Sunday June 30

Today was a pretty neat Sunday.

Our bishop is Bishop Packer.

Son of Elder Allan Packer (quorum of the seventy), and Grand son of Pres. Boyd K. Packer (Pres of the quorum of the twelve).

Well, Elder Allan came to church today, visiting his son and his family.

He and his wife spoke during Sacrament meeting.

It was a pretty cool meeting.

I wish I was there for the third hour.

He opened it up for questions.

I am told that notes were taken and they will be emailed out.

I am interested in how it went.

Anyway....very neat people.

*****

Madi's class was in charge of sharing time this week.

She did a really good job.

And she looked so pretty and grown up there.

Her class is a dwindling class, cause they are all going into YW/YM.

Madi's birthday is coming up quick.

She is excited about it.

*****

We just relaxed after church.

We listened to the book on tape that we listened to during our trip.

We have to turn it back into the library tomorrow....and we were almost done.

It is the 'Tennis shoes among the Nephites' series.

We listened to the 'Feathered Serpent'.

It really helped pass the time for us and the older kids since they enjoyed it too.

So we finished it up while cuddled on the couches.

The little ones weren't very interested.

But we got them to cuddle with us for a little bit every now and then.

It was a pretty good day.

 

Saturday June 29

I got myself up to go running at 6 this morning.....it would have been way to hot to go later on.

I woke Madi up to sleep on the couch in case Porter woke up.

Good girl.

I got home and had breakfast and then dad got home

Then we got to work on mowing the lawns.

Again, trying to get it done before it got too hot.

When we got done, it was just way too hot to be outside.

So we had some lunch  and then decided to play in water.

Too bad we don't have a pool ;)

We couldn't find our little kiddie pool anywhere.

Must have blown away or something....

Well, we did have a trough.

And it worked great.

And of course the slip and slide.

It was a hit :)

After we all got cleaned up and showered, Brent and I went out on a date.

We went and watched a movie 'Oblivion'.

It was a pretty good one.

Then we decided to go to Cracker Barrel for dinner.

Neither of us had eaten there and wanted to check it out.

But as we were walking in Brent remembered going when he was younger and brought back good memories.

The little shop was a fun place to look around.

And we got a couple fun things for the kids from the gift shop.

And it sounds like everything went pretty smooth while we were gone.

These next few hot days are gonna be rough....

 

*****



Friday June 28

I went running at 7 this morning to avoid the heat.

I am gonna go at 6 tomorrow.

When I came home, I saw Ayden and Cassi driving the 4-wheeler from Bubbles house.

Yesterday they helped Bubbles pull weeds for our other neighbor who has a bad back.

Well, they showed up early this morning to gather all the weeds and take the loads to the goats.

Such good helpers.

Bubbles is so great and the kiddos enjoyed helping her.

Brad and Jenni left around 9 to go sign the papers on their house.

Madi helped me with all the kiddos by blowing bubbles.

Madi was awesome today.

So helpful and nice.

We have had a rough couple days....but I am thankful when she isn't so moody :)

After the Terry's headed out, the kids all helped to get the house cleaned up.

I wrote down a list, and we all got to work and crossed all the stuff off.

So after Porter took his nap, we went to the library to return all our books.

I also had to tell them that 3 of the books were ruined when Porters room flooded.

I was told about a $5 processing fee for each book and then the total of $49....

Yikes!

Bummer!

Well, we still have the books, so I guess it's not a huge rip off.

They are just still a bit damp :)

I guess we had two good days of lots of rain while we were out of town.

So when we got home he had another little puddle in his room.

And it leaks in a little each day.

So I am not sure what we are gonna do.

We need it to dry up to get it sealed up!

Anyway, after the library we went and got them some snow cones since they were such great helpers.

Good kids :)

Bubbles invited us over for dinner.

She had a big party a few days ago, and had a ton of leftovers....and wanted us over to eat it.

Her husband is out of town and Brent was at work.

So it was she and I and the kiddos.

It was a fun time.

We are so blessed to have her.

