First fish

 

My husband started fishing again last week. He brought home dinner for us on Thursday - it was great. A while ago, he sat down with the girls and helped them tie some flies of their own. The girls made some San Juan worms, which translates into a piece of red yarn like material tied to a hook. Well, he decided to take each girl out with him. Here's our daughter's first fish! And she caught it on her San Juan worm!
It was a 16.5 inch rainbow trout. It is now in the freezer. I learned how to gut a fish too. Not that I'm super excited about it, but at least I know how. Later, when he took our oldest daughter out, they got caught in a deluge 2 minutes after they started, so they've got a raincheck to go back.

Although they say that the next two weeks are supposed to be spectacular because of the caddis hatch, we've been having A LOT of rain every day, so the river is also running super high. My husband went out Saturday morning and said the water was very muddy, and a whole foot higher than it had been the afternoon before. We'll see what we come up with - just enjoying the summer!

Poets gone crazy

Give a kid a little web-time and they'll take over! Here's a new blog to follow:
Kittyspoetrypage

Here's some more original poetry from our house:

Jols and Flawrs (Jewels and Flowers)
Shining shining
Bide culrfl flawrs(pretty, colorful flowers)
Pek and blo (pink and blue)
Sbreg is hir (spring is near)
It is so biwtufl (it is so beautiful)
Seging grl hir and jar (singing girls here and there)
And petno ol spring (and pretty little spring)

Dolphins Splash
Dolphins splash among the waves
Dolphins splash wile (while) exploring underwater caves
Dolphins splash on you and I
Dolphins splash a watery sigh

A black Cat
To most people black cats are spooky
To me they're a luckey charrm
Black cats are among my favorite animals
To others they mean harm

One Day I Saw A Cheetah
A cheetas orange coat with spots zips by
Its going so fast - I wonder why
Perhaps its playing a game
Or maby others are laughing at its name
I'll probobly never find out
But if I do I'll giv a great shout:
Horray

Poetry by the greats

My kids have been writing poetry. Here are their latest creations:

Books
A book can take you anywhere
A book can be scary to raise your hair
A book could be full of magical creatures
But another book could be how to change your features
Still another book could be about you
But another book about someone you knew
I love books


A Rose Surprise
A rose is a thing of beauty
You give them to a cutie
But you'd better beware
'Cause a wasp could give you quite a scare
You'd come in like you'd seen a bear
And a bee could sting you on a knee
You'd shout and shout oowwwee! oowwwee!
A rose is a thing of beauty
Just use fake ones to give to your cutie


Hune, Hune in the the Sgi
Hune, hune, in the sgi (honey, honey in the sky)
Hune, hune, dir Carlie, I (honey, honey, dear Carlie I)
Ch at ch at (shout, shout)
Up so hi (up so high)
Bloberes to et (blueberries to eat)
Rasberes to et (raspberries to eat)

Bix (Bikes)
Bix (Bikes)
Sgodrs Deg(scooters ding)
Bix crsh (Bikes Crash)
Bageing bigr ples (beginning biking please)
Bix to rid (Bikes to ride)

This one is about how sweet I am

You are as swet as pi (you are as sweet as pie)
you are as swet as flawrs (you are as sweet as flowers)
and hrts and firwrx (and hearts and fireworks)
swet, swet hamuch you are swet (sweet, sweet, how much you are sweet)

Libraries, parks and exploring

The girls and I did some exploring earlier this week.
While my last post didn't work (the library video) here's the sweat on my little one's nose that she worked up hip hopping with the rapper about Dr. Seuss.

 

We spent some time going to a couple of different parks. I needed to take some pictures for my business in this one - the girls loved the little wishing well waterfall.

 

 

After several busses and bridges and lots of walking, we finally found this pirate park. We'd heard about it for years, but hadn't ever been able to find it. Unfortunately, it started to rain (more than the previous sprinkling we'd endured) so we had to postpone the rest of our play to another day.

