Home from Arizona

We survived sunny Arizona!  It was so nice to see all of our friends and family and friends that we have known long enough to be considered family.  We arrived Saturday around noon after stopping in Albuquerque and catching some much needed Z's.  It also insured that we arrived looking and smelling fresh!  Much better impression to those that haven't seen you for months.

We grabbed some lunch and then headed to my niece's graduation party.  Very fun.  My sis was hard at work making cotton candy for everyone.

I think all the kids were in a sugar comatose state by the time we left the party.  Besides the cotton candy they had a candy table set up with all sorts of sweets in different little jars.  Very cute.  They also had Eegee's (yum! yum!) and a snow cone machine.  She also had a blow up obstacle course which I think the adults had more fun on than any of the kids.

Sunday and Monday were relax days spent with family.  The kids all went swimming in Uncle Reuben's pool.  Monday friends from all over came to visit.  So nice to see them all, kids that are growing like weeds and meeting new little faces.



This little guy is so cute and such a pefect blend of his parents.

Tuesday we visited more family and then headed up to my big sis's house.  They took us kayaking down the Salt River.  We had so much fun and the weather cooperated somewhat.  It wasn't too unbearable hot and we got too see so much wildlife.  We saw more Blue Heron Cranes than we have ever seen and we also got to see wild horses.  That was the highlight of the trip.  Hopefully my brother-in-law will send me some pictures.  They have a waterproof camera and he was snapping pics for us.

Me and the hubby after kayaking.  We went to this fabulous pizza place on the way back home called "Barro's".  Very yummy pizza.

The cousins.  Proud of themselves for making it down the river.  Z. rode in a kayak with his cousin.  J. powered his own kayak and had fun going through the rapids with his dad.  And, for those of you in the know of A.'s perils with canoes and kayaks you will be proud of her.  She powered her own kayak and at the end decided she loved it.

Me and my gorgeous big sis.  Thanks for making our trip so much fun.  We love you so much and miss you more than you know.

Friday we headed back to Tucson to see more friends we missed the first go round.  Then we hit the big highway.  Sad for those that we missed seeing AGAIN!  Ugh so sorry, I promise we will be back.



So that is our trip in a nutshell.  And now we are back home in our green, green home and busy again.  Garden updates coming soon.  Everything is growing like mad.  And I am happy to say the cages I built around the plants the deer seem to like the most worked well because they are all still alive and growing.

Love you all!

The Garden is Started

Our lovely little Snowball Bush is blooming.  Love it, so pretty.  Our garden is also doing really well.  I should say, what we have planted so far is doing well.

Onions are sprouting.  We tried planting them two different ways this year, so we will see how that goes.  We planted some deep to grow like table onions or green onions and we planted the rest shallow so we can get some nice big onions.

We also switched the garden up a little bit.  Most of the rows are running the same direction this year.  Which means the rows are really, really long!  But I think I like it better so far.  That also means we will be getting much, much more produce this year.  So all you Arizonan's come on up and we will share with ya!

The potatoes are also starting to sprout.

So far that is all that is up.  But those were the first things planted, probably before we will leave most everything else should be popping up to say hello.  Oh, and the garlic, but the garlic is more of an experiment.  I planted them last year without doing any research and discovered I really should read up on stuff before I plant.  Garlic takes a REALLY long time.  So we left it in the ground and it sprouted this spring so we are going to leave it till end of summer and see what happens.  Green beans, green onions, corn, and cilantro are in the ground.  Today and this weekend we will be planting everything else.  That is a long list so I will spare you the details.

Planting corn.  Lovely garden attire right!?!  I learned my lesson last year.  Remember this post from last year.  Yeah, so now garden work involves long shirts with long sleeves and my nice floppy hat.

No stupid sunburn for me this year! . . . yet.

And finally, just for fun, you know us and our weird shaped veggies.  We found a Michigan shaped potato.

Yep, I know. . . Amazing! :o)  And on that note I am signing off, dinner is waiting to be cooked, seeds are waiting to be planted, and I am waiting to go shopping!  See you all in ONE WEEK!!!!!!



Just cause I love those snowballs so much!



Warm Days Mean Water Wars and Croquet

Warm days are officially back!  Yay!  Love the feel of that warm sunshine.

Sunday night we barbequed and then set up the ol' croquet set.  We set it up and played Saturday evening also and Mom kicked butt so we had to have a rematch.  We begged and cried and finally guilted Dad into joining us.  Turns out it wasn't such a great idea.  Sunday night Dad kicked butt.  Guess us young'uns got some practicing to do.



So much fun.  We were having so much fun we forgot to keep an eye on little Roscoe.  So what was he doing while we were all so distractred?  Just like any other kid he was taking advantage of his "free" time.

