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bright yellow picnic table
A few weeks ago we picked up an old picnic table for $15 from a garage sale. I have really been wanting a picnic table to eat at out in the shade. We don’t have air conditioning or a swamp cooler, but we do have lots of trees and it is high time we take advantage of their shade by eating outside all summer long.
The table needed sanded, primed, and painted. All of which I have no clue how to do, but I decided I would give it my best shot because I really, really wanted a cute picnic table in my yard…remember my little plan to spruce up my yard a wee bit? But, my sweetie came to my rescue and did all the work. All I had to do was pick out the paint color! After scouring the interwebs for pics of picnic tables I decided on School Bus Yellow. I love how bright and cheerful it looks. I almost went with an aqua, but decided the yellow was just the ray of sunshine I need in my life.
Sanding it down.
All sanded.
Richard gave it a full gallon of primer, yes, it took three heavy coats of primer before the wood stopped drinking it up like a thirsty camel. Notice it is already quite yellow because the paint lady at the store added our yellow tint to the primer. I had never heard of doing that and I think it is brilliant. Here he is just starting to add the yellow paint.
All finished! I love how bright it is!
Now it is in place in the shade. I think it looks great against the green, but my mama thinks she needs some sunglasses on before she looks at it. Now we can eat outside morning, noon, and night! Especially night, our house is kind of like a sauna come 6:00.
I hope it doesn’t attract bees!
almost hiking
A few weeks ago when Tami was here visiting we spent the afternoon at one of our favorite kid-friendly hiking spots with my friend Jennifer and her family. When all the kids were tuckered out from walking up and down the mountainside, we had a huge picnic and then spent the evening fishing with Mr. Richard, the world’s best fisherman.
Fisher and Teryn running up the hill – they weren’t interested in waiting for me. I walk pretty slowly uphill as it hurts my hip like the dickens.
Jaxon
Trying to figure out what type of juniper this is – the berries turn different colors when squished depending on the type.
Jen, Lizzie, and Jessie
Miss Paige and Annesley
Some of the gang…just the ones who were willing to walk at my turtle pace.
Skipping rocks
Jace freezing after wading in the river
Fishing the night away
Fisher in his favorite spot – near a river with his fishing pole.
Annesley’s very, very, very small fish – it’s a baby bullhead.
Keziah with her signature bun. I’m sure she will do her hair down someday, but we have only seen it in this hairdo for the past two years or so.
Teryn and those adorable glasses
I love, love, love being out in nature. This hike was a little rough on me and I ended up having to walk down holding on to Tami because I was quite close to passing out, but it was worth it to be out in the wild with my family and friends.
p.s. In just four short weeks I will be in my Wyoming mountains again – I am so ready to swim in the glacier fed waters and kayak across the lake in the shadow of my mountains.
book bonanza: the giraffe that walked to paris
Oh my goodness! Guess what just arrived at my house?
The Giraffe That Walked To Paris!
Yes! You heard (read?) me right! It is back in print! After years and years and years of being out-of-print and being impossible to find for under $100, it was reissued on June 21 and is now available for a mere $13! This is one of our favorite books and is used in the FIAR Vokume 2 Literature Guide that I am using this next school year with Annesley. Miss Annes and I are so excited we can hardly contain ourselves!
If you have not heard of this delightful book, here is a review:
In an attempt to improve relations between Egypt and France, who were on opposite sides of the Greek War of Independence in the 1820s, the pasha of Egypt presented King Charles X with a giraffe, the first in Europe in over three centuries. But in the days before aircraft, how do you send a large, ungainly animal such a long way? The answer is depicted in this book–a sea : voyage to Marseilles, and then a six-week march to Paris. The brief text is written in a chatty style that deals effectively with the logistics of the move and its historical underpinnings. It also includes details that will appeal to young readers: the custom-made giraffe raincoat necessitated by France’s cooler climate, the need for a cow in the entourage to provide La Girafe’s daily rations, the unusual way a giraffe moves its legs in walking. The illustrations are attractive pastel cartoons and one full-color photograph of the giraffe’s stuffed remains, still on display at La Rochelle. The book concludes with a historical note briefly outlining the background of the story. A charming illumination of one of history’s more obscure footnotes. –Barbara Hutcheson, Greater Victoria Public Library, B.C., Canada
We love checking books out from the library as it is always an adventure to go and find new treasures, but for our FIAR books I really like to own them and be able to pick them up at any time without having to make a library trip. This year I am attempting to collect all the Volume 2 books and put them on our kitchen bookshelf so Annesley can keep them all together all year long on her very own special shelf.
