The Headleys House

THE Kitchen

It's time.

The electrical issues started this project.

What a mess.

We went 10 weeks without a kitchen sink. We cooked on the Campchef on the driveway and washed dishes in the garage. Nothin' like scrambling eggs in the garage. Notice the ears of corn on the Mexican blanket.

I wasn't too sure when the boys brought a wheel barrel full of concrete into the kitchen to float the floor. It is the craziest thing to raise two little boys and have them grow up into young men who are still mixing "mud" and spreading it on the kitchen floor.

We had plywood counter tops for 8 weeks! They were actually better than the marble green formica!

At the time, I was happy to have partial cabinets. It took 4 months to get the lazy suzans finished. The parts were sitting on a ship out in the ocean waiting for it to be unloaded.

New quartz countertops!

Cache County Fair

The highlight of every summer is the Cache County Fair!

And most of all, is the Dog SHow.

Victoria has worked really hard with both MerkTavitch and Jasper.

Merk placed First in Showmanship, Rally and Agility and Second in Obedience with Grand Champion in Agility.

Jasper placed First in Obedience, Showmanship and Agility and Second in Rally. He got Grand Champion in Obedience and Agility and Reserve Grand in Showmanship.

I love how he is watching her here.

This little kid is the youngest one in our program. We spend lots of hours for four days at the fair. We were about to hand out awards and Wyatt was flat out in the grass. Cute Kid.

Victoria fell out of her chair and sent the two of them laughing hysterically over ....not much. They were taking a mullet count. They counted something like 200 guys with mullet haircuts in one day and then multiply that by 4. Crazy!!

Jasper loves agility!

Kaleb brought donuts when he judged in Obedience. He rode his bike down to the fairgrounds and got in on the Kneaders French Toast that we got for the kids.

These two are so funny together. Always laughing about something.

Right behind our event area was where the 4H kids brought their steer down to cool off in the water. We tried to block it off so the dogs don't see the steer but a couple knew they were there without seeing them.

Welcome to our Shanty Town.

Daphne can sleep anywhere! I am amazed that after being so sick for so long that she actually wanted to still come and have fun...after her nap.

Well, this is a new place to hang your ribbons.

This girl loves her ribbons!

My Favorite Aunt

It has been 6 months since Aunt Carol passed away.

I still can't believe that she isn't here.

She was my favorite Aunt. She always paid attention to me, or would take an interest in what I'm doing. She would ask questions that always would make me feel special as a little kid.

She had a massive stroke from an enormous blood clot. The doctors said that the vaccine she received gave her the clot. Her blood was thick. She thought she was doing the right thing getting the vaccine. She had recently been diagnosed with skin cancer and had a wonderful afternoon with Kathy and Natalie at lunch the day she had her stroke.

It's so hard to believe that she isn't here. I remember one time she said, "when I die, I don't want people sad at my funeral. Don't wear black" I thought these flowers were beautiful. Aunt Carol, off and on was hooked on Rockstars. This guy that was her coworker slipped a Rockstar into her casket next to her. Kathy saw him do it and then forgot about it. So Aunt Carol is buried with a Rockstar in her casket.

This is Aunt Carol and my Dad.

I remember taking this picture. It was our house in Sylmar on Wheeler Ave. She was funny.

Dad, Aunt Carol, Kathy, Ricky, Kim and Me.

Kathy had a great idea. Aunt Carol had lots of books, so they brought them to her memorial service and let everyone take home any of her books that they wanted. I picked up quite a few autoimmune books and cook books. She was always educating herself in something. She had Biology coloring books and history books. My Mom picked up an exercise book on toning your Butt and Legs. They used to exercise at Jack Lalanes in Van Nuys when we were really little.

We were pretty exhausted. Daphne was still sick with Ulcerative Colitis and literally couldn't eat anything, poor girl. Victoria's dysautonomia was making life difficult. The boys had been working in Bear Lake all week.

July in January

This past year , wait, this past two years has been pretty rough. It started with Victoria's head injury, Chiari Malformation and Dysautonomia, then Daphne was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease this summer. She lost almost all of her hair and was wasting away. Several trips to the ER, Urgent Care and many doctor appointments. And then we remodeled our kitchen that was supposed to take 2 weeks and ended up taking 10 weeks, and then we all got sick in December. Looking back at this past summer, it feels like so long long ago.

Brody looks so little with Victoria. He has come a long way through lots of training. We sure have learned a lot about how to train a horse and gain trust. He's so worth all our efforts.

MerkTavitch is the funniest dog. He loves to cuddle and you can do almost anything to him, like make him wear glasses.

Jasper on the other hand gets self conscious when you try to take his picture. I found him sleeping on the bed under the fan. He's not going to move but he's wondering if it's okay that he is on the bed.

These two have a love hate relationship. Merk loves to lick Thunder's head, ears, feet....and she lets him.

This is the funniest thing. Merk has a bell hanging by the back door so when he wants to go outside, he rings the bell. So he will ring the bell and then rest his head on the bench waiting for you to let him out. Don't you love the spray foam oozing out of the door jam? Or how about the exposed insulation above the light switch? or the plywood floor? It's not like that anymore. We now have the door stained, trim, wood floor and walls done.

Kaleb cracks me up. He eats constantly. Anyone who works with Kaleb notices that he is always eating. He recently ordered a dog treat pouch to put on his tool belt to hold all of his snacks so he will have them on him all the time. He wanted a bigger lunch box so he found this VW bus Box.

This is definitely Kaleb's dog. Merk does the funniest things. He loves to run his body through the curtains and looks at me through them. He does this almost every morning while I am in the bathroom getting ready for the day. Maybe this is part of his morning routine as well?

Baby Goats

I can never get enough of these guys!

Sebastian looks so much like Jacks when he was just a little guy.

You can't have baby goats and not bring them into the house. Ollie got to hang out with Daphne on the couch. She was very very sick with a newly diagnosed autoimmune disease this past summer. So we brought Ollie in to cheer her up. In the photo below, this was Ollie's favorite place to sleep. In the feed bucket. Two times I went out to check on the babies and only saw two goats. Ollie was missing. And then I heard a muffled cry from under the feed bucket. Twice the feed bucket turned over, trapping him underneath. It was so cute but totally scary too!

These guys can't get any cuter than this.

Handsome boy!

Kayaking with Kaleb

Say that 10 times fast!

Kaleb is always game for adventure.

Maybe it was the attachment he had riding on my hip when he was just a little guy. He didn't want to miss out on anything, even if I thought it was mundane.

I needed to get away and I didn't care where. The two of us are always the first ones up on the weekend, sometimes hours before anyone else is up. So we decided to load the kayaks and venture up into Idaho to some reservoirs that we have heard about. I don't even remember which one this was but it was secluded. We were the only ones there. It was peaceful.