Phase 3!

I figured city ordinances would prevent us from ever getting to Phase 3. Well, I was wrong! Phase 3 is an approved activity and will begin this spring. (If you don't know what I mean by Phase 3, click here to read my previous post on Phase 2.)

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June

I absolutely love summer and having the kids home! I really like the extra time we have together and the flexibility of how we choose to spend the day. We do maintain a little structure as the kids have their jobs and most mornings we do what we call "learning time." Learning time is pretty simple--songs (lots of my old 4-H camp songs!), prayer, personal scripture reading, memorizing Articles of Faith, read-a-loud story and a game, craft or activity. Summer is also great because of all the other fun things we get to do. Here are some of our June activities:

The kids are still taking piano lessons through the summer. Amanda and Megan have also started taking guitar lessons. They take a group lesson with one of their friends from the friends older brother. To kick start guitar, they took a two week beginning guitar course through the city.

Todd took the boys camping for the church father and sons camp out. They still had fun, but unfortunately it rained and rained on them. I think the girls and I had a lot more fun staying here for our girls' night. We went to the mall, ate at Brick Oven, watched Thumbelina, and ate Frosty's. I don't have any pictures of the camp out, but I do have one of Amanda and Megan's balloon animals we got at the Brick Oven. Impressive!
Jared camped for six days at a Timberline scout camp. Two other boys in our neighborhood also participated. He learned leadership skills rather than working on merit badges. He loved it and hopes to go again next summer. It seemed to me like Jared was gone for about two weeks, but Jared said he felt like it was more like only two days. Once he got showered, we were glad to have him home!
Joshua turned 5! For his birthday, he invited his best friend over for the afternoon to swim. Joshua and Kyle found a present in the dryer after following all the clues in a treasure hunt. Joshua's birthday cake was supposed to look like dirt in a dump truck. (I did wash the dump truck first.) Not quite up to speed with Shannon's amazing cakes, but enough to make Joshua happy!

We have a little bigger pool for the backyard this year. It is big enough for all the kids and their floaty toys and has been very popular. Even Rebecca has her own floaty to sit in. I think we probably have more fun than she does when we take her swimming, but she does tolerate us all quite well!

One of our good family friends moved from the neighborhood. Before they left, we had a "Host a Murder" luau. We dressed up to help us get into character. Todd ended up being the victim, but I was not the guilty party. The food was yummy. We had a great time visiting one last time, although we really missed another couple who ended up not being able to come. We gave heart-felt gifts for them to remember us all by. OK maybe not so heart-felt, but really funny anyway. Basically they got the funniest white elephant gifts we've been circulating over the past several years. I really doubt they expected any less from all of us!
The gift from Todd and I was actually a new gift but the idea came about because of a previous practical joke--funny story. We got Kip and Becky their very own matching t-shirts. Won't these help them make friends in their new neighborhood?!

[The Funny Story: A few years ago, this same group went to dinner at a very fancy restaurant for Valentine's Day. We were all dressed up and even traveled by limo. Part way through dinner, the guys started complaining of being hot. All the guys, except Dave, then proceeded to take off their shirt and ties. Dave couldn't figure out what in the world they were doing until they all revealed their matching "I Love Dave" t-shirts complete with Dave's face. This probably doesn't sound as funny as it was to us at the time, but we all laughed to the point of tears.]

We had a nice visit from Jeff's family after their family reunion. Their boys love animals and liked our chickens, rabbits, dog and cat.

While Jeff's family was here, we got all the Nelson relatives in the area together at Dave and Kayleen's. We did it all. We hiked, ate, did archery, shot a BB gun, drove a kid Jeep, played with a parachute and visited. Fun!
The kids earn points through an online job chart and can redeem the points for rewards Todd and I set up. Ethan was so excited he earned enough points to buy a pocket knife. Todd and I decided he could have a multi-purpose tool that had a small pocket knife as one of the little gadgets. Within an hour of getting the tool, Ethan cut his finger. It was pretty deep, but also a pretty clean cut. I couldn't tell if he needed stitches or not so I took him to the doctor. Fortunately he didn't. When we got home, Ethan and I decided we would wait until Dad got home to make a decision if he should have the tool now or wait until he was a little older. My interpretation of the conversation was we'll make a decision later to see if Ethan gets to have the knife back. Ethan's interpretation of the conversation was we'll make a decision later to see if he has to give the knife back, but until then it is still his. That afternoon, he came back into the house with his thumb bleeding. He had cut himself again! While bandaging him up the second time, Ethan and I actually started laughing. It just seemed so unbelievable! Needless to say, the multi-purpose tool was returned to the job store and I refunded his points.

The garden is something we enjoy each summer. The vegetable garden is on the side of the house. All of our berries and several fruit trees are in the back yard.

This year we added what neighbors refer to as the "Graham Orchard" in our front yard. What was going to be adding three fruit trees to the side where we had some other plants, turned into a much bigger project. We decided we needed to plant the new fruit trees farther from the fence, so we needed to move our curbing. If we had to pour new curbing, we might as well move it to the next line of sprinkler heads. If we had that much space behind the new curbing, we might as well plant more trees! We ended up with eleven fruit and nut trees in the front along with the six already in the back. Believe it or not, the trees really do have enough room. They are all semi-dwarf (except one that is planted in a different location) and have more room between them than the required minimum. We put landscape fabric and lava rock over the water lines. That was a lot of wheelbarrows of rock to move after the dump truck delivered it! It will be really great when the trees are no longer twigs and are producing fruit.

When Todd's mom visited, she brought a baby dress that used to be hers. I was able to take Rebecca's picture in the dress. How sweet!
These are not PhotoShopped eyes! The lighting and focus just really brings out Rebecca's eyes in this picture. So far anyway, her eyes are the bluest in the family.

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