I am also considering doing Beyond FIAR with Fisher this fall. Have any of you used this? If so, what was your experience like?
furballs
Somehow in the past week we have adopted three new kittens. Our plan was to adopt one little girl for Annesley. She has been looking for about six weeks for the perfect first pet for herself. Keziah has Sadie (and the yearly batch of pups) and has had a hamster (now dead) as well, Blythe has Lina (the insane, anti-social cat that only a cat lover like Blythe could enjoy), Fisher has his chickens and has had a beta fish until it recently passed away, but Miss Annes has never had anything to love on and take care of.
We scoured Craigslist, Facebook ads, and neighbors’ litters. Annesley looked at gazillions of pictures, gone and looked at quite a few, and never could make up her mind. Finally last Sunday she talked to a woman in our ward about some kittens she had looked at clear back in May and decided to go look at them again. On the way there Fisher started begging for one as well. His sweet little voice melted our hearts and we decided if he liked one of them he could get one as well.
After searching for the kittens and then deciding to get them, rescuing two baby birds, losing a kitten in all the bird hullabaloo, and finally getting everyone and everything back in the car, we were the (proud?) owners of two new kittens (that I thought were not cute at all) and wondering if we had lost our minds. Fisher and Annesley were in love. Fisher promptly named his Haley after a character in Horton Hears A Who and Annesley named hers Peaches.
They both have tortoise shell coloring and put up with the children’s endless toting them around quite well. The children slept outside with them for the first several nights to help them get acclimated to their new home and all seemed to be going well.
Then on the first night the children slept inside, Peaches disappeared. Poor Haley cried all night long and Blythe went out in the middle of the night to find Peaches. No luck. The next morning everyone searched, but we couldn’t find her either. Annesley cried and cried, but we had to rush out the door to go help a friend move and didn’t have time for her to completely fall apart. I kept reassuring her that Peaches would turn up, but I knew the possibilities were slim. The owls around our house love little kittens and I really thought one of them had scooped her up. Richard kept looking for her for the rest of the day while he worked outside on the picnic table (yes, it is almost done!), but she was no where to be found.
Later that day we were at our local grocery store handing out flyers for a patriotic event next week and a family had a box of adorable kittens. They were so super-soft and calm AND ADORABLE – they melted my heart. Annesley immediately scooped one up and pleaded with her big, blue eyes to let her take it home with us. I called Richard and he agreed that Peaches was gone for good and Annes could have this new kitty.
We all fell in love her and Annes named her Sarah after Blythe’s faithful kitty that caught mice for us for nearly ten years. Today however, Annesley has changed her name to Rosie.
The next installment of the kitten saga is the return of Peaches. At church on Sunday our neighbor asked if we were missing a kitten and said they had been keeping her since she showed up in one of their trees a few days before. The little ones went and got her and so now we have three.
THREE. Oh my goodness. Kittens meowing everywhere. Kittens playing everywhere. Happy children. Snarling Lina. Such is life.
yard work has been my nemesis
I am on a mission to spruce up my yard with VERY little dollars and just a wee bit of energy. Does that sound like an impossible mission? Well, it kind of is, which is why my yard is in the state it is in. Hmmm, not exactly true either…here are the real reasons:
- I don’t know how to grow anything. Plants, grass, vegetables, trees, etc. are all on my I-have-no-clue-how-to-make-them-grow list.
- I have never been interested in yard work. A book to read, a child to snuggle with, or a project to tackle have ALWAYS been much, much more interesting.
- Our budget has been so incredibly tight since 2007 (my, oh my, has it been six years? How on earth have we made it? Oh yes, I remember we haven’t made it on earth, heaven has sent help after help after help!) that yard stuff never makes it on to the priority list. I haven’t been able to justify spending $100 on plants or fertilizer or weed killer (none of which I have ever used befor – I don’t want to use chemicals on my yard and we were never in a house long enough before that our non-chemical ways had much impact) or grass seed or cement or pavers or anything really.
- Richard works from long before sun-up to long after sun-down ten months out of the year. He is simply not here to do yard work. I get him for a few Saturdays a year and in those three or four days every project that has needed to be done for the past ten months has to get done. There is simply not enough time for him to do the big work that needs done.
