Family Pictures

Here's a couple of family pictures.  We had sunlight problems.

Happy July

Our big plan to have the internet installed was foiled.  Alas, it looks like no internet anytime soon for our family.  

Our unedited 4th of July Family Picture

We have been having a great summer!  It is especially wonderful because we didn't participate in 4-H this year!  We are enjoying the hot weather, the campfires, the laughs, the swimming, and the silliness of families.  Here's a brief recap:

Family:

• Enjoyed a week with some friends from out of town
• Saw a production of the "Music Man"
• Went to a concert about the life of Chopin
• Attended a Music Fest Concert
• Had a great Family Reunion with "my side" of the family
• Working on our second session of swimming lessons just because we can and we want to!
• Lots of time weeding the garden-we finally have tomatoes this year!
• Finally bought a Vita-Mix blender and we use it all the time for everything we can
• Continuing to take a lot of piano lessons

Mr. Patriot:

• Bought an additional business and has been working hard!
• Led the hike with Hank at Girl's Camp this year again
• Playing lots of basketball when he can
• Turned 37
• Still eats a lot of ice cream, but he's definitely doing better about cutting back.  We haven't been to Cold Stone since the middle of June!!

Me:

• Went to girls camp
• Read lots of books
• Drove the horse trailer to the vet's and back and survived (and so did the horse)

Liberty:

• Turned 13
• Completed her second year of Girls Camp
• Finished her Personal Progress; Bishop's interview scheduled for next week
• Taking an online History Course through Williamsburg Academy (when we have internet she is the one using it now)
• Hurt her hand; it was a possible hairline fracture (made her cranky because she couldn't play the piano for a while).  The Doctor told me that she has a good two years of growth for sure left (based on her growth plates) and she will definitely be taller than me.  She's 1/2" shorter than me now and had I had hoped she had stopped growing!
• Trying to get her horse bred and doctored (see her blog)

Determination:

• Went on the 11 year over nighter with the Stake Primary with his dad
• Finished up his requirements for his First Class Rank in Boy Scouts
• Completed his first merit badge: swimming
• Loves Louis L'Amour and is reading lots of great books
• Is in charge of the lawn (mowing, watering)

Imagination:

• Enjoyed Cub Scout Day Camp
• Continually making forts, arrows, bows, ladders, travois, etc from scraps on the land
• Bought himself some suspenders at the thrift store and loves to wear them! He thinks he's "Farmer Boy."
• Wanted his growth plates x-rayed to see when he would "start" growing.

Leader:

• Enjoyed Cub Scout Day Camp
• Turned 9.  My baby is 9!!!!
• Rides his bike everywhere
• Catches bugs and creepy crawlies constantly
• Sports new glasses that he manages to remember to wear

Hank:

• Continues to roll in manure
• Takes long naps
• Went on the hike to girls camp and loved all the attention from the Young Women
• Learned how to be a cow dog and helps us get the cows in the right field when they get out

Review: The Phantom Tollbooth

The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I was going to write a fantastic review, (because that's what I do-write fantastic reviews, haha), but then I saw the back cover and it summed it all up. It reads,

"For Milo, everything's a bore. When a tollbooth mysteriously appears in his room, he drives through only because he's got nothing better to do. But on the other side, things seem different. Milo visits the island of Conclusions (you get there by jumping), learns about time from a ticking watchdog named Tock, and even embarks on a quest to rescue Rhyme and Reason! Somewhere along the way, Milo realizes something astonishing. Life is far from dull. In fact, it's exciting beyond his wildest dreams!"

My children really enjoyed this book as I read it too them. There are clever lessons to learn, silly people to met and many play on words. If your family enjoys fairy tales this might be an enjoyable book for your family.

View all my reviews

Love, Imagination

Imagination, age 10, loves to write stories and "express" himself.  Here is a sampling of two things he recently wrote.

Dear Mom,

I am fantastically glad that you are my mom.  You make me feel happy all the time.  I am also happy that you do the dishes for us.*

God choose you to be our mother to prepare us for the final days.

I love you.

