March Happenings

At the beginning of the month the kids and I made a surprise visit for my dad's birthday. With a little planning and conniving, we surprised him which was a lot of fun. I'm glad we live on the same side of the state so we can do these things. It was just a quick overnight trip, but we got together with my Uncle Bill, who is my dad's twin brother, who was (of course) celebrating his birthday too. My dad and uncle chose Skipper's for their birthday feast, and my stepmom Kathy, aunt Bev, and sister Amy and bro-in-law Clinton came. We had Ryan, Cameron, Ezra, and Audrey rounding out the bunch. Don't you love group photos?

I love my dad. Born at the farmhouse in Columbia Fall, Montana, the doctor had to break his arm so he could be born. He's the older twin of the youngest set of twins (my Grandma had a set of faternal twins and a set of identical twins). Went to school in a one room schoolhouse with eight grades. Grew up on a dairy farm, lived for hunting and fishing. After he graduated from high school, he and my uncle went to barber school and barbered together for over 40 years on the South Hill. We saw a couple of their old customers at Skipper's that night, who told them how much they missed their haircuts. My dad makes friends wherever he goes, he is one of the sweetest people I know. And a frequent storyteller, with some pretty good tales. In other news, we put up a swingset for the kids. Or I should say, Corey put up a swingset while I handed him things. We were all impatient to put the thing up so we waited until most of the snow was gone. Funny how the instructions say 5-7 hours, I think it was more like 9-10 hours total.

The kids have been enjoying it but still play on the swing Corey made out of rope and a board since that is a good twisty swing. I've wanted a fenced backyard with a swingset for the kids for a long time.

Speaking of backyards... there's a lot of work to do. We're still trying to figure out what to do and in what order:

-demolish an old garage/shack -put up a permanent fence that will keep an escape artist dog in (more on this later)

-change the elevation of the garage so we can get our vehicles out easier in the winter

-landscape the yard

My priorities are the fence and getting rid of the MUD! It is a mud pit out there and something has to be done, however simple it is. Unfortunately, even simple means a lot of manual labor. Poor Corey. Reminds me of when we were building our house in Newport and I was pregnant with Ezra. I just don't plan on doing a lot of shovel work in the next few months.

It's a small yard and we want to cram a lot of stuff in: the swingset and some lawn for the kids to run around on, raised beds for a vegetable garden, berries, the shed, a double garage, a flower border, and a kennel for that dog. It will be a tight squeeze and the most I've ever done is put in a flower bed. We'll see how it goes....

See ya until next year, snow cave!

We took the Jeep out to some wildlife sanctuary near Ellensburg. We saw a few deer and some elk through the binoculars and these, which are all over. I made a note to myself note to go off roading after an exam with the midwife. That trip wasn't much fun for me but the kids enjoyed themselves.

Another first for Audrey: painted finger and toenails. We all love our Audrey, even if she can make life difficult for us. I'm reading Les Miserables (the abridged version, don't judge me) and a line struck me:

"This woman's child was one of the divinest beings that can be imagined: a little girl of two or three years."

There is something irresistable about little girls, and we all love our Audrey girl.