What a crazy month

I haven't blogged in over a month. Things have been so busy. We have been building a new chiken pen and trying to get our garden planted. Both have been tie consuming. We started taking the old chicken pen apart and letting the chickens free range during the day. First a raccoon came along and got some of them and then the dogs (trying to get them back I'm sure) ended up breaking a few necks. All in all when all was said and done we only have 11 chickens left. It was quite traumatizng. The pen is pretty much finished. The only thing that can still get in is a raccoon, and we'll just have to del with that. We have 4 chickens from last year, 3 bard rocks, 3 black sex links, and on Aurcana (?). The goats have been fine through all this. Teir little horns are getting bigger and pointier. A unicorn would have nothing over them. The turkeys are fine, but we are missing one. He wandered too far away and Maggie and Sam broke his neck also. If they weren't sch good dogs. The scotch broom bloomed and it wasn't so bad until a few days ago. The wind started blowing and blew lots of jnk around. I have been pretty miserable the last few days. The puppies are fine. 2 of them are gone andwe still have 4. Clyde is still on his chain and doing fine. It got really hot here this last week. We have been tryinlg to get gardens planted, but it has been really hot and we couldn't get back out. It's cooled down now, nd so we can. Our tomatoes, radishes, onions, pole beans, cabbages, cauliflower and a few various things are doing fine. The cucumbers have survived, but something ate my yellow squash and pumpkins to the ground. They haven't bugged anything else. We are working outside today, hopefully we will get a lot done. We have 2 more boxes to set up and we are going to plant corn and a few other things. I'll be glas when we see some tomatoes. That iswhat I want the most, tomatoes and green beans. Wayne has really been in bad shape. He applied for diaability about 8 or 9 months ago. He got a phone all on Monday and found outthat he got accepted. It will be a good thing. His knees and feet are pretty trashed. His breathing is horrible. He can't do much any more. This will also put him on medicare, so maybe a steady doctor will help some. We are getting a new bishop tomorrow. That is a good thing. Our poor bishop is pretty old and tired. Wayne calls him a lame duck. He's known for onths that he is going out, an he just kind of quit. Change is always nice. Rich's cousin Ia and his wife Pam and 2 kids, Christian and Priscilla (baby girl) are visiting. They will be here for another couple of days. We are teaching them about years supply and coupon shopping. The kids are almost out of school. I'm not sure how much longer they have, but maybe next week or possibly the next. We are trying to get Cody here for the summer. Maybe it will be good for him. Dusty and russ's garden is doing really well. I'm glad they decided to do that. I missed blogging about Penny and Dusty's birthdays. I owe them a blog. The kids are all fine. Addie is getting big. She is almost walking. Ginger's new job is about the same she says. She can wear normal clothes now, instead of a uniform. She goes to work early, and so she definately doesn't get enough sleep. Rich is getting ready to start school. He picked up his books yesterday. He will still work part time. Penny's job is still going fine. They ahve ct her back to about 24-25 hours a week. She can survive though. I wish the gas prices would go down again. They are just slowly creeping up. Things in general are getting pretty scary. We just need more food. I don't hink e will ever have enough. Prices of everything are going up. The president is a disaster. He is trying o hard to make us a third world country. I don't want to be a third work country. Dad though bush was bad, I won't what he would think of Obama. He is definately not an American, and not there for our best interest. I'll get back into pictures my next blog. Couponing has also been taking up lots of time in my life. We have been saving lots and also building up our food storage. That is a good thing, but it does take lots of time. I almost forgot. Mark and Michelle got all moedout into their new place. They are loving it, and we are loving the extra room. We moved Conol and Kael upstairs to their room. We have finally got most of it put together now. Penny moved intoMark and Michelle's room. We still have lots to do, but because f outside stuff it is taking us a while. We are also going to try and get Debbie up here for a while this summer also. Busy Busy

One of those weeks - Racoons and Dogs

Things got pretty crazy after we got back from Arizona. Mark and Michelle were moving and that didn't help any. On Monday while we were still on our way home, a raccoon got into the chickens. It carried off 3 babies before he was discovered. Sam treed him up a tree and Mark finally found him and shot him. He was huge. Michelle has a picture of him, but I forgot to get it before she left. A couple days later, Clyde got out again and hit the chicken pen. He chewed up all of the big chickens pretty bad. One of them died a few days later. It was pretty devastating. The pen is getting pretty trashed because of Clyde. 2 more baby chickens got out in a hole left by Clyde that we didn't find and Same and Maggie "accidentally" killed them. Our chickens had a really bad week. There are a few nice things though, the remaining big chickens are still laying eggs, and we got 2 little pigmy goats. They are adoreable. The turkeys are doing fine also. We decided that one of them has a bad foot. We don't know if he came with it or what, but he seems to do okay. Mark and Michelle got all moved now and they are doing fine except that Michelle is carless over there. It takes us about 25 minutes to get to her house. Mark should get a work truck in July and then she will have a car. It has been pouring rain for about 4 days now. It is so wet, and there has even been water over the road. I've never seen so much rain. We are trying to get our gardens put in, and it is kind of difficult. Hopefully we will dry up for a few days and we can get them going. We have so much to do, and it seems not enough time in the day.