 

Hip Hop at the Library

I'm hoping this video will work. The library had a hip hop artist come to the reading time program. We couldn't understand a word he said and it was SO darn loud - on the flip side, it was oh so fun to watch my kids trying to dance. Check out my little one in the purple on the right hand side:

Diving in

We've been busy with swimming lessons these past couple of weeks. Here's the dive into the deep end! You go girl!

 

 

Girls room

It seems like we've been spring cleaning. Maybe all of our kids' friends have been out of town, but we've been getting a lot done lately. We took all of the books and bookshelves out of the girls' room and moved them downstairs to a reading nook we made. Then we replaced the dresser with something much smaller, and rearranged. The girls couldn't believe how much room they had in their room! While the color is off for some reason, they girls really wanted a picture of their room - here they are!

 

 

And the walls came tumbling down

Here it is - hooray!!
When we bought our house, we weren't thrilled about the view of the school wall which faced our garage. Well, this week we woke up to a tractor running outside and all week long, they've been knocking down the wall in front of our house. No more graffitti magnets! (maybe that's where the kids learned it from?) Anways, we've been thrilled. Our view just got that much better! YAY!

 

Here's the new and improved view that I already love

 

Landscaping

Our HOA forced us to do some landscaping due to some negative drainage on our lot (so they say).
Here's the swell we put in. We cut back and pulled back all of the grass and then dug it out, connecting it to the front yard.

 

Here's our front yard. Yesterday we pulled out all of our rose bushes and some other plants and replaced them with some that we are really excited about. Our neighbor was getting rid of some rocks, so we added them in. We only broke the wagon and the dolly ferrying them over. My husband's artistic side came out as he placed the rocks to his liking.

 

Here are the plants we replaced the roses with. They should flower all summer, and are both white and pink. They are also (supposedly) deer resistant - we'll see.

 

Here's our back area around the sand box. We planted all of the surrounding plants (except the rhubarb). We will cover the remaining dirt with weed mat and mulch.

 

Here's the rest of our back area. Until now, it has been our kid's mud and dirt area. Well, we will be putting in a swath of flowers right above the rocks, and then mulching the rest of the back area around the trees and shrubs. Finally, it may look presentable.

Here's the rock path I was working on right at the gate. We removed the gate part of our fence and will be putting in an arbor and planting clematis all over it.

 

Here's my smashed finger that took me out of commission as I was working on the rock path. While the path looks a little muddy, we will be re-tackling it soon.

 

 

The Game

Last week my husband had to travel to Denver for work. We went with him and after wards we went to a Denver Rockies game. Here are some of our pics.
My man

 

Our daughter

 

Our daughter

 

Me and my baby

 

 

 

 

 

Unfortunately, we must have been the bad luck, as it was our first game. They lost their first game in an 11 game winning streak (and have won every one since this particular game.)
We got stuck in traffic that night due to a diesel that caught on fire and didn't make it home until 3:00 am. It was a very long night, exacerbated by my student showing up for her lesson at 7:45 am and swim lessons right afterward. We had a great time regardless.

Memorial Day in Moab

Over Memorial Day weekend, we traveled to Moab and met my husband's family for a family reunion. Our friend Frank also met us there (he's family to us) and we enjoyed spending a little bit of time with him as well.
We went to Monticello to the temple, and then to the Hole in the Wall where we saw some really cool things which had been welded together - like this jeep. Check out the wheels - they are completely welded together with scissors, tools, etc.

 

 

We love Arches National park and spend a couple of days (minimum) there every year. Following are a few photos from our stay.

 

 

Kids and flowers in Arches

Here are a couple of photos of our kids in Arches.

 

Here's the Utah State Flower - the sego lily

 

Our flowers:

 

 

A few more in Arches

It was overcast while we were there, and stormy in the evenings. We loved watching the storms come racing across the skies.

 

Here's our little graffitti artist posing with her defacement of federal/public property - we weren't as happy about her artwork as she was.

 

Here's a really cool tree with the arches in the background. We loved being there in the springtime as we were able to see all of the flowers and cacti in bloom - something you don't see very often in the desert - flowers.