Love, "Imagination"

This was the Father's Day poem he wrote today in primary,

As life gets rough,

and you get gruff,

Remember Jesus and what he had to do.

And when they say boo.

Just remember Jesus

A whole lifetime through.

*My children do not like to wash the dishes.  They will all do anything but the dishes.  So I do the dishes (they clear, put things away, and empty the dish drainer though), and they do everything else in the house.  I enjoy the dishes so it works out.  No laundry.  No bathrooms.  No trash. No dusting.  ..... Every body's happy.

It's Circus Time

Liberty beat me to the punch on posting about this already. Here's my very short and sweet version:

Last night we enjoyed the circus as a family along with Mr. Patriot's father, brother, sister and brother-in-law.  We thought it was fun.  Of course there were things I didn't like, but all in all it was a good experience.  We ate a lot of really bad for you food like carmel apples, peanuts, cotton candy, snow cones and popcorn and it was really good. : )

Imagination and Leader were able to ride an elephant and they thought that was great.  Imagination said it felt like riding a really big draft horse.

Meet Hank

We have the world's greatest dog!  I'm sure many of you have one of them too!  His name is Hank and he is a pure bred lab.  No code name for him.  We have owned him since he was around six months old.  He is now six years old.  We name all of our creatures after famous people. (One dog was name Porter Rockwell). Since Hank was already named when we got him (long story) we had to improvise.  His "full" name is Henry Knox.  Ring any bells to those who study Revolutionary War History?   Let's see who can be the first to tell us what Henry Knox did for our great country.  If I had stuff lying around I could give someone a "free-give away."  Haha.  You can just know that you are smart and not get a prize. : )

Hank is wonderful with kids.  Kids love Hank!  They can pull his ears and sit on him and he just lies there.  (Please stay away from our cat though!)

Hank has chronic ear infections because he loves swimming in the water so much.  He loves to fetch sticks out of the water.

Hank stays with the kids when they play outside and keeps an eye on them.  I'm not sure how really.  Sometimes he gets in has much trouble as the kids!  At the end of the day he comes home as tired as they are.  Playing is hard work!

Hank has a bad habit we will mention.  He loves rolling in manure.  Not so good.

We love Hank and we are glad he is a part of our family.  We hope every one who likes pets has a pet as wonderful as Hank.

Camping

 We enjoyed our first camp out of the year.  Mr. Patriot was determined to go!

Liberty enjoys working with the fire.  I think she has a little pyro in her.  She keep saying, "If only we had brought the diesel."

The boys enjoyed hiking around camp.  We were the only ones out.  I guess everyone was worn out from Memorial Weekend.  Hank, our trusty dog, enjoyed going with them.

We enjoyed yummy campfire food.  Grandma and Grandpa showed up for a quick visit.  It was fun to see them.

We stayed warm and had fun.  I'm sure we will be going out again soon!

It's Garden Time

It's that time of year....We planted a little later than we normally do. We have had a lot of rain and wind. It is still freezing at night also. We did finally get it done this week though. It was a snap! This year we planted: Corn, potatoes, squash, zucchini, carrots, onions, cilantro, lettuce, radishes, green peppers and tomatoes. Liberty has big plans to make loads of salsa; one of her favorite foods. I just hope the tomatoes survive the wind, cold and the transplanting. Now we just need to weed consistently throughout the year...hmmmm.....

Feeding Baby Lambs

For four weeks we were able to help out some friends by bottle feeding some of their lambs while they worked during the day.  We learned a lot about sheep and baby lambs! What a neat experience. 

In exchange for feeding the lambs our friends are going to teach us how to spin wool and make hats out of it and other items.  What a great skill!  It has been on our list to learn so it was a win-win for us!

Happy Memorial Day

Happy Memorial Day! We enjoyed the annual service at the community cemetary.   Mr. Patriot was again in the yearly memorial service.  Our little cemetary is filled with people I have know through out my life.  What a special time of year to think of them!

We also enjoyed a hot dog roast with family on our land later in the day.  One day we will actually live there! For now it is fun to go there and enjoy campfires with family though. 

This Blog is Coming Soon.

We should be up and running on here within the month.