- I have a few perfectionistic tendencies…if I can’t do it how I want then I don’t do anything at all. It is incredibly unsatisfying to work hard on a project that has no hope of turning out the way I see it in my mind because of a lack of skills or funds or knowledge.
- It isn’t really important to me.
Soooo, it has been neglected. And it looks awful. The grass is almost non-existant. The weeds seem to grow up to my knees every other day. The fence is broken. There is nowhere for all our bikes to go. Every June the cotton fills every square inch of our property for weeks at a time. Our road is bumpy as all get-out. The sprinklers are broken. The main line leaks into the basement, so we had to shut the whole system off. The only similarity our dirt has to soil is the brownish color of it when it is wet – otherwise it is better known as cement. We can dig down about 1/16 of an inch before breaking a shovel and yes, we have broken several. Our front flower bed is atrocious and needs cemented in because anything that is put there is blanketed with sticky cotton seeds that WILL NOT leave even in a gale force wind.
I still don’t have any funds to contribute to this yard sprucing up project. Nor do I have much time. But I have been thinking of small things I could do that will make a difference.
So, the first thing I need to do is make the hour long drive out to the dump and empty the garbage pile from our utility trailer. Then I need to figure out a bike solution. The children ride them constantly and we have no where to put them because our garage is one more disaster land (maybe the garage should be my first project…but again, I can’t do it without Richard…hmmm). Then sweep the front cement and make it look a tad bit more presentable out there. Then in the yard itself I have great desires to make it more usable. I would like to eat outside (but not on our flaming-hot deck) and spend time around a campfire. Tonight I am buying an old, worn out picnic table for $15 from a garage sale a friend is holding to raise money for her son’s eye surgery. Then I will learn how to sand it and stain it and it will be good as new, right? My hope is to put it out under the trees in the shade and then eat out there every night for the rest of the summer. Then I will spend some time weeding, see if I can figure out any other solution for the front flower bed, put the screens back on all the windows, and save up my pennies to buy some grass seed at the end of the season.
It isn’t much, but it is all I can do at the moment. This is not my forte. It is not even my close to my forte. It is one of my greatest weaknesses and the unfortunate thing is it is so glaringly obvious to every person who comes to our home. I always hope our guests will overlook the whole yard thing and just enjoy our delicious conversations.
Allrighty then. I have put it out there for public consumption. Now I am accountable, right? I will try to remember to take before and after pictures of the picnic table project – it will be my first time painting/staining anything and I wish I had my mama here to hold my hand, but I am determined to put my big girl panties on and tackle this project head on.
I can do it. I can do it. I can do it.
day at the pool
We have been exploring pools in the area to have our annual Swim Camp next year and last week we had a blast swimming and sliding.
The big, hill slides that were sauna-like hot inside.
Annes tackled the big slides along with all the big kids.
Coming out of the chute – no, she isn’t drowning, jut being swept away to the stairs.
Here she is, so proud of her bravery on the big slide.
The foam pads made it slick and speedy.
She loved going down this one because at the end you aren’t moving hardly at all and she could stop, stand up, and jump out.
The splash park was a hit with all the little ones.
Sunburns, smiles, and freckle-growing were on the upswing.
One happy boy.
These goggles crack me up.
I love that my children are die-hard swimmers. They will swim till the cows come home if I let them and their courage impresses me. My husband *hates* swimming, but I love it and so do my kiddos, so it is one of our favorite summer pastimes when he is at work. I am hoping to catch our little lake with the kayaks sometime this week and maybe Bear Lake as well. Summer in Idaho is so short, we need to pack our days full of adventure while the sun is warm and the wind is slow – it will be gone before we know it.
baby teeth are falling out
My baby is growing up. She is now a proud 5 1/2 year old, but I still think of her as my baby. She very well may be my last child and it is pretty hard to watch her grow up so quickly.
The day after we got home from Swim Camp she made a huge jump forward in her growing-up-quest – she lost her first tooth!
This marks the youngest age at which one of our children have lost a tooth and it beats my record by a mile! I lost my first tooth at age 10 – the August right before I started fifth grade.
Her new smile is super cute, but it pains my heart to see it – surely she isn’t old enough to be losing teeth!
Here she is with some of her cousins…third cousins to be exact. These are some of Tami’s children minutes before we walked out the door to church.
puppies are growing up
Sadie’s puppies are now about 7 weeks old. They are so stinkin’ cute! If they would stay this size, we might be tempted to keep all of them!
