Our Monday adventure

Shawn came up with a great idea of how to spend our day Monday! Sooo, after spending the morning checking bees and bringing flowers to the cemetery, we set off with the Andersons on our Memorial Day adventure.  We had heard that there were some old indian dwellings up in the rocks in a canyon, that you could see from the road. 

Below front l-r: Abram, Nolan, Isaac, Sam, Abby, Maddie...In the back: Isabelle and Ainsley:

l-r: Terry holding Eli, Kristi, Ellie, Shawn holding Pace, Caden, and Kami:

the first of many caves:

See the ladders going up inside that crevice? This was a closer look than we had from the road

Kami and Caden wanted to get a closer look so I sent them off with my phone so that they could take pictures. We were on that road down below:

See?  Although this is obviously when we were closer:

Shortly after Kami and Caden took off, some of the little girls decided to go as well.  Then, Sam, Isaac and Nolan decided to go.  And Terry.  The girls came back because it was so STEEP. And SCARY. So, all of the adults with bad knees, plus Kristi who is half way through her seventh pregnancy, and the rest of the kids, stayed behind. We hiked a bit more up the road, and also periodically checked the progress of the climbers.  It was one or two miles up to the top.

 Kami and Caden reached the top and had some fun taking silly pictures.  The steepness made for some great ones, that they thought were really hilarious, and I must have had 40 of these on my phone when I got it back:

Then they saw that Nolan was just about to the top, and Kami said, "I'm going to kiss him when he gets here!" You can see what Nolan thought of that:

Then Sam and Isaac arrived:

The disappointing revelation of the day was that the "indian ruins", upon closer examination, were not real.  Maybe they existed there at one time, but upon closer examination, the "ladders" were made with 2x4's and 2x6's.  hmmm...

So, we headed back to the cars, loaded up and took a very adventurous ride (crazy- scary road) to some indian writings:

These must have been real because they've been fenced off and protected and were inside caves.  We were skeptical about these second ones, though, because of our previous experience:

Who knows?  But the adventure was sure fun!

To end the day, we stopped at Birch Creek for a yummy picnic of hot dogs, potato salad, watermelon, and chips:

Two little yay-hoos:

Abby and Maddie:

Terry, Eli and Kristi:

Sam with his delicious marshmallow!:

Isaac, Sam, Isabelle and Ainsley:

I accidentally deleted a great picture of what looked like 100+ hot dogs simultaneously being roasted:

And that was our fun, long, adventurous day!

The things they say Volume 4

Pace just grew into a shirt that has a monkey on it, and writing that says, "Bananas over mommy." Abram asked me what the shirt said, and after I told him, I said, "He thinks his mommy is the best mommy in the whole world!!!!!"  Abram giggled and said, "But You're NOT!!" I put on a crushed act for him, so he hurriedly back pedaled and said, "You are SOOOO pretty, mom!" I told him that I didn't really care if I was pretty if I wasn't a good mom! He soothed everything over by telling me that I was the best mommy that this family has.  Which is a very good thing, seeing as we have so many...? Then again, maybe he feels very mothered with all of the sisters that he has.

Caden came home from school and noticed the shirt and sarcastically said, "Nice shirt! Bananas over mommy?!"

I said, "Yeah! It means he's crazy about his mom!"

"Oh!  I thought it meant he liked bananas more than he liked you!"

These boys came in from a serious play-date -with their Tonka trucks in the dirt in my flower beds- with their usual summer evening grime. They had also been enjoying throwing dirt clods at each other and "showering" each other with dirt:

"What?!?! We have to take a shower?" they whined.

It's always nice when it's just straight dirt without water mixed in, which, of course, always entertains.  Or when it's just dirt and not the pile of manure that Shawn just hauled in to be tilled into our garden this weekend.  That could have been a picture earlier in the day for Abram.

Everyone is so happily entertained in the summer.  There is nothing better than watching kids play together and use their imaginations for hours on end outside. Even if they come in covered with dirt from head to toe and inside and out. (Meaning all through their hair, ground into their skin, in their ears and up their noses.) I love summer!!

The most wonderful time of the year

The school year is wrapping up - lots of last concerts, and field trips!  Shawn and Abram accompanied Nolan on his class field trip to the zoo per Nolan's request:

and school projects; all interspersed with fun events like Father and Sons outing:

These two little boys had been counting down the days and half days and hours for a week in advance. It was a very anticipated event!!

And yard work- you can't go wrong with a helper like this! He quickly discovered that this wasn't a very efficient shovel for the job!:

What would you say this fashion statement is?  Sporting the spring beach bum look?  Idk.... but it's pretty cute and it's always fun to have some entertainment while you dig Morning Glory weed:)

And bee inspections:

I promise not to report on this every week all year long...but we are LOVING this new hobby!  We still hadn't received any bee clothes in the mail at this first check-up (I guess it's time to check on that!) and only had one veil - and nothing else.  So... I invented another veil by putting some netting that I had over a straw hat.  I don't know if it would have worked if the bees were determined to sting.  Luckily they weren't- we didn't get one sting!  The bees are happily drawing out comb, beginning to store honey and pollen, and the queen was released and is beginning to lay eggs! Just look at all of those bees - they cover all the cells so much that it's hard to see into them.

Yes, I am holding a feather!  We don't have a bee brush, but Caden read that a feather could work just the same.  It did:

Caden even spotted one of the queens!:

Last night I spent some time determining how I want summer vacation to go - the fun things I want to do with the kids; what I want to teach them, what I want us to accomplish.  Now I need to share with Shawn when he gets home and make sure we are on the same page, and ask the kids for their ideas and put them all together.  After all, there are only four more full days of school! I can't wait!!!

And the winner is...

our fabulous Caden!

Caden just stepped out of his comfort zone, in a BIG way, and ran for President of the Sophomore class! His motivation was getting some more things to put on college applicatons:) Yesterday he came home and announced that he won! We are super excited for him and what a great experience it will be.

Friday evening found us gathered around the kitchen counter creating posters:

And here we were finishing up on Sunday afternoon:

Kami and Caden decided that it would be a good idea to put pictures on his posters to make sure that everyone knew which Caden in the school was running.  So Kami took it upon herself to get a good picture of him.  However, Caden HATES to get his picture taken, felt silly, and just kept pulling faces instead of cooperating.  We decided to use the pictures anyway!! They show more of the personality we see around here, afterall....

Wednesday morning, the day of the voting, Shawn, Caden and I stapled candies to hand-outs: Lifesavers on the papers that said, "Be SAFE! Vote for Caden."  Sour candies on  "Don't be SOUR; Vote for Caden."  And Riesen candies on "There's no RIESEN not to vote for Caden!" Not the most creative or original, since we thought of it that very morning, but I guess it did the trick:)

A funny little story: I told Caden not to be surprised if some of his pictures came up missing from his posters - especially that "normal" picture at the very beginning of this post. (I've heard, from Kami, that there are some girls that have crushes on him).  Sure enough, when we collected his posters after school on Wednesday, one of those pictures was missing:)

And now I am off to think up a super fun party for me and the girls tonight, because the boys are leaving on the Father and Sons campout!  Maybe we will make something - skirts? Food? Both? A movie? We shall see.

Also, I will try to forget about the super-disgusting email that just arrived warning me that Hand, Foot, and Mouth disease is reported at our Elementary school.