Manly man's Birthday and at the Zoo with Grandma and Granddad

Manly man wanted a very easy meal for his birthday which was great for me. We had artisan French Bread, red pepper and asparagus chicken primavera and a nice salad. For dessert he asked for a fresh peach pie and homemade ice cream. Happy Birthday Manly man! We love you!





While my parents were her visiting us I had an appointment in Madison, so we made a trip out of it. We brought out lunch and had a picnic and went to the Zoo. The day was beautiful with a light breeze and big cottony clouds floating lazily in the sky.
Andrew with Granddad
Grandma with NJ and Banana. They are looking at the ground hogs
Ban looking like a polar bearNJ seeing how she measures up to a primate.

It was so much fun having my parents here and thank you to Granddad for fixing everything he had time for. I love my new sink. We love Grandparents!

tag

How to play the game. Post these rules on your blog: List 3 Joys, 3 Fears, 3 Goals, 3 Current Obsessions/Collections, and 3 Random surprises about your self.

3 Joys

• Jim
• Natalie
• Hannah
• Andrew (sorry that's four)

3 Fears

• Car crash
• Spiders
• Mental Hospital

3 Goals

• Teaching
• Playing in a professional Orchestra
• Finish my book -it's not so important to get it published, but rather to complete it.

3 Current Obsessions

• Gardening
• Canning
• Writing

3 Random surprises

• I painted a picture
• I'm hosting a Baby shower
• I would rather eat a donut then chocolate

Something for Gage

I have a couple of cute picture I would like to share from our trip to Nauvoo. This is for you GAGE!!

NJ, Ban and man child are going to really miss having a cousin nearby.

Nauvoo

We went to Nauvoo with Jared, Amy and Gage and we had a great time. It was our first time on a camping trip with the kids and though they got a little muddy and had less sleep then we (meaning the parents) would have liked it was well worth it.
Pictures of our kiddo's in pioneer outfits.
NJ
Man child
Hannah
Man child, Banana, NJ and Gage

The camping trip went well enough that Manly man and I decided that this is something we could do often. I'm glad this last picture turned out as well as it did because the kids had had. They all took a good nap as we traveled back to Jared and Amy's.

The food was good the location awesome and the company even better. NJ told us her favorite part was sleeping in a sleeping bag in the tent. All three children thought that that was the coolest thing EVER!

Also as a note I need to thank Amy and Jared for the batteries. I got three pictures in and then our camera died. THANK YOU!

Rain, Rain

We have been having a lot of rain and for three weeks it has been dark and dreary.

In the mornings when I had to keep my lights on in my house I would raise my fists to the sky and curse the swollen clouds. "I'm a desert girl and I NEED my sunshine!" I don't think the clouds believed me, which is understandable with my red hair, white skin, freckled package which I may add is also a curse. So needless to say it continued to rain and be dark. How depressing! does not even begin to describe it.

We did lose a tree to the big storms and NJ asked, no correction, told Manly man that we needed to move to a new house so she didn't have to see the dead tree. I agreed with her but for a different reason, the lack of sun.

So here are a few pictures of our dead and dieing tree.