She is so great.

I feel deeply in dept to her.

I don't know how to thank her for all the awesome and selfless things she does for us.

All she ever says is we are paying her back by just being great neighbors.

But I don't think that's enough.

I need to think of something really good....

 

Thursday June 27

The Terry family came to stay with us again today.

I had the girls for a while when Brad and Jenni did their walk-through in their new house.

And they get to close on it tomorrow.

Exciting stuff.

The girls had a lot of fun playing with the bunnies and chickens and just running around.

Porter and Laela spent a lot of time blowing bubbles.

I found a bubble recipe using karo syrup, water and dish soap.

They were good bubbles.

And it kept them busy and messy.

I guess they weren't really messy if it was bubbles :)

But they sure had fun.

Now they are all *almost* asleep.

Hope the night goes good.

 

Wednesday June 26

We got home tonight.

It was actually a pretty good drive home.

But before we left we had to ride Strip.

Strip was kinda grumpy.....maybe bugs were bugging her or the straps...

But as soon as we took the saddle and stuff off she was happy to roll around in the dirt.

We will need to spend more time with her next time.

But Elsie was excited to see her and ride her.

I have more pictures.....but again, we need sleep.

So I will add them...um....at some point in the future, hopefully :)

After we were all packed up we headed out and saw the Buffalos.

Again, Elsie was happy as a clam.

*****

So now we are home.

It's good to be home.

Dad has to go to work for the next two days.

So wish me luck with the kids to myself......

 

 



Tuesday June 25

Well, it's late again and I took way too many pictures to go through them all right now....

So I will do that another time.

This morning Brent dropped the big girls off with Nancy so they could go hang out with Heather.

I ran my 6 miles....it's been a few days since I have ran and it felt really good to get out again!!!

Then dad worked with Gramps and also helped out at Doug's house with the new air conditioning they are putting in their house.

The little ones and I hung out with Grandma.

We left to go get the girls in Randolph around 3:00ish.

The girls had a lot of fun, like always.

They also have a kitten that they said we can take with us next time we come, cause he's not big enough yet.

We are still bummed the Mittens ran away, and still hope he will come back.

Maybe he will.

But we need a cat out there, so we will get another on in the mean-time.

Anyway, we got back and we were gonna ride Strip, but all the kids were VERY BAD in the car ride home.

So we told them that we couldn't ride Strip.

And if they were good we could maybe ride her tomorrow before we leave.

I think they earned the ride for tomorrow.

After dinner, we decided to take a ride up the mountain.

We took a hike up to 'name rock'.

We found where dad carved BM + KM a long time ago.

And we made our own new carving.

We took a family picture like this a few years ago, I need to find it and put the two together.

We also did some shooting.

The kids had a great time.

We all had a great time.

It was a fun night....except we got home late and Grams and Gramps were pretty worried about us.

I guess that's the bad thing about not having cell phone service out here :(

 

 

 



Monday June 24

We hung out with Em for a little bit this morning before we headed out to Evanston.

The kids love Emmy and we love staying with her at her house :)

We got to Evanston and just hung out and took it easy.

It was a pretty nice day outside, just windy.

But it is always windy.

We went up to the store with Gramps for a little bit then we left Dad there to help and we came back to the house where Port got a nap and Elsie had some wind down (TV) time.

Cassi played a lot with Lexi and Madi had some fun talks with Grandma.

We also got Elsie to come outside....she didn't want to, but once she got outside she loved it.

So now a couple more days of fun here before we head home.

The girls are gonna go to Randolph tomorrow to hang out with Heather, poor Lauren is at a camp....

But I am sure they will have fun.

 

Sunday June 23

Today was Mayah's blessing.

It was a nice afternoon with both families at Nathan's parents house.

Then after that we stopped by the cemetery to see the new bench they had ordered for their head stones :)

A bit morbid....well wait till you see the pictures we took of them laying on the ground in front of their headstones/bench.......ha ha ha....

Fun stuff.

