sam and I went plant shopping and he begged me for this orange calla. He wanted all the colors they had (yellow, white, dark red) but since orange is my fave, we got orange. I love how it looks with this blue.

And finally - the only photo I have from the girls trip this year to Park City, Utah. First thing we did - pedicures. Next thing - eat. It was a great trip! (Ashley, my sister-in-law was taking the photo).

A serious recap

Wow - I have been busy. I keep thinking of blog posts in my head, but then never posting them! So here is what I've been doing in the last month.

Okay nevermind. I just realized that all my photos are on my little camera, which has been missing for over a week. I can't give you a complete recap without it, but I will give you something.

Radishes. I planted these guys around the middle of March. They only take 50 days and they like cool weather. This was the first one I picked (around a month ago). I just took the rest out yesterday. If they're left in too long they get woody and aren't good to eat. Some of mine also had some kind of worm. Yuk.

what have I been doing, you ask?

You know when I'm absent from the blog for 2 weeks that I've either been very busy or very lazy. The last few weeks were busy! (But I'm sure there were a few lazy days in there too.)



Here's what I've been up to:

I got to go to the International Quilt Market that is held twice a year. This spring it was here in Salt Lake. I posted about it here.

I also went on another girls' trip with my mom and sisters. I'll be blogging about it soon.


We have been ripping out half of our basement floor. I'll be blogging about that soon too.

I've been getting ready for a jewelry show this weekend and am still making Mother's Day presents and late birthday presents for sisters. I will try to blog about that.

I've also been cleaning up pee like nobody's business. Well - that's not actually true. I've been complaining that the bathroom smells like an outhouse and I cleaned it today, only to find that it got peed on right after I cleaned it! Luke's new job is to clean up all the pee that missed the toilet every time he goes. Maybe I should try that aiming cheerio trick - but that's a lot of work.



This guy is not much work at all - and usually happy (especially when getting kissed on the neck.)

performers

Jack and Sam had their first recitals last week. They both did great! Jack also played the cello in church on Mother's Day (while I accompanied him on the piano.)

playing with my camera

The boys picked these for me. Love them.

Sam (home sick from school)

I know - not in focus - but Sam LOVES these 3D glasses (and posing).

I tried

It's been a few years since the boys have had matching Easter clothes. So we got some new shirts this year. While getting ready for these photos - we found that every single pair of khakis we already had were stained or had holes. We considered buying new ones just for photos - but why? They will just get ruined. And it doesn't really matter anyway - because you don't see the pants too much.

I think this one (below) is the best one - even though Sam's pants are pulled up to the knee (?)

Jack is much too dignified to take part in silly faces.

Nice.

Much better.

p.s. All these photos were taken in my neighbor's back yard. There are no really great places around here. And I think I need to take a photography class again - for children. And maybe get a new lens. And does anyone know if you can post better resolution photos here on blogger? They always lower the resolution SO much.

Moab 2011: part 2

The next day in Moab we went to Arches National Park. We'd been there before and the kids have been begging us to go back ever since.

We saw a few new places, felt the nice, warm sun, ran into friends from Salt Lake (and high school - weird?)

First stop: Sand Dune Arch

This is Jack at the entrance of the short hike to Sand Dune Arch. I love being in those slot canyons. So cool.

Right before the arch it opened up a bit more and there were some great places to climb. The ground was also all sand.

Little Henry did great in this backpack on every hike. But he did get his first sunburn. We forgot his sunhat.


And here's the actual arch. It was definitely one of our favorites so far. The boys climbed around and could have played in the sand for hours. They could have gotten up on top of the arch, but you're really not supposed to do that - so they didn't.

Next stop: View to Delicate Arch

You can hike to Delicate Arch, but it was at least 3 miles, so we opted for the view hike - which was only a mile or so. This is a photo of the arch from the hike we didn't take (not my photo.)

image credit

Luke and I hiked together and Dan went ahead with the older boys. He kept using his binoculars to look for them.

Here is our view of the arch - far far behind the boys. You can see there are some people out further than them but we didn't go up to the edge.

In all that dry desert there are a surprising number of plants, but this was the only flower I came across while hiking. Pretty.

Last stop of the day: Double Arch

Here are the guys in the parking lot - waiting for the rest of us. This is a pretty short hike up to the double arch on the far left. Can you see it?

Seriously - you should be careful in the winter here because if you aren't - your head could spin around to the back and you might end up doing the splits.

Another view of Double Arch on the hike there.

Climbing around once we're under the arches.

Those are 3 of my boys up there inside that arch.

And one more thing: I told you that the boys earned Junior Ranger badges in both parks, but I didn't tell you about how horrible the illustrations are in the booklet. Actually - the inside pages weren't nearly as bad as the cover pages. SO bad. I could do a better job - and I'm not an illustrator. Am I right?

p.s. To see photos of the last time we went to Moab - go here and here.