Okay, so I got WAY behind on our blog lately. It's been a crazy past few weeks. So to catch you up, here's story #1:
One day, we went for a walk around the neighborhood and Jax suddenly went running around the empty lots at top speed with his head in a utility cover tube thingy. It was so funny looking! He just plowed it around without being able to see where he was going. After he quit plowing it, Brice went and looked in it. He was pretty sure there was a small animal in it that Jax was trying to get. Jax hunts field mice. Sure enough, here's what we found down in the tube:
Next we have some new projects we've completed that are pretty cool. A neighbor down the street put in some sod and he had a palate of sod leftover. Since we are the only ones on our block without grass, he gave it to us! Free sod! Yippee! So we laid that sod and then we really wanted to sod the rest of that patch of yard so that the grasses would be the same and so that we wouldn't be wasting water (that set of sprinklers was watering half grass and half dirt). So we got enough sod to finish that portion of the yard. Here's a picture of the sod from our neighbor; I don't have a picture of the whole patch with sod yet, but it looks awesome and it is so much nicer to sit on and play on than dirt! Keeps the house cleaner too.
Our other project was a dog house. With the heat and the rain, I hated bringing muddy dogs in the house, but felt too bad for them to leave them outside without shelter. So we built a dog house. I did the first half myself and Brice helped with the rest. I think it turned out great and the dogs love it! And it wasn't a moment too soon either. We had a temporary addition to our dog pack. He came creeping up the driveway toward Brice one rainy morning and he was drenched and shivering. So Brice brought him up to our room wrapped in a blanket and said, "I brought you something to play with today." He was so cute and cuddly and pitiful!
Here is the cute little stray puppy. He was such a sweet little thing. He was mellow (neither of our dogs are at all mellow! Well, Jax is mellow sometimes when he's in the house sleeping) and cuddly and Raelin just loved him! We walked around the neighborhood looking for his home, but we didn't find it. We put up signs in all the surrounding neighborhoods, but we didn't get any calls for two weeks.
At the end of two weeks, we decided to find him a permanent home. Three dogs was too much for us and he was too sweet to send to the pound. So we gave him to a neighbor family that had expressed an interest. The day after we gave him to them, the owners finally called! Unfortunately, the neighbor family's encounter with the owner kind of confirmed our suspicions that the puppy had been mistreated (he piddled a lot). When the owner went to the neighbors' house to get him, the man called the puppy and the puppy cowered and didn't want to go to him. Poor puppy. We wish we would have taken the signs down as soon as we gave him to the other family. But, what can you do? Just look at that cute little face! How can you not just love him to pieces!?
So, the real excitement of late was the fair. The kids went to the fair last year and they loved it and talked about it for a LONG time afterwards. So this year, we really wanted to make a big deal of it for them. We went one evening and the first ride they went on was a roller coaster for kids. In line, Raelin was skeptical and Ryker was excited. Raelin was kinda scared and worried, but Ryker couldn't wait to go! We put them on the ride and went and stood where we could see them. As soon as they came around the first bend, their roles completely changed! Raelin was smiling from ear to ear and waving her hands and Ryker had gritted teeth and big, huge eyes and a terrified look on his face. Oh, it was priceless! I was sad it was too dark for pictures. Every time the kids passed us, Raelin would wave and Ryker was too scared to hear us screaming his name. Finally, about the fourth time around he saw us and finally smiled. When they got off the ride, we asked Ryker what he thought and he said, "Ga-REAT!"
The next morning we went to our friends' house for breakfast and walked a half a block to main street for the parade. The kids loved it! The kids got lots of candy and got to see horses and tractors and all kinds of cool stuff.
The picture above is Ryker running back from the middle of the road with the candy he scored.
We're tight with Ronald McDonald, so he came and said hi to us. He's a funny guy.
After the parade, we went back to our friend's house and had a BBQ and a water balloon fight. The kids ran through the sprinklers and had a great time!