Then we headed to the homestead where we took a line-up picture of all the grand kids in order.

Then had our 2013 edition of the Peterson Family talent show.

Lots of fun and lots of talent.

Then it was dinner.

Breakfast for dinner.

Yumm yum.

I will have to post pictures later, cause it late again.

Earlier then the rest of the other days, but still late.

 And we need sleep!



Saturday June 22

More later :)

Friday June 21

More later....

Thursday June 20

Still not finished packing...but we are headed to Utah tomorrow.

I got my 6 miles today...actually 6.5 :)

Yay!
But not until after I took Cassi to the dentist to have a tooth pulled.
A couple days ago she was saying her tooth hurt.
I looked at it and it had a big gaping hole.
So I got her in and the dentist said it might have had a small cavity, but then the back end of the tooth broke off.
He did some x-rays and said that the adult tooth isn't far off so he suggested just pulling it.
So we did.
I think it is because she grinds her teeth.....so we got her a mouth guard (just one of those football ones :)
She was a tough girl.

Then Young's stopped by this morning to bring us some lost items we left there.

Then it was cleaning up and laundry and packing and all that fun stuff.

I went and picked Madi up at about 2 this afternoon.

She had so much fun!

And she and Cassi went quite a few hours before fighting.

It was great.

But now it is back to normal.

But Madi does need sleep, so maybe tomorrow will be better :)

We went out to eat tonight to our fav little Asian restaurant.

The waitress/owner was in love with Porter.

He wasn't sure about all the attention.

But she brought us out a free chocolate cake !

So I guess the boy is good for something :)

Then we came home and got the animals all ready for us to leave.

Dad has hooked up the rabbits to the self watering thing, so that is awesome!

Then the boys got haircuts.

They look handsome!

And now they are watching a movie, Escape from Planet Earth.

And I am needing to head out right now for a Presidency meeting :)

Wish me luck with the rest of packing....

I have more pictures from the day, but I gotta go to my meeting.....



Wednesday June 19

Woke up this morning to Ports room in a flood.

From irrigation.

I tried to mop it up with towels, but there was so much.

I started squeezing the towels out into 5 gallon buckets and got 4 of them emptied when Dad brought in the wet-vac.

Which we ended up dumping once (10 gallons).

And the wet-vac is still half full....so that makes at least 35 gallons of water out of Ports room.

It is the weirdest thing!

Not a drop in Elsie's room, which is on the same side with the same amount of water.

Dad thinks it is because of the gas line that was dug for when we got the natural gas.

It's kind of a headache.

Once it is all dried up we need to find some kind of heavy duty sealer.

See if that works.

Anyway....it kept seeping in, so through-out the day I went in and vacuumed it up.

We will see what it looks like in the morning :)

It didn't help that it poured rain all morning.

Which is a good thing :)

Except it wasn't raining when I started my run this morning.....then it did.

So I came home soaking wet.

Didn't get my 6 miles either.

Oh well, tomorrow...

Port thought he would go out and help Cassi do the chores after it rained, in his underwear and boots.

Naturally, right :)

The rest of the day  was cleaning and working outside.

Dad got the fence up for my tomatoes to climb on.

So the garden is almost complete !

*****

While I was making dinner, I caught Cassi having some alone time outside.

She is my outdoors girl.

And animal lover :)

I thought she looked so cute sitting there...I had to get a picture, or course.

*****

Madi comes home tomorrow!

I am so excited to hear how it went!

 

Tuesday June 18

Well, both Brent and I think the day was kinda wasted :)

We did get to go to the gym together....that was good.

I also got my pumpkins planted before we went to the gym.

But then we had some shopping and errands to do.

Stuff that needed to get done before we head out of town on Friday.

And we all went together.

About 4 hours of it.....

Lets just say, the kids weren't on their best behavior.

But I guess they weren't terrible.

Anyway, once we got home Dad got the irrigation started.

And then we made sish-ka-bobs for dinner.

We are missing having Madi around and we keep talking about what we think she might be doing now.

I bet she is having so much fun.

