Yard Update

More progress--and mess--in our yard.  We are getting closer, and I love how it is taking shape.  Feel free to skip this blog post if all these pictures of a yard get boring.  I have taken a LOT, and believe it or not, this is only a few!

Below: Kyle, looking cute in the Mustang front loader, which he spent about 8 hours in, bringing 50 yards of dirt from our front yard to our back.  The underneath of the trampoline, showing our beautiful retaining wall.  Each of those blocks weighs 65 pounds and I got good at moving them, although my dad was better!  My mom, standing in front of the mountain of dirt from which we took the first 15-20 yards of dirt from.  And one of the three dump trucks of dirt we had delivered because it was so much easier to work with than the hard clay soil across the street.

 Below: Pictures of us and the young men we hired (Caleb and Dirk) dragging the dirt with the kids acting as weight:).  Planting our new trees.  I'm so excited to have cherry and apple trees!  Skyler, working hard.  He is such a trooper and loves to come out and help us dig and water.

 Below: Each of the kids, taking a turn "driving" the Mustang. (I think Kyle would have preferred a different kind of Mustang to drive!)

 Below: pictures of some of our trees pre- and post-planting.  Kyle showing off the over three foot long boulder we found and altered our landscape design so we wouldn't have to remove it.  The trenching machine they used to put in our irrigation.  The gravel base for our front walk-way and driveway expansion.  And the bottom right picture shows the other front loader they landscape company used to bring in 25 more yards of dirt (top soil) to prep for the sod.

We are now waiting for the concrete to be poured and the concrete curbing to be placed, then we will be ready to put the sod in.  Our front yard has taken a beating with all the heavy machinery on it, so we've decided to replace that as well.  So we need to get that all prepped for sod.  Then we need to do some finish work on our back patio.  But after these things, I am really hoping to stop yard work for the season and tackle it anew in the spring.  As fun as it is, I'm ready to focus on other things!

Summer Youth Activities

Kyle works with the young men in our ward (boys, age 12-18), and really enjoys it.  They have had some wonderful activities this summer.  One was a young men versus young women survival competition.  They had six different smaller competitions, for which they earned points.  Whichever group had more points at the end, won.  The prize: the other group had to make dinner and provide entertainment for the winning group.  The different competitions were rope tying, making fire, an obstacle course, dutch oven cooking contest, putting up a tent the fastest, and an orientation/compass course.  They had scriptures that went with each competition to relate it to their own life and orienting themselves safely through the challenges of life.  It was so well done and the kids had a great time.  They spent several activities prior to the actual competition day preparing and practicing.  The girls lost by only six points!  It was so close.  They ended up taking the boys on a water skiing/boating activity and providing them dinner. 

Another great activity Kyle was able to participate in this summer was the Scouting High Adventure.  It was a survival training camp on the Air Force SERE Training Ground a couple hours north of us.  (SERE is the military's acronym for Survive, Evade, Resist, Escape.)  Having the Fairchild Air Force Base in our ward gives us lots of exposure to different Air Force/Military opportunities. (They been able to go into the flight simulator and weapons simulators on base, for example.)  We have a few SERE Trainers in our ward, two of whom serve in the young men, so they were able to get access to the property where all Air Force members do this training.  Kyle had a blast on this four day, three night survival experience.  They ate only what they could find off the land, except for a few potatoes, three live rabbits and eight live chickens which they skinned and and boiled in a stew for a royal feast!  Kyle ate berries, ants, ant larvae, leaves, etc.  The young men got to enjoy the rabbit eye balls, and one young man swallowed a six inch fish whole just after they caught it.  (Ask Kyle about that story; it's gross!)  They made their own shelter and had only the clothes on their back.  Kyle said the first night was the second coldest and longest night of his life.  (The first being his night on a cliff on Honopue in Hawaii.)  The last night they gave them sleeping bags to sleep in.  The boys had an awesome time, their testimonies of Christ were strengthened, and they learned important life skills.  They hope to make it an annual tradition.

Kyle texted me the large picture of himself below while he was on the High Adventure; I barely recognized him and wasn't sure what they had done with my husband!

Home Progress

 Here are a few pictures of rooms we painted to prior to moving in.  The entire house was Contractor White--booooring.  I tried to be bold, especially for me.  (I am used to white or light tan walls.)  The "Cranberry" accent wall we did in the Master bedroom is my favorite so far.  Oh, and I'm excited about the "Blueberry" in the kitchen.  Kylene and the cousins came up with food names for all the colors:).

 Above are a few random shots I took during the move-in process.  The refrigerator was the biggest feat, I think:).  Kyle and my brother, Alva, painted the entire garage, which still had the sheet rock exposed.  They primed it and painted it eggshell white.  It is so nice to have a completely finished garage!

The biggest transformation has been in the backyard.  It had never been landscaped, so was full of weeds as tall as me and lots of left over construction "junk". Oh, and a "cute" little family of mice.  Ugh.  It is still very much a work in progress but it is starting to look like a backyard.  I am so excited!

