Pals

Jasper is fascinated by the cats, but Thunder is really the only one who will put up with him herding her around the house or sticking his face in hers.

Jasper truly loves them.

And Thunder is tolerant....until I saw her sit next to him at the window.

Now I think she finds a friend in him as well.

Cache County Fair 2017

We spent an awesome 4 Days at the Fair and had a great time!

Three of the kids chickens won blue ribbons and one Second place.

 We talked by Dad into entering some of his model airplanes in an exhibit and the collection won a blue ribbon!

 Daphne was determined for me to enter the stockings that took me forever and a day to cross stitch!

I won Grand Champion!

This will tell a great story down the generations! 

Kaleb's grasshopper that he welded won Grand Champion in 4H and is currently at the State Fair in Salt Lake City. Daphne's famous ribbon cookies won 2nd place and some of her artwork won First. Both Victoria and Kaleb won several first place ribbons and Grand Champions for their art work this year. It is always so exciting to walk through the exhibits and admire the talent that is in this little valley.

For 4H this year we had everyone put their dog posters along the fence so that the community can see them. It was a great idea! Plus the kids loved having their dogs showcased to the public.

 All year Victoria was twisting her brother's arm to come to 4H so that he could show Sammy.

Sam did awesome and really enjoyed doing it.
I think the dogs really like the attention....at least Henry and Sam do...and Victoria....and Kaleb!

 All the kids made their own Showmanship leashes this year.

They all turned out awesome.

Henry won Grand Champion in Showmanship and Sammy won Reserve (which is runner up to Grand Champion) They were the old men of the group being 9 and 10 years old.

 Unfortunately, Henry had some weird allergic reaction that started early in the week with swollen ear flaps. On the second day of the Fair he broke out in hives on his face, and his nose swelled up after only running one agility course. So he sacked out on a cooling mat and a portable fan to 

cool him down.

 We had to take him to an emergency vet appointment that cost an arm and a leg.

They put him on antibiotics, just in case, got a shot of steroid and allergy medicine. 

Poor guy was not comfortable and left Victoria without a dog to finish, so she got to choose a trainer dog to run. She ran Kora for the remainder of the Fair while Henry hung out at home recuperating.

Kora ran better for Victoria than for her owner Rachael!

It was kind of funny because she did so well for her. She had to give all the right voice commands and hand signals as well as keep up with her. It was a challenge.

 There were 24 kids this year. I loved that they had so much fun together. We brought a big ball that we play with our goats with. They were playing keep away from Trigger, one of the trainer dogs with K9 Unleashed. Trigger was so fast, I never did get a picture with him with the kids.

 Another trophy and ribbon to add to the collection!

 At some point through the course Sam is so happy he starts to prance.

 On one of the agility trials, Kaleb took a piece of pizza to coat his fingers with to entice Sam to run his best. It sure worked!
Sam will do anything for pepperoni!

 One of the fun things we do is set up a human obstacle course.

This kids had a blast doing it. They get really goofy and just laugh.

It's awesome!

 Sammy on the Move!

 This is a great 4H program. We couldn't ask for a better group!

 The kids always find ways to keep themselves busy.

Here Victoria and Brenden are trying to rope each other.

 This was the drive home on the second day at night.

It was an exhausting week for the dogs...for all of us....but so worth it!

I love Summer

I love Summer!

I love growing flowers!

 I love being surprised as to which flowers will reappear each Spring.

 It always amazes me that they come back after the frost and snow.

 I am so excited to see the peonies again. 

 And the Fuchsia too. We overwinter the fuchsia in the house. 

Some day we will have a green house to put them in. 

 Sammy sat there staring into the house knowing that I was cooking dinner.

He is always under foot when food is around.

He can't help it.

The Grand Finale of 2014

 We started December babysitting Zeus for Kathy and Troy while they went to Hawaii to visit Rich! It would have been more fun to go to Hawaii but Zeus was a lot of fun too. 

Though he doesn't look too thrilled being dressed up by Victoria.

 Victoria got braces!

 Who would have thought that Kaleb and Victoria would have braces on at the same time. It is an absolute miracle that we are affording this. 

Our orthodontist is wonderful.

 Victoria and I researched how to make authentic looking clay food for Barbie and AG dolls.  You would be amazed what is out there. Of course that is a post in itself. If you are interested, 

check out my Pinterest board Here.

We tried convincing Kaleb  to retire this sleep shirt. He found this at the thrift shirt when he was only 5 years old. It hung down below his knees. When he showed it to me I had asked him what he was going to do with that? 