I hope she is.

I hope she is safe and warm.

After dinner we went out to push some water onto the dry parts of the lawn and the kiddos played, of course.

Both Porter and Elsie ended up in their underwear.

Silly kids.

They played for a good hour, and then realized they were FREEZING :)

So then they got a nice hot bath.

Cassi stayed out and helped Dad while I gave the little ones a bath.

Then some more 'Americas Got Talent' before bedtime.

Hopefully we can get more things done tomorrow to get us closer to getting ready to leave, but also work on all the millions of things we have going on here....

 

 

I just realized this looks like Elsie is laying in the water but she is actually crawling.

I just wanted a shot of her in her underwear and me wearing a skirt while irrigating :)

But I guess it ended up looking kind of weird.....oh well.

Monday June 17

This little beauty made her way off to girls camp this morning.

I can't believe it.

We have definitely missed her today....and I am sure the next few days will only get worse :)

But I am so excited for her.

I got her to the church at 7:00 sharp, just like we were supposed to.

There was only one other car there....and no one else started showing up until 7:30!!!!!

I was worried we had the wrong place to meet.

It was craziness!

Anyway.

I hung out for a bit with Madi until the leaders showed up.

But by then I couldn't pull out because there was a car parked in front of me and they had the trailer being loaded at the back of me.....

So I was kinda stuck.

I just hung out by Madi until 8, when they started getting girls loaded....

Mormon standard time at it's best!!! :)

It was fun to watch Madi and the other kids.

She is very quiet and doesn't put herself out there to go talk to any groups and just ends up standing there by herself.

But there are some great girls in the ward who kept saying "Madi are you excited for camp?", "Aren't you tired too, Madi?" "This is gonna be so fun Madi!" "Come ride with us Madi" (but too bad the car got full before she made it there....no big deal, she found another car.)

So I am glad to know that there are girls there who will include her and help her get to know the other girls.

But I am also glad she's not as annoying as many of the other girls were!!!!

Okay that was mean, sorry.....

Madi is a good girl and I am so excited to hear how much fun she has at camp!!!

I am proud of what kind of young woman she is turning into.

Love her!

*****

When I got home, Cassi and I ran 1/2 mile together and I got a total of 6 miles!!!!

Yay!

That is my goal.

Guess I need a new goal :)

I was only gonna do 5 miles.

But thanks to some birds trying to protect their nests (very scary!), I was forced to take a different direction in my run.

And it ended up totally at just over 6 miles!!!

Dumb birds, but they did get me to my goal :)

While Dad went to the gym, the little kids and I went outside.

I finished planting watermelon, cantaloupes and honey dew in the garden.

Tomorrow I will plant the pumpkins.

I wasn't going to put them in the garden, but we will have room.

So I am gonna put them there where we don't have to worry about putting more water lines, since they are already set in the garden.

I am loving my garden this year.

Everything it growing good and there are hardly any weeds!

And I can control the weeds that do come up!!!

It is so great!!!!

Next I mowed the lawn while Dad worked on fixing the riding mower.

I could have waited, but I wanted to see the distance it would be like I did with the front yard.

It seemed to take forever!!!!!

It was long, so there was a lot of emptying the bag involved.

But it ended up being 2 miles!

By then he had the riding mower fixed and they (Cassi and Dad) mowed the orchard in no time, but I bet that would have been another mile.

After all that, it really was too hot to be outside anymore.

So we hung inside for a bit and had dinner and then watched 'The Muppet Movie'.

I think it was a successful day :)

 

 

This is hard to tell what the picture is.....my phone was kinda foggy from the heat I guess.

But Dad used the tractor to pull the lawn mower up on it's end so he could put the new part in.

Worked like a charm :)

Sunday June 16

Happy Fathers Day!!!!!

I have the greatest Dads in the whole world.....

I am so blessed to have Brent as the Dad of our sweet children.

I am grateful for his example of hard work and determination.

And he loves his kids.

He loves them so much....so much.

And they look up to him and watch everything that he does in awe.

