Duece

Today we built an outdoor habitat for out pet tortise, Duece. So far he is not sure what to think of it. But in time he will be so happy to have room to roam and be in more natural surroundings.

We also built our vegitable garden and planted it. What a great day! (And its just 1pm!)

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A camping we will go

We are packing up to head out camping in a few hours. We are going to go to Silver Falls. I guess it is only 30 min from our house! We went there once before, but when we lived in McMinnville so it took us close to 2 hours. It will be nice to have a great place so close to us.

It is raining. For those of you who know about our camping history, you know that we NEVER go camping when it does not rain. Even in the middle of the summer, it will rain. Its just our luck. That is why we now have a camper and not a tent. The last time we went tent camping was about 3.5 years ago, we had a 2 year old and a crawling baby at the time. We went in May, that's a safe-ish time of year to start tenting. It rained so hard, I mean sooooo SO hard. When we went into our tent to put the kids to bed we discovered that out air mattress was floating. Not good.

We packed up first thing the next morning and have never looked back. We bought our first trailer a few weeks later!

We as a family love camping. I think we enjoy it more when the weather is bad and we can all hang out in the camper together. We watch movies, play games, color, read and nap. It is always a good time.

The plan is to hike around some of the falls. There are trails every where and the falls are amazing.

I now can post from my phone, so if there is service I will post!

She is a he...

I discovered yesterday that our dear tortoise Natasha is actually a boy. No not what your thinking....I was reading about them and one of the main ways to tell their sex is that the boys have a long tail that is always curved to the side. Yup her tail is ALWAYS curved to the side. There were a few other ways to tell and yes they were all correct with her. So I had to break the news to the family last night. They did not take it well.

We then had to call Norma, that really did not go well. She was very sad, as are we.

Then came the task of renaming him!!! We all really like the name Natasha! Its fitting and sounds good.

We looked up Russian names online - he is a Russian Tortoise. We did not like any of them. We could not agree. At all. At one point we had decided on Chuck Norris.....funny, but we did not really want to spend the rest of our days calling him Chuck.

At one point we wrote out the names on three separate papers, laid them out one the floor and had Moka walk over them and the first paper he stepped on was going to be the name. It ended up being Greco. Like Greco Roman wrestling. Its a cool name. But we are still not totally decided.

My latest idea is Nat.

Any suggestions?

Blogging from my phone!

I am testing out technology!!! This post is sent from my phone! How cool is that? Now I will never have an excuse not to blog!!!
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Happy Easter

We had a great weekend!

Marshall had done me a huge favor on Wednesday by getting the kids Easter baskets and eggs, I was not going to have time to get out with out kids for the rest of the week and he was out any way. So nice. Well, on Saturday when we were loading up to run our errands, in Marshall's truck, I opened the door for Caymus to get in and I hear him say "OH MY GOSH!!!" I knew right then what he saw....their Easter baskets. The back seat of Marshall's truck seems to be a great hiding place for gifts, until the recipient climbs in! Marshall and I "calmly" tried to come up with an explanation before getting into the truck our selves. That went well....Apparently the Easter bunny came a day early and left the baskets in the back of the truck, odd, but whatever!

Then it was off to run errands around town. Joe's Sporting good store is going out of business, so we stopped there first. Got rain gear for dirt cheep! And farm boots for the kids. Did our grocery shopping and a few other random stops.

The afternoon was spent building a fire pit in our yard, raking and doing some other yard work. It was a beautiful sunny afternoon and we all enjoyed being outside.

In the evening we colored our eggs and made cupcakes. I found a recipe for cupcakes from scratch with a hidden egg in the middle. The egg is chocolate. YUMMY! Here is a picture of the finish project. they turned out really cute and they taste great!

I had the kids leave the Easter bunny's carrots and cup of water out on the back deck because we did not what the bunny to set off our alarm...also needed to think of a way to get the kids to look outside in the morning to notice the hidden eggs. My kids are getting to smart and after our mess up of the baskets I had to be really tricky.

I then hid all the eggs Marshall bought and the dozen we colored all round the back yard, in the dark. It was kinda fun! The Easter bunny usually hides eggs in the garage because, well lets face it, we live in Oregon and it ALWAYS rains on Easter! But this year I figured the kids could handle getting wet and I was sick of hunts in the garage!

In the morning the kids were so excited to see the remains of the carrot and that the Easter bunny had left an egg in the bowl...that got them looking and low and behold there were eggs all over the yard!!! "HE came HE came!!!" Aw yes, redemption!

We hit the early service at church, trying to avoid the masses that come in the later service.

Home, ate and then it was hunting time!! Caymus could hardly wait. We braved the rain and cold and collected all the eggs we could find.

The rest of the afternoon was very relaxing. We got a HOT fire going, watched a few movies and just enjoyed each other.

I made a ham, the best ham we have ever had. I think home grown pork is the best meat on earth!!!

After filling our bellies and roasting from a hot hot hot fire, we went on a walk in the rain, the kids and the dog ran the entire way....

A wonderful holiday filled with love.

I hope you all had a wonderful day as well.

Yay Spring!

How did a whole week go by with out a single post from me? I am not really sure, I meant to post early in the week about our super busy weekend, but that never happened. So now it is Friday and I am finally downloading pictures and putting my thoughts together for one BIG post!

Last week end we had amazing weather! In the high 70s! It was great. So we took advantage of the weather and got some much needed yard work done.

First thing on Saturday we fertilized our Christmas trees, all 2000 of them. We did this by wearing these front pack-buckets. They hold a hole 50lb bag of fertilizer! Yeah that's heavy!!! We then walk down the aisles of trees dumping a handful on each tree.

Us with our buckets! Don't we look like farmers?

Once the trees were done I hit it with the Round-up. 8 gal of it! I am hoping that I got control of our weeds and it will be smooth sailing from here on out! That's my hope anyway.

While I spayed, Marshall and the kids cleaned our the "kid" part of the garage. They made a give away pile and a keep pile and then organized it all.

As if that was not enough fun for one day, we packed up and headed to our friends house for dinner. Lucy got to help feed the horses - always a hit. Caymus got to play wii with Justin. We got to have dinner with great friends. And did not get home till 11pm!

Sunday we headed to church, then some errands. Once we got home we built nesting boxes in the chicken coop. We will see....they should be laying by now......

I planted some plants and did a little more yard work. Once all that was done we went back up to Justin and Cathy's so the kids could ride horses for a bit. Both kids did great and were very brave.

Then it was off for our weekly grocery shopping.......

Are you exhausted yet? I am.

The rest of the week was mild in comparison.

Wednesday some other moms and I made a potluck lunch for the teachers at Caymus' school. That was fun cause it was a total surprise. Caymus went with me and help pass out Leis to the teachers.

After that excitement we went on a field trip to the local pond with Lucy's class. I am always up for a field trip in the rain!!!

The trail of kindergartners!

I was trying to embarrass Lucy by posting this picture of her. She wont smile nice for me, ever! But she just thought this was funny!

That about sums up the week. Now its time to prep for Easter on Sunday. I think we will lay low this weekend. The weather is not supposed to be good, even though I see sun out side my office window right now. Who knows. As they say April showers bring May flowers!!!

OH no!

My kids have decided that I needed new slippers. I beg to differ........