He was holding it like a prized possession in his little 5 year old hand.

 He told me "I'm gonna sweep in it!"

So he has been wearing this shirt that says 

Peace, Love and Crabs from Joe's Crab Shack for 10 years!

 We put together this huge, awesome puzzle! We have a funny family thing that happens every time we put a puzzle together. Someone always wants to put the last piece in. 

Can you guess who?

 For years, he has taken a piece and has hidden it so that when we go to put in the last piece it is missing! Daphne and I finished this puzzle around 11 pm at night when we discovered that 2 pieces were missing! Uugh!

We baked cookies. 

Victoria was begging to use her Buffalo cookie cutter. 

Sure, why not, we'll just have Christmas Buffaloes!

I bet you never had Christmas Buffaloes before!

Sam did his best at keeping the floor clean.

Georgie discovered how fun it was to hang out in the Christmas tree while his house was being cleaned. Though he decided that the foliage wasn't very tasty.

 I had help with wrapping presents, which is always nice. 

Notice the direction of the trees on the paper...

We added to our massive collection of ornaments. Our neighbor Chris whittled the wooden Santa. It is amazing. We couldn't find Jared an ornament that related to construction so I sculpted a hammer from clay. Kaleb, of course has the green alien and the minion. He is getting quite a collection of brightly colored beings. Can you guess Daphne's? Yep, the cats, and a blue sea horse for Victoria. Daphne and I burned the snowflakes into wood cuts and Victoria painted the little snowman.

We have spent the winters living here watching trucks....sometimes city trucks.....pull into the library when no one is there and do donuts in the parking lot. We have always told my Dad about this. He told my Mom that he can't wait for the first snow because he wanted to do donuts out in the parking lot for us to see. So on Christmas Morning when we woke to SNOW!!!!!!!

 He called to tell us to look out our window!

Yep, there he was doing donuts in the parking lot sliding all around. He had to stop though because a couple times it actually looked like he was going to get stuck. It brought back all those years in our Jeep growing up with him splashing through mud puddles where the spray would be sent up 20 feet into the air! 

It was very entertaining!

 It was wonderful having Nana and Poppa at our house for Christmas.

 It was our first one together in many, many years.

 It was a good day spending it all together.

 It reminded me of all the blessings that God has granted us over and over again!

 The past few Christmas' have been very difficult for various reasons. Mostly for financial reasons. This was our first Christmas doing on our own....because we COULD! 

Thank you LORD!

 Kaleb....pretty excited about his ORANGE sheets! 

And Poppa happy with his new Popcorn Popper!

 My son, the Carpenter, made three cooling racks for me. He built them after a set that my mom has had for years! I am very proud of him and now we have plenty of racks to use on the table during dinner.

Victoria painted me this adorable snowman! I love it! I found this awesome frame and almost busted it to pieces when I slipped on a piece of ice on our drive way! 

Uugh! Nothing like jarring your whole body.....

 I love these next three pictures of Henry! 

He looks so cute.....

Kirk says they are all the same...but no...his tail is moving!

 Sam loves, loves, loves the SNOW!

 He always gets so excited when he realizes that there is fresh snow on the ground.

 We now know that my parents little dog Sugar, loves the snow too. She was an avid swimmer in Arizona and doesn't have a place to swim...no need, she has a yard full of snow! Who would have ever thought that she was going to love it so much. She was outside catching the snowflakes as they were falling. It was hysterical to watch.

 She has the perfect fur for collecting snowballs.....

 We call this snorkeling. In the pool she would make bubbles with her paws and then bite them. So now, she does the same thing but with snow.

We got in some night sledding which is always fun. It is really convenient using the library's parking lot lights and a nearby drainage ditch. We now have two new "metal" snow saucers. 

We have replaced about 4 or 5 plastic ones. 

We saved part of our tax return from Spring to buy snowshoes for all of us. 

Now we can hike Green Canyon year round.

 It was quite the treat to wake up to so much snow on Christmas morning. 

We measured 7 inches by night fall.

 I love that we don't become hermits during the winter.

We celebrated the New Year with a game night, Nana and Poppa and left over fireworks!

We are discussing goals for the year and actually feel hopeful over our situation in life. I think we are recovering from the economy crash that we experienced when we lived in Arizona. We have been greatly blessed and can't live without God's plan for us.

We have discovered that when we try to do what we want, we just mess it up. 

His plan is so much better.

I can't wait to see what he has planned for us this year!