Our Friend, Greg

One week ago today our friend Greg Petersen lost his battle with cancer.  We will miss him very much.    Greg was a contractor, in the bishopric of his ward, a great father and husband, and a terrific person.  He did all the work on our kitchen, and two bathrooms.  He and his family moved about 4 years ago to Fall River Mills (about 4 hours away), but they would stop in when they were in town.  In fact, Greg did just that last spring.  He came by to see us and we had a great visit.  He was healthy and happy, and I'm glad we got to see him like that.  I am making pumpkin bread right now for his funeral and my house smells heavenly.  If you know Greg you might like to check out this memorial about him. 

Our Dirt Road

The machine that runs only at naptime.

There has been a big project going on on our street.  We aren't really sure what they are doing.  We think they are going to eventually repave the road, but first they had to drop dirt on the road, then pound it in with the enormous roller, then dig the dirt up and put it elsewhere on the road, then bring more to us and drop it on our road and then pound it into the ground again.  This has been done over and over.  Our house shakes and rattles.  One day I thought the windows were going to break.  They bring the big trucks, rollers, and diggers by around 1:00 p.m. everyday.  I don't have to tell you that is exactly naptime at our house.  We are happy with the way the road looks and is monitored.  No one is allowed down our street unless they live here.  This makes our usually busy throughfare of a street not very busy.  It is great and right now very quiet.  Maybe we can let the kids play out front.  :)  Here are some more shots of the work going on out front.

View from out my front door.

Digging up the dirt and putting it in yet another big truck.

What To Do? Have To's or Want To's?



Henry are you doing homework? 

 Today is yet another day of what we do here at the Hay House.  I don't get much done in the way of keeping up my house, but I do much in the way of getting kids ready for school, taking kids to school, picking kids up from school, serving snacks, lunch, and dinner, taking a webelos to scouts, running errands and getting everything on the oldest child's wal-mart list.  :)  Tom serves breakfast.  I'm just feeling a bit overwhelmed with the unfinished things in the house.   There are so many things on my want to do list like painting the living room, my bedroom and the kitchen area, finishing the boys crown molding, and organizing the garage, but I'm the type of person who can't do the want to's until the have  to's are done.  How long do you think it will take for me to get the have to's done.  Well here I go off to work some magic.  :)  Yeah, right.

New Haircuts

My boys with their ears lowered.  :)

My dad takes the boys one by one to the barber when they need new cuts.  Today is the day.  He took Henry this morning and Matthew after Kindergarten.  He is picking Thomas up from school and taking him.  What a great Pa.  I think it will be a special time each boy will remember having with his Pa.  Henry is pretty funny I guess at the barber.  No matter who's turn it is once Henry has walked into the shop it is his.  He waits for the next chair and climbs in.  All the men in the shop get a big kick out of it.  Parker Whitney is having school pictures tomorrow so I'm glad Dad took them today to get their new do's for school pictures.  I'm even going to have Henry take a school picture, he is in pre-school after all.  :)

The Family Vacation

Is that snow or hail?

How can I not write about our family vacation this year.  It has become a tradition for us to go on a camping trip for our family vacation.  We have, in fact, become quite good at camping.  We have all the gear in our garage organized and in bins so we have easy access to it.  We also borrow a friend's trailer because we can not fit all our gear in our van.  This year was no different.  We were packed to the gills and headed off to Grover Hot Springs (about 3 hours away).  We left on a nice summer Sat. morning.  All was right with the world.  The gang was happy and looking forward to the 6 days of camping bliss.  As we traveled farther into the mountains it began to look stormy.  We didn't pay much attention to it it was summer after all and it didn't storm in summer right?  We get our campground and we were informed at the ranger's station that there had been mountain lion and bear activity even during the day.   Tom and I had to "act" brave because the ranger said all this loud enough for the gang to hear.  There were plenty of questions as we began to unload.  We had just started on the tent when the hail started.  Yes, hail.  We hadn't had time to put the rain fly over the tent so soaked we got and some of our gear got soaked.  We have a waterproof tent so there was a lake on the bottom of the tent.  I was cooking dinner during the downpour and we decided we could eat there so into the little town we went and found a picnic table with an overhang to eat under.  Everyone was wet and cold.  Tom and I did not want to stay there that night so we drove 30 min. into a town in Nevada called Minden where we got the last hotel room at the casino there.  The next morning we washed and dried clothes at the laundry mat and then went onto setting up camp.  I was a little skeptical of how fun our trip would be after all the rain, but we had a ball.  Scott, Kelly and Ali came on Sunday and stayed for a few hours with us and brought us fried chicken and bread.  Just what we needed as it also rained on Sunday.  Monday we went to the hot springs and pool.  After we spent a good amount of time there we went back to camp and Grandma and Grandpa came to visit with us they stayed until Tuesday around noon.  We went looking for a lake to swim and picnic by.  Wednesday we went into South Lake Tahoe and had a picnic and swam.  Thursday we came home.  The kids rode their bikes and joined the Jr Rangers.  They made friends and played in the dirt.  We had smores, campfires and went to the campfires put on by the rangers.  It was great and we are even talking about going back next year.  Here are some of our photos from the week.  Notice the hail it looks like snow.  BRRRRRR!

A changing tent and a sleeping tent.  I'm a mom who doesn't like footprints on her pillow. 

Henry was trying to channel a bear.   The rest of us were enjoying the campfire.

Henry enjoying a smore.  Are those glasses to keep the smoke out of your eyes?  :)

Macie do you love marshmallows or the chocolate to go with?  Am I the smore making station?

Thomas found a fishing line at Blue Lake.  Macie got into the ice cold water.  The lake was a beautiful blue.

The gang playing at Lake Tahoe.  Juli is behind Macie digging in the sand. 

Ali, Scott, Macie and Stacey playing cards, and trying to stay dry.

The School Year is Here

All I seem to be doing lately on this blog is catching up. I haven't posted in 3 months. It seems crazy that that amount of time has gone by. The kids survived the summer and swim team. All got personal best times. We went on a family vacation to Grover Hot Springs and stayed for 6 days. We all had a great time and were on high alert for bears and mountain lions. The gang rode bikes, played in the dirt, made new friends and became Jr. Rangers. Kelly, Scott and Ali came and visited and on Monday mom and dad came and stayed in their truck over night. Grandma and Grandpa have bought a new house with a pool and we have spent many an hour over there swimming to our hearts content. We went school shopping and met our new teachers before school started. The first day of school brought Emily and Ali over for some doing of the hair. Everyone looked great. Poor Henry was very sad that day as everyone left and he was all alone with me. The next day he got to go to his speech pre-school class and all was right with the world. Of course, when all is right with the world that means I'm in for some upsets of some kind. Matthew didn't disappoint. He has announced that he is not going back to kindergarten anytime soon. He told me he wishes he were still 4. Poor little guy. It is so hard to sit still for that long.

This new way of adding pictures is really throwing me.  I need to figure this out before I post more.  I was going to show some of my favorites from August, but with the troubles I've had posting these I'll spare you.  By the way, we took 237 pictures in August all from our camping trip, Donner lake Eco Logic family picnic, and the first day of school.  Wow that's a lot of pictures.  :)