Wishing all of our loved ones a very happy new year!
Friday, December 26, 2008
Merry Christmas!
Thought you would enjoy some pictures from Christmas. The children entertained us with a live nativity on Christmas Eve. Here are a few of my favorite Christmas moments. Hope your Christmas was peaceful and joyful. Happy New Year!
Monday, November 24, 2008
FALL!
I love Fall! Since I know some of you live in regions that do not get great fall color, I thought I would share some of my amateur shots of fall foliage. I am trying to capture the beauty of the leaves, the pictures are good, but not as great as real life - not to rub it in to those of you who never see leaves of red, orange, yellow, purple, brown...
Samantha the Fashion Model
Samantha loves to dress up. She even wears several hats at one time. What a cutie!
Chickens
To add to our adventures, we are adding a few more chickens to our farm. We ordered chickens online and day old baby chicks were mailed to our house. This is the second time we have lived this adventure, last time we got 25 - this time 50. Yes, you read that right 50 baby chicks. Before you ask, "you know they grow up to be bigger chickens, right?" I will explain the purpose of all these chickens.
First - we wanted to experiment with different egg layers to see if we could find a breed we like the best. We have had Buff Orpingtons for the past 1 1/2 years and they are fine, but we wanted to try out some new breeds so we ordered 25 egg layers of 6 or so breeds. We have tried to I.D. which breeds we have, but it is a bit hard so we will wait until their adult feathers come in and then we will be able to tell - I hope...
The second reason for so many chickens is that James would like to try out raising meat birds. He is sure I will warm up to the idea before slaughter day, but I have assured him he is on his own until the chicken looks like the ones in the grocery store. He is hopeful I will change my mind, I am doubtful that will happen. The breed we bought for meat is ready in about 6-8 weeks - so we will start the new year off with fresh, home grown chickens. Don't worry the children will only name the egg layers since the others will not be around for long.
Jacob and Kathryn are doing a school project on the growth of baby chickens, I will put their power point presentation on our blog when it is complete - in a month or two.
So, here are a few pictures of the cute little chicks. They come in a cardboard box and the post office calls at 3:30am the day they arrive to let you know they are here.
You have to keep them in a trough with heat lights on them to keep them 95-100 degrees for the first few days. We keep the trough in the garage so we can keep a closer eye on them. Over time the heat lights are used less and less until they are ready to go out to the barn to their new home.
James is going to build a 'chicken tractor' which is where the meat chickens will live. It is a moveable pen that has a nesting house attached. This allows you to move the chickens all over your land to let them fertilize the ground and eat the weeds. When one spot is done, just move the 'tractor' to the next location. Looks like our garden will be all set in time for spring planting.
The egg layers will live in the chicken coop and pen in the barn. This helps keep them out of my flowers and minimizes the locations they can hide an egg.
Over all it is really worth it for the eggs, they are better for you and taste WAY better than store bought. So, that is probably more than you ever really wanted to know about raising chickens, but I thought it would be good for a few laughs for some of you.
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Kathyrn's Blog
Kathryn is a budding photographer and she has started her own blog displaying some of her best shots. Check out her blog - The link is listed to the left under 'Other Cool Blogs' - Enjoy!
Friday, October 31, 2008
Happy Halloween!
Here are a few pictures of the children before we went Trick-or-Treating. Samantha had a super time, as she ran up to each door she was saying, "candy, candy, candy". Emily loved being a cowgirl and said, "Yee-Haw" at each door. Sarah and Kathryn were pioneers and Jacob chose to be an outlaw. James and I pretended to be the parents of 5 children. We all had a great time and came home with more than enough candy. Buster the Wonder Dog even got into the action. While the children were getting ready for bed, Buster snuck a few candy bars off the table and ate them, wrapper and all. It's true that candy isn't good for dogs, moments later he gave it all back to them in a waterfall of chocolate. Happy Halloween!
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
The End of the Road...Until Next Year Anyway...
Emily, Samantha and Carol rode in the Cox Family Rhino with Michelle, Dallin and Ruthie. We had a great time splashing in the creek and taking pictures of the motorcycle riders.
Over all I would say our family vacation was a HUGE success! We can't wait to go back next year!
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Muscleman Arch
These are some shots of us on Muscleman Arch. - Note that there is nothing but air under the rock we are standing on. Cool Huh?!
Top Of the World
We even made it to the 'top of the world' thanks to James' and Lance's excellent driving skills.
Our Fantastic Trip Part Two
The next phase of our vacation included jeeping and motorcycling in Moab. Lance and LuAnn Weaver joined us for the jeeping part - then they went on their own bicycling adventure. James' Aunt Kim, Uncle Eric and cousin Mia dropped by for dinner on Tuesday (great to see them) and the end of the week was spent with our friends from college, Jared and Michelle Cox, with their 4 super children. A special thanks goes to Barry and Sue Hansen for fixing Kathryn's dirt bike and delivering it to us so she would not miss out on all the fun in Moab. We love you guys!
We had a blast, found out that we really like climbing hills in jeeps, got really dirty, ate great food, enjoyed the company of dear friends and came home exhausted - that's how a vacation should be right?!
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