Our other project was a dog house. With the heat and the rain, I hated bringing muddy dogs in the house, but felt too bad for them to leave them outside without shelter. So we built a dog house. I did the first half myself and Brice helped with the rest. I think it turned out great and the dogs love it! And it wasn't a moment too soon either. We had a temporary addition to our dog pack. He came creeping up the driveway toward Brice one rainy morning and he was drenched and shivering. So Brice brought him up to our room wrapped in a blanket and said, "I brought you something to play with today." He was so cute and cuddly and pitiful!
Here is the cute little stray puppy. He was such a sweet little thing. He was mellow (neither of our dogs are at all mellow! Well, Jax is mellow sometimes when he's in the house sleeping) and cuddly and Raelin just loved him! We walked around the neighborhood looking for his home, but we didn't find it. We put up signs in all the surrounding neighborhoods, but we didn't get any calls for two weeks.
At the end of two weeks, we decided to find him a permanent home. Three dogs was too much for us and he was too sweet to send to the pound. So we gave him to a neighbor family that had expressed an interest. The day after we gave him to them, the owners finally called! Unfortunately, the neighbor family's encounter with the owner kind of confirmed our suspicions that the puppy had been mistreated (he piddled a lot). When the owner went to the neighbors' house to get him, the man called the puppy and the puppy cowered and didn't want to go to him. Poor puppy. We wish we would have taken the signs down as soon as we gave him to the other family. But, what can you do? Just look at that cute little face! How can you not just love him to pieces!?
So, the real excitement of late was the fair. The kids went to the fair last year and they loved it and talked about it for a LONG time afterwards. So this year, we really wanted to make a big deal of it for them. We went one evening and the first ride they went on was a roller coaster for kids. In line, Raelin was skeptical and Ryker was excited. Raelin was kinda scared and worried, but Ryker couldn't wait to go! We put them on the ride and went and stood where we could see them. As soon as they came around the first bend, their roles completely changed! Raelin was smiling from ear to ear and waving her hands and Ryker had gritted teeth and big, huge eyes and a terrified look on his face. Oh, it was priceless! I was sad it was too dark for pictures. Every time the kids passed us, Raelin would wave and Ryker was too scared to hear us screaming his name. Finally, about the fourth time around he saw us and finally smiled. When they got off the ride, we asked Ryker what he thought and he said, "Ga-REAT!"The next morning we went to our friends' house for breakfast and walked a half a block to main street for the parade. The kids loved it! The kids got lots of candy and got to see horses and tractors and all kinds of cool stuff.
The picture above is Ryker running back from the middle of the road with the candy he scored.
We're tight with Ronald McDonald, so he came and said hi to us. He's a funny guy.
After the parade, we went back to our friend's house and had a BBQ and a water balloon fight. The kids ran through the sprinklers and had a great time!
Then we went home and took naps for a little while before going back to the fair for dinner with Granddad and some more fun rides. The kids and Brice went on the ferris wheel and they LOVED it!
This is what you get at the end of a day like this one, but their day wasn't over yet! We went up to some friends' house in Alpine because I had to interview an adolescent for my class (this was Saturday night and the paper was due Monday! I was pushing my luck!). While I did the interview, the Rossi's let the kids swim in their pool. They had a great time and we were there swimming and talking (and eating their delicious homemade applesauce) until 10:00 at night! Oh, what a busy day!
(How does she sleep like that!?! We try to lean her against the door all the time, but she always flops back over like this)Now, backtracking a bit, here are pictures of my cute and funny boys. Random and storyless, but I love Ryker's face and I thought some of you California folks would like to see Brice's long hair. It's longer now and, much to Brice's brother William's chagrin, there seem to be no plans in sight for a haircut!
Backtracking still more, we went up to William and Angel's new house in Deweyville (AKA middle-of-nowhere; most of the people in the bordering town have never heard of it). They have a great new house and we went for a fun and beautiful little hike. We found this pond and the river and a dead river rat. Gross. Don't worry--I didn't take its picture.
One, two, three, WEEEEEE!!!!
Okay, the end! I'll try to keep up better for you in the future, but I do have an excuse. Several, actually, but I'll get to those in another post when I have pictures to go with them. One of them was just that finals were killer! And like I said, I procrastinated my final paper to the literal last minute. I was ten minutes late to class but I finished it! I actually wrote the whole 10 page paper in the morning on the day it was due.