We started by doing LOTS of weeding and digging out the huge weeds.  Then Kyle used Round-up to kill the weeds....three times.  Then weed whacking, more weeding, and lots of moving rocks.  Spokane's soil is VERY hard, rocky, and made of hard clay.  Perfect opportunity to build muscles:).

 The next step was to purchase a trampoline and put it together--no small feat, I might add, if you've never had that particular experience.  The base of the trampoline was work, but pretty straightforward; it was the safety netting which was particularly confusing and time consuming.  But, we did it, and the kids are very excited to have something they've been asking us to buy for a very long time.

 The next step was to dig the hole in which the trampoline now resides.  First we tried digging...then using a pick axe...but with this soil, the process was back breaking and painfully slow.  Finally, we rented a large rear-tine rototiller and hired two young men so we wouldn't break our backs (as much).  Finally, the hole was ready (and we really were only digging out one side, since the yard is sloped).  It was so exciting to put the trampoline in place.  (And from where it will never be moved--I promise!  Hee hee)

We have since built the retaining wall, brought in 50+ yards of dirt to level the yard, and planted 37 trees!  Irrigation will be installed starting this week!  More progress pictures to come.

I have to send a shout out to my amazing parents, especially my dad for his incredible landscape design and amazing help. He has led us through every step of the process and it has been invaluable.  My parents spent a week helping a TON with the labor and we got soooo much done in a very short period.  Such a blessing and gift to us!  Thank you, mom and dad!

July, in Part

For the Fourth of July this week, we went up to Sandpoint, Idaho to play at Lake Pend Oreille with our friends, the Lathen's.  The kids had a blast playing in the sand and swimming in the lake.  Kylene and I even swam out to the logs bordering the swim area and got up on the logs.  It was very crisp (cool) water, but felt good in the warm sunshine.  We had a picnic and played for a few hours.  Then we drove home and got showered and cleaned up, then went over to the Lathen's house for a barbecue and fireworks.  Practically no fireworks are legal in Spokane County (quite the opposite of Washington fireworks on the west side of the state!), but the kids had a ball doing the sparklers, snakes, and a few other little ones we lit.  Then we went home and watched the impressive (illegal) fireworks our neighbors were putting on all around our house.  I fell asleep while my kids stayed up late watching it from their bedroom window--ha ha, that's the way to go!

The little girl in the chair next to Andon in the picture above is his best little friend, Julia.  Even though they don't actually play a lot together, he loves being with her, either at her house or ours.  He asks almost daily to play with her.  One day she was over at our house for lunch (with her two older sisters), and I offered her some hummus.  She loved it.  That also happens to be one of the few healthy foods Andon will eat.  The kids started saying that means they are going to get married some day and have a hummus cake at their wedding.  It was pretty funny.

My kids all got to go to the dentist this month, but it was Andon's first time.  He performed like a champ and even let them do x-rays!  I think it helped that every sibling took it upon themselves to tell them what the dentist was like and how "it isn't scary" and they are "super nice there."  It is so cute to listen to your 9, 7, and 5 year old explain something to your two-year-old as if they are total experts.

We went to our first Rodeo as a family the second weekend in July.  Our dear friends, the Edges, invited us to join them and it was a great night.  The Cheney Rodeo is a small, hometown rodeo, and it was a great first rodeo experience for our kids.  We had seats on the front row and the dirt would fly up on us as the horses ran past.  The kids loved watching all the events and especially loved the shaved ice and other treats they got to eat.  They did a balloon popping event for the youngins', and Skyler and Andon got to run out in the arena and try to pop balloons stuffed with money and prizes.  They each got a free ice cream cone at McDonald's and a dollar or two.  It was darling.

The last week of July, Kyle's sister, Christine, and her family came to visit.  Alyssa was the only one that didn't get to come.  It was our first time meeting Dallin and Maggie, Scott's children (Christine's husband).  It was quite an exciting night when a thunderstorm came through an hour after they arrived and we lost power for six hours.  We played "Ticket to Ride" by flashlight, the kids played outside until dark, and then ran all over the house in the dark with flashlights.  By the time we got them all ready for bed and tucked in, the power came back on.  They ran around the house so excited, like they had just won the lottery, and it took awhile to calm them down again.  But it definitely was a night to remember.  We have loved having family come to visit us!

Wonderful Article

Confessions of a "Too-Busy" Mom

I recommend this article as a good read for busy moms.  It really hit home with me and, I must admit, gave me some guilt.  Hopefully it's the good kind of guilt that spurs me in to action and improvement because I really am a "too-busy" mom.  I am so thankful for the reality of hope, improvement, and the Atonement.

This article also reminded me of President Uchtdorf's recent Conference talk: "Of Regrets and Resolutions".

I'm looking forward to tomorrow, a day "with no mistakes in it". (As Anne would say:).)