Kiersten Swimming Lessons

Kiersten finished her swimming lessons this week. She went under water a lot! She got so she could open her eyes and look underwater!
Here's one of her with her teacher.

Finally! The older paper pages revealed!

I finally got all the older paper pages scanned and uploaded to my scrapbooking page. Take a look! Now all my scrapbooks are on this site and digital!

Climbing in a Clean Closet!

I'm so sad I didn't take "before" photos of this closet. Well, this was my project for this week. This is a closet in our garage. Last week, it was one of those where you open the door carefully, throw in something that you don't know what else to do with, and slam the door after you kick the stuff on the floor back into the closet. It had camping stuff, gas cans, fishing poles, skis, etc. in it. And it still does, but now we can reach everything!

Kiersten was a great help, so I let her climb the hooks.

Here's the hooks loaded with camping chairs and tents.

Jared helped, too. I put in these shelves, and there's our camping stuff!

And the boating stuff!

And the camping stuff again.

Mac Stuff

So I really love my mac, but I cannot say that I am a super power user. But today I really needed to figure out some shortcuts to do some scrapbooking things. I've seen those little symbols beside the shortcuts, and I know what some of them are, but the others I didn't, so I couldn't use them! I looked them up and found a great article (with pictures!) to show me. So here's the link for those of you who really want to be power users!!

Close Encounters

This morning I drove Mark's car to church, and I looked over my left shoulder to see what was behind me and there was a big, furry spider, right at eye level! It took me about three heart-stopping seconds to figure out that it was on the outside.

That would be enough, but then later...

No, that is not my hand or my spider (I found it on the internet). But this spider looks just like the spiders I encountered today. It is a jumping spider, which I also found out on the internet.

I went outside to start the grill and when I came back in, I turned the doorknob and felt a little "squish". When I had the door open, a spider fell down to the floor! I had TOUCHED IT and actually squished it! (I know this because it wasn't moving) AND my hand had a little wet spot, but I wasn't sure if it was spider guts or water from the chicken bag I had taken to the grill. Yuck, yuck, yuck!!!

My kids think I'm psycho, but I betcha if THEY had touched a spider, they'd be grossed out, too! I think it was Jared who suggested I blog it instead of keep telling them all how gross it was. Apparently they are recognizing that blogging is also therapeutic.

Father's Day

Mark is such a great father and husband. We appreciate him so much. He works very hard to provide for our family and we enjoy spending time with him.

Kiersten made me get up at 7:30 this morning, and she made this card while Jared, Brittany and I made breakfast for Dad.

Here's the breakfast. Whole-wheat blueberry pancakes with boysenberry syrup and strawberries, hashbrowns, poached eggs.

Wood pile

We recently had an insert installed in our downstairs fireplace. We're trying to have a few different kinds of fuel to use in case of emergency, plus we really like real fire. Yesterday we had a cord of wood delivered to our driveway. Jared trucked it all into the backyard in a wheelbarrow (he also put the wheelbarrow together first). He was such a great help! I stacked it. What a lot of work! Now we can burn some in the firepit and some in the fireplace in the house.

Garden panorama!

Had a request to see the whole garden all at once to get an idea of the size. Here it is! Can't see all the little growing things, but they are there and it's all fairly weeded right now! For reference, the fence is 6' tall.

Marcus' Farewell

We had a great time at Marcus' farewell. His talk on being doers of the word, not hearers only, was great; he has such a great sense of humor. It is very apparent that he has a strong testimony and can't wait to get out there and serve. We really felt the Spirit through the whole meeting. 

I really enjoyed the musical number, which was I Know that My Redeemer Lives. Very nice violin and organ accompaniment and congregation sang last two verses.

First of all, let me apologize to those people in these photos who were in the process of eating their food. I will try to take better pictures another time!

Here's Mark's sister, Mindy!

His mother, Linda.

His brother, Andrew. (Pensive, isn't he!)

No, it wasn't hot; we were just all so relaxed and sleepy...

Kiersten discovered she LOVES peas! She went around and picked them and ate them the whole time. She does not believe in eating the pods on the sugar snap peas, though.

Charles' (Mark's brother-in-law) beautiful garden with lots of peas! Less now that Kiersten has been through here...

Charles' beautiful wife, Kristal, mother of the missionary.

The missionary. Going to Brazil. City name is too hard to pronounce...

Charles! Finally got to eat after everyone else.
Brittany and cousin Sarah (sister of the missionary; so happy that she will at last be able to use computer whenever she wants!).

Mark's Goiter

So Mark went in for an ultrasound of his thyroid the other day. Brought back so many memories! Anyway, he got results today, which say he just has a goiter (enlarged thyroid) and needs to keep taking his thyroid medication at the same dosage. He has really been bothered by the compression on his neck lately, so we are hoping that will get better.

Garden Pics

I finished planting the rest of the garden and weeded everything. Had to leave the corn patch alone because I can't tell where things are planted right now.

This is spinach and lettuce, and I just discovered that my carrot row is coming up, even though it did get stepped on when the guy came to fix the sprinkler. To the right is tomatoes and peppers.

Here's the tomatoes and to the far right is red potatoes; right front is strawberries. I had to cover the strawberries 'cause the birds were eating them! The flower in the front is from mother's day.

Here's Kiersten's square. She planted lots of flowers, but there's also a tomato and a pepper. The back row is popcorn, and they are just starting to come up.

Here's my square and the left front is radishes; to the right is carrots that are just poking out (oh, and a big weed!). In the back is onions! I forgot to take another picture of my middle square foot square; but it has some beans poking out and some herbs.

Here's the peas. They look great! These are Jared's job this summer.

And the very beginnings of my corn. Can't wait for that!

First Boating Trip of the Summer!

We went to Utah Lake and did some skiing! Well, Mark did. The rest of us just rode in the boat and ate. The boat ran really great and it was a nice day!

Last Day of School!

The last day of school was nice and short! I took Tanner and Kiersten swimming at the local rec center. It was chilly, but the kids had lots of fun!