Yep, he discovered the delicious tongs hanging from the grill.  He was a happy little camper until Rachel discovered him.

We had so much fun on our warm, sunny weekend.  See you all soon!!!!

Slackers and Workers

Spring.  It's a busy time of year around here.  Birds are returning from their warm vacations, animals are crawling out of hybernation, flowers are blooming and the bumble bees have returned to pollenate them, babies are being born, eggs are being laid.  Oh wait, speaking of eggs, here is our slacker.

On the right is a normalish size egg that our lovely little chickens usually give to us.  On the left, well, we are not sure what happened.  Did she sneeze and it came out a little early?  Was she just not feeling up to snuff on that particular day?  Who knows but it is the cutest egg we have ever gotten so I guess that counts for something.

And there are a couple of worker bees.  Yep, its that time of year again.  Garden is getting tilled.  Plans have been drawn, and planting has begun.  This year we have expanded the garden.  Yeay for more space to grow more things, but boo for the extra work this extra space is creating.  I had to recruit some extra help.

These little cuties are a friends kids that I was watching for the day.  They started out playing outside while Dad and I worked but decided they wanted to help too.

Busy, busy, busy as always.  But we are in a rush to get it all planted before heading to Arizona.  We are so excited to be there.  My lists are started as always and I am driving everyone nuts.  But I hate, HATE, forgetting anything.  Can't wait to see everyone.  Can someone please order cooler weather for the week we will be there please!  Love you all and see you soon.

A Different Kind of Job Fair - by Request

This past weekend the kids and I attended the coolest job fair ever!  A spiritual job fair.  A brother and sister in the Big Rapids congregation put it together and brothers and sisters from a lot of different congregations all helped out and made it an event that the kids will remember and hopefully cherish for a very long time.

Unfortunately my flash decided to run out of batteries as soon as we arrived, therefore, pictures are not the greatest.  But the event was so encouraging, I am going to share my poor photos anyway.

Upon arriving, we signed in and each of the kids were given a goodie bag and a "passport".

There was a different booth for many of the different "jobs" you can reach for in Jehovah's organization.  Everything from becoming a publisher, to being a missionary.  Each booth was maned with two brothers and/or sisters who have had the priviledge of actually doing what their booth was about.  The "Serve Where the Need is Great" booth was maned by a sister who has served in a few different countries.  The "Spanish" booth was connected and was maned by a brother who serves in the spanish congregation and also gone to some spanish speaking countries.

A and Z checking out all the different language groups or congregations in Michigan

This was the baptism booth.  The brother here had three stacks of questions, beginner, intermediate, and expert.  The kids had to choose a card, answer the question, all of which were taken from the questions for baptism, once they answered correctly there were given three chances to throw a ball into the target.  The brother here pointed out that almost every page in the passport could not be achieved without first getting baptized.


Bible School for Single Brothers Booth

This brother here is an AMAZING speaker.  He seriously gives the best talks.  He has visited our congregation a few times and always speaks at assemblies and conventions.  And he sounds like Matthew McConaughey to boot.  Win, Win!  He was great with the kids.  He also did part of the second part of the night, which I will get to later.

American Sign Language Booth

We spent a lot of time at this booth.  A. has decided she would like to try Sign Language.  So this brother and his brother there next to him were very excited and talked to her a lot about their experience joining the ASL group in Howard City.  The brother the kids are talking to brought along a bible study of his.  A young deaf boy, probably 14 or 15ish.  Later in the day when all the kids were gathered and one of the brothers asked what was the greatest gift they ever recieved, this young boy raised his hand and said his bible study.  Wonderful!

Z. learning how to run the sound at the Ministerial Servants booth.

Regular Pioneer Booth

This booth had something the kids really enjoyed.  They had a board with pictures of some of the tracts on the left hand side and on the right were the titles.  They had to first plug into a photo and then plug the other end into the title.  When they got it right they would light up.  Once they got all of them correct a little flashlight popped out with "Shine as Illuminators  Phil 2:15" engraved on one side and "Pioneer" engraved on the other.

Relief Work booth

This booth was pretty fun.  The kids had to build a lincoln log house just like the model.  They were timed to see who was the fastest.  I am happy to say that I beat (no not literally. . .at least not there) all three of my children.  By a whole 0.7 seconds!

At the end of the evening there was a game of Hollywood Squares.  Our "celebrities" were all either bible characters, early publishers, or current day publishers.  So much fun.  The kids had a blast, although they weren't really getting the idea of the tic-tac-toe part of it because they were all picking random "celebrities" and not really trying to get tic-tac-toe.  Which meant poor, Coleporter Cameron in the middle was not chosen too many times.