For the past 14 days I have gotten to have a little tiny bit of an idea of what life would be like if I didn't have him.

I knew I was dependant on him.

I knew I loved him.

But over the last two weeks, I know I could never go on without him.

Not just the regular every day things (for us).....like irrigation, animals, car troubles...., you know, that kind of stuff...

And the kid stuff....it has been hard without him here.

We just work better as a team.

I like it that way.

*****

And my own dad and Brent's dad are both amazingly selfless men.

Giving anything and all for their children.

They are great examples for their generations to follow and we are lucky to have them in our lives.

 



 

 

*****

It was a good day today for Dad, I think.

He got home from work this morning in enough time to get ready for church and go.

He was so tired.

But he made it :)

I had my first sharing time today.

I think it went pretty good.

I don;t feel much anxiety for the next time I have to do it....so that is good.

The kids are rowdy.

Hopefully we can change that.

I kinda got on them a couple times (the older primary kids) and the piano teacher told me 'It's about time someone calls them out on their behavior!'

So hopefully with this new presidency, we can set new standards on what is okay and not okay to do in primary.

We came home and had lunch and then the boys got to have a nap.

The girls painted while I cleaned up the dishes.

Both Madi and Cassi painted some beautiful paintings.

I wish we had more time for art.....I just need to work it in :)

For dinner I bought dad some t-bone steaks.

I had no idea how to cook them, but I was willing too, but he ended up doing it anyway :)

It turned out yummy.

And we also had sweet potato fries that Port helped prepare.

Port also helped me make a cheesecake for dessert, cause that is dads favorite!

While dinner was getting ready, Madi and Elsie hung outside for a bit.

I love when we can get Elsie outside!!!!

Cassi was back and forth driving the 4-wheeler to go see Bubbles' new cow :)

After dinner, Cassi played the song she wrote for Dad.

She did it to the tune of 'Ring of Fire'.

It's a pretty cute little song, with some funny parts in it.

I need to video record it!!!!

I think daddy had a good day with is family!

 

 

Saturday June 15

Nacho dinner while we watch 'UP'.

Ya, I am a great mom :)

It was that or leftovers....they chose nachos.

 

 

It seems like another packed day,

Got to the gym today....then got a few things from Winco.

Came home and showered.

The kiddos helped me clean up and Port laid down for his nap.

 Then I went to lunch with one of my good friend who moved a while ago, Rachel Edgel.

It was fun to see her and Mallari, who I also haven't seen in a long time.

We went to Fork in Boise and it was a fun time.

Rachel took a picture with her camera, i will have to get her to email it to me so I can include it :)

Came home and the girls had really done a good job cleaning the house.

We had to run Madi's stuff for girls camp to the Bishops house (his wife is the camp leader).

They are getting everything loaded up before hand to make things run smoother at 7:00 Monday morning :)

They will bring a backpack with them on Monday morning with all the little extra things like toothbrushes, journals, that kind of thing.

Have I said she is excited yet????

Cause she is!

Then we went swimming at the Morgans house.

It didn't last very long.

Porter got cold quick....he kept sticking his head in and out of water.

He really wants to swim.

And Cass felt a little left out because the Morgan girl that is her friend, had another friend over.

They were playing good all together,  but I guess Cassi just wasn't planning to have to share Avery.

She has also been feeling off the last few days.

On and off stomach aches.

I told her not to drink milk for the day (yesterday) to see if it helped.

And it did, but she called me while I was at lunch to tell me she accidentally had milk......and now we have a stomach ache.

So I am thinking she does.

We will try the no milk tomorrow too and see if it is better again.

The Morgan girls came over after swimming for a little bit to see the baby bunnies.

And play for a little bit.

Now they are all in bed and I am off to finish preparing for my first Sharing Time tomorrow :)

I have all the thought and ideas, just need to organize them....

We will see how it goes.

I can;t wait to have dad home.

I get to have him for 11 days straight without him going back to work....that does involve another trip to Utah, but at least he will be with me the whole time :)