This is Sadie’s little twin – we call him Diego.
So far, my friend Cosette has claimed the cute little black one. The three light honey colored ones are adorable and the lone dark caramel one is a favorite around here. They are all available for adoption for the super low price of fifty buckaroos and will be ready to go home with you next week.
We have thoroughly enjoyed having puppies this time – it is amazing what a difference it makes when there are only five instead of nine! If you would like to make one of these puppies a new addition to your family contact us lickety-split and we will set up an appointment to come look at them and select your new furry companion.
june’s book gems
Ack! I still haven’t posted about Annesley’s first lost tooth, our hike at Cress Creek, or our swimming adventure and now it is time for me to be off again. Tomorrow I am taking Blythe to Present Yourself, a class on learning impactful public speaking and mastering one’s body language. She earned a free ticket back in November by writing an awesome essay about her mission in life.
Before I go though, I wanted to share a few of our newest book finds!
The Serpent Came To Gloucester is so fun! The entire book is written as a poem and reading it out loud to Fisher this morning was a treat. I could read it all day! It is a long, meandering poem told from the perspective of a little boy who wants the sea serpent to live and frolic while his fellow townsfolk hunted it across the sea. Fisher identified immediately with the little boy and kept hoping the sea serpent would escape.
By the way, after his itsy-bitsy snake he adopted at Swim Camp escaped, he found a new one in our yard a few days ago. It is about five times as big and he loves it with all his bug-loving heart. We even found him sleeping with it in his sleeping bag! Thank goodness he was outside! I don’t think this boy is scared of any creature out there. He is sure he can tame them and make them his friend.
We are huge Anno fans over here and Anno’s Alphabet is one of our latest delights. If you are looking for a new spin on the old alphabet book, here are some we are reading with Annes right now. The City ABC Book is full of pictures of big city objects that have letter shapes in them. It is super fun to see my little one’s eyes light up when they spot the elusive letters. ABC Bunny is a treasure from 1933! It looks just like a vintage book should and is written in a sing-songy prose that is quite lovely. My children love the nature pictures and I love the unique story they tell.
Last but not least, 13 Words by Lemony Snicket is a gem. I am not a Series of Unfortunate Events fan, but The Conductor is Dead and now 13 Words has made me rethink my first impression of this author. This book is built on the foundation of thirteen words (bird, despondent, cake, dog, busy, convertible, goat, hat, haberdashy, scarlet, baby, panache, and mezzo-soprano) and the magic is in how they are brought together to develop an entire story. The vocabulary and humor are simply delectable!
As for our family read-aloud we are still plugging away on Freckles. Papa, Mama, Blythe, and Fisher are loving it. Keziah and Annes, not so much. I am on the lookout for our next read-aloud. Please share your suggestions for a great story sure to be loved by children from 17 – 5.
Richard and I are on a World War II kick. I am reading The Longest Day and have to force myself to stop reading and get some sleep each night. The story of D-Day has always fascinated me and this collection of eyewitness accounts is superb. If you have any interest in WWII, pick this one up! Richard is reading Unexplained Mysteries of World War II and is always surprising me with amazing anecdotes and little-known facts.
I think I need to hook up a hammock so I can spend the hot afternoons lazing around in the shade of my yard reading a book and napping. That, my friends, is something I dream of often – I think it is time to make it happen.
Happy Reading!
ducks are good for the soul
Annesley has been waiting to feed the ducks for weeks now and finally, tonight was the night. Richard had a booth at a Holistic Health Expo located right across from the river so the little ones and I hung out with the ducks and fed them frozen peas. None of the big geese were interested in our peas, but the baby ducklings gobbled them right up. We walked up and down the riverbank finding all the duckling families.
After Richard was done with his booth, we brought him over to see the three duck families we had made friends with, one with six babies, one with four, and one with five. Unfortunately they had all disappeared – probably to their nests for the night – but Annesley made up all sorts of stories about what had happened to her little ducklings.
We walked by the river for a while telling the children about this special night for our family – June 7 is the anniversary of our first date – and they asked all sorts of questions about our dates through the years and were shocked that that first date was twenty years ago. Twenty years seems like eternity to a five and eight year old.
What a lovely evening. Walking by the river with my sweetie was just what I needed after this long, emotionally draining week.
I'm Tracy, a mama with big dreams, crazy ideas, loads of laughter, an insatiable desire to learn, and enormous piles of laundry.