The whole evening was awesome.  I hope when the kids look back on this day that they really appreciate how much time and effort went into this event and are all the more encouraged by what was done for them.  Thank you, thank you, thank you to all the brothers and sisters that did this for our children, and thank you Jehovah for allowing us to be part of such a spectacular organization.

Dandelions, Morel Mushroom, and Wild Leeks

Nope, this is not some weird recipe concoction I came up with.  They are all just signs that warmer weather is here to stay.  Those delicious little lovelies up there are wild leeks.  Last year while out in service a sister told me that you can find wild leeks in the woods.  Since that day I have been looking to no avail.  Last week while out in service a brother said he saw some so I asked him to point them out so I knew what I was looking for.  He stopped the car, jumped out, trudged through the woods and pulled one out for me.  The brothers in our hall are so funny.  And the things they do while in service.  Two weeks ago, our service group overseer caught a turkey with his bare hands while out in service.  He has photographic evidence and eyewitness testimony.  This is the hubby of the wife that told me about the wild leeks.  We have all decided that when the great tribulation comes we are all going to hang out with them since they obviously will not be going hungry!

Anyway, a couple days later Cameron and I loaded up the kids and headed out to pick some wild leeks.  Turns out they are not so easy to get out of the ground.  So living in Michigan Lesson No. abagillion, carry a garden spade in the car with you.  We also stopped at a farmside veggie stand and picked up some fresh asparagus, so we put them under the brother together with some olive oil and sea salt.  YUM!



Cameron and Z. picking wild leeks

Morel mushrooms are also popping back up.  This year we are not going to chicken out and we are actually going to fry some of these up to see what the rage is all about.

We have a little patch growing under our blue spruce tree on the west side of the house.  Hopefully they can manage to get a little bigger before the animals come and munch them up.

And the pretty little dandelions are back.  I know, I know, they are pesky little weeds.  But I can't help it, they are so sunshiney and happy.  And there are a TON of them this year.  Dotting the fields everywhere we go.

And this is one of my favorite roads to drive down.  I posted a photo of this road last summer.  This is what she looks like in spring.  It is almost like a second fall.  The trees bud out in color before the green leaves pop out.  Beautiful!

And this cute little thing is a chickadee.  A. and I were out trudging through our woods last week and a little chickadee was sitting up on a branch very close to us and making a lot of noise.  I pulled up the camera to take a picture and he dove towards this branch on the ground and then took off.  What in the world?  Then we noticed a little hole in that branch and his little honey was curled up inside.  So cute.  Now we have to check back in a week or so and see if they have laid any eggs.

And this picture here is for a certain little friend of mine.  We passed this last weekend in service and everyone in the car thought of you.  Miss you!

And just in case you think I have forgotten about my kiddos.  Here they are enjoying the sunshine.  Oh and chasing Roscoe with the rc car while Roscoe chases the ball.

And the hubster cleaning up a fallen branch.  We had a crazy windstorm go through.  This branch happened to fall when my Dad was here and it fell within a couple feet of his beloved truck.  Close call!

That is all the news for now.  We had our circuit assembly this weekend.  Awesome as usual.  We were so spoiled in Tucson, to have the assemblies and conventions minutes from the house.  Now we drive an hour and a half to get there.  So tiring, but we are all stuffed with food from Jehovah and are trudging on.  Well, starting tomorrow because today I have to catch up on laundry and the cleaning of the house.  Sigh, maybe I should practice singing the new songs while I go.

Love you all and see you in a month!

Pausing to Catch My Breath and Give You All An Update

Here is our happy little bunch Memorial Night, 2012.  It, as always, was a great night.  We had almost 170 in attendance.  Not quite as many as we did last year, but still a pretty packed house.  We were busy with our invitations but still only managed to cover close to half of our territory.

Here is part of our bunch before the Memorial.  Two of our menfolk were off to help with parking.  We had to pick up a study on the way in, so we couldn't leave as early as we wanted to.  So, why not goof off with all that extra time.  This is what usually happens before you get a decent photo:

So goofy!  It has been a busy month, as always.  Cameron and I auxiliaried again in March.  With kids and I trading off sickness the first couple of weeks it was a very busy second half of the month.  But well worth it.  The kids had the first week of April off for spring break.  Z. and A. joined me in service and J. went off to work with his Dad for a couple of days.  Then they did some work at Aunt Carol's and over at Grandma and Grandpa's place.  Not exactly a super fun spring break but at least it was a break from school.

I didn't forget our Monday night goodies.  Here is last Monday's goodie.  Blueberry Angel Food Cake, fat free, surgar free ice cream and fresh blueberries.  4 PointsPlus

Plans are all set and we will see you all in May.  Squeeeeeee, can't wait!