The 2 baby goats - Jezebel and Jasper (Wayne named them)

The chickens surviving the storms (racoons and dogs)

Wayne loves how they all line up in rows

Penny is trying to teach the puppies to eat dog food. Addie decided that if it was good for the puppies it might be good for her also.

The 6 puppies - they are so cute

Liam Biam fell in the trailer (where he wasn't supposed to be) and cut his head open

Addie chilling out with the kitty

The turkeys are so different from the chickens - they sometimes get all riled up

and fluff their feathers. It's funny, because they look just like big turkeys when they do that

One of the puppies with his eyes open now

Trip to Arizona

Brandon and Tiffani flew us to Arizona on Apr 17. They picked us up at the airport and we went to Louyre's house to see all of the Phoenix gang. It was so good to see everyone. We stayed at Brandon and Tiff's house all week and worked on the Preparedness Fair that was to be on Apr 25. We coupon shopped all week. Tiffani has been getting huge amounts of food with her coupons and has been doing it really cheap. It's a cool thing, it just takes lots of time. We took pictures of her storeroom and it was amazing. The pictures I tooik at the beginning of the week only had part of the food. After shopping all week, but room was literally bulging at the seams, and we had to rearrange and restack lots of stuff. There is literally 90 days plus lots more of some things in the room. It was so amazing. On Friday night we had a brithday party for Wayne and my family came over for a cook out. We had a really good time. They all look so good. Kim's grandbabies are adoreable. The preparedness fair was awesome. The food turned out really good and there was over 75 people who attended. There were also some non members there that the missionaries handed out flyers to. Most of the food was gone when it was over and we talked so much we were all hoarse. Tiffani came home to a sign on her house, because it was her birthday that day. Her and Brandon are pretty anazing with all the kids. It is a really hard job to keep care of all of those kids. It just about wore me out. We had a fun week, and we will miss them. It was nice to get back home to our bed and our little kids here. I missed them. Thanks Brandon and Tiff for a fun (and exhausting week). I guess I should fill in a couple of other bits of news also. Dennie was in a buggy accident (yes buggy) that really broke him up and road rashed him bad. He spent one night in the hospital. He is home and okay, but Nellie said he is pretty sore and grouchy. Our Aunt Betty (Margie's sister and Gary's wife) died last week on Apr 21. She was 73 years old. Because of our flight home on Monday I wasn't able to attend the funeral. I felt bad a bout that. Nellie and Vance both talked. Margie told them that Betty never got over Gary dying, and I would believe that. She was buried by Gary in Taylor. Maybe now she will be at peace in her life.

Addie and Miles meeting for the first time

Brittney and her girls, Ashlyn and Paige

Brittney with Bethany's baby, Addyson and Melanee and Shelbee and Ash lyn

Louyre, Louise and Rob

Brandon and Darin

A group picture. Mom and Dad would have loved these kids

Brandon & Tiff's storeroom thanks to coupon shopping

Brandon & Tiff's storeroom again

Brandon and Tiff's storeroom - canned meat in the back corner

Addie and Miles and Zach in the back

Brandon cooking in the wind

Kim and Addie and Bailey

Nellie, Kim and Michelle

Vance, Chelan, me, and Brandon

Vance and me and Addie

At the Preparedness Fair - Tiffani only paid about $40.00 for this entire table of food.

The firstaid table and pandemic stuff

If was Tiff's 30th birthday. This sign got left on her house. Ha Ha

This is the 72 hour kit table

Nellie, Kim and Debbie and canning table with the Elders

Nellie, Debbie and Kim again

The Car emergency kit

Turkeys and Puppies

Wayne insisted on expanding the chicken family by adding a few turkeys. He and Michelle went out yesterday and bought 5 turkeys. They are pretty cute. I suspect they will be naughtier than the chickens. Maggie also had some puppies the other day. If was funny because she had them inside the old tree. She has 4 boys and 2 girls. We did get them moved into the barn yesterday. At first Maggie was a little distraught, but then she chilled out.

Here are 3 white turkeys. The guy at the feed store said their's got to be 60 pounds last year.

Here are 2 little brown turkeys. They are smaller now, but who know about later.

Maggie and the puppies buried deep inside the tree. This picture is taken from about 3 feet out. She is way inside the tree. Penny went in and pulled the puppies out with a shovel thing.

The is the tree she was in

Just to the right of the middle is a dark spot with a limb coming out of it. The dark spot is the opening that Maggie climbed into. She actually had the puppies on the back side of the tree. It is a pretty cool hidey hole if you ask me. I searched for her for hours the other day before I found her.

Marley and Addie's pictures from March

Here are the pictures that were taken of the two babies, Marley and Adelaide (Addie) when we were all in Utah on March 4. I tried to upload them to my walgreens account but couldn't get the upload to work. So for right now, here they are. They are adoreable. Some are duplicates in black and white, but oh well.

Potty Training Nevin and Liam Biam

We've all had it, and decided we have to get the 2 boys potty trained. Nevin was happy about it yesterday, but today he refuses to get out of my bed and put underwear on.

The 2 monkeys

Liam Biam

Nevin in his Spidermans

Aiden singing the Darth Vader song - funny

Aiden has learned how to sing the Darth Vader song,

and it is quite entertaining. He keeps looking at the wii game that he wants to be playing

You will need to pause the music at the end of this blog to hear well