First week of school

Well, the first week of school is almost over and I am tired. Meghan is out the door in the morning by 5:40am to go to Seminary that starts at 6:00am. I then take Paige to school about 7:40am and pick up her very bbf and head up to Leid MS. I then come home and get Madison ready and out the door by 8:40am and get her to school just a bit early so she can play on the playground with her friends before the morning opening starts at 8:55am. Parker and I then come home and do errands, or think about a NAP. Just kidding. I am doing pretty good. I am just tring to set up a couple more carpools so I can subsitute teach a couple days a week and know that all my children are taken care of. No pictures of the first day of school because Meghan wasn't nearly awake for one and of course she is in HS now so Mom can't do any fun things like that. But as I recall, I haven't done that for three years with her. Teenage years have hit and Mom is only popular if she can have a cell phone. Paige was just as excited as she could be but the almost teenager still didn't like the idea of picures on the first day of school and by the time I took Madison, I just completely forgot. Life is much more busy with three kids at three different schools. I am sure I will manage but these past days have gone super quick with all the driving I am doing to and from schools.

Extreme Makeover - Bathroom Edition

Hi all...

Kendra's coaching me (Jim) on this. Funny, I'm on the computer all day, but she and Meghan are the ones who are operating in the 21st century when it comes to technology. Anyway, I wanted to post a couple of pictures showing what I working on while everyone was away in Colorado.

Earlier this year, we noticed some tiles in the shower beginning to push out from the wall and an ever growing loss of grout. In order to tear out the tile and fix the problem, we'd have to sacrifice the use of the 2nd bathroom for at least a week, probably 2. When Kendra began planning her trip and my vacation time not enough to join them, I decided to use my solitary time to fix our problem.

Well, once the tile came off, I found lots of mold, which required structural demolition. Also, our sinks were breaking and showing rust in the bowls. Of course, the new tile didn't match the tile our counter top was covered with, and the old tub just didn't look right with all the new stuff...you probably have guessed that one thing led to another and when it was all done with, the tile was replaced, the sinks and countertop was replaced, and the tub was replaced. To bring it up to today's designs, we also removed the old '80s looking mirror and bar-light over the vanity and replaced with something more stylish (the light fixture cost only $5). Since more was done than originally planned and because of some poor measuring on my part, we encountered some delays and my 2 week project turned into 3 1/2. I'm very happy with it, however. The shower is bigger and now has a light over it so it doesn't feel like you're in the dark, the tub is deeper with jacuzzi jets, the counter no longer has grout to constantly clean, and everything that was bad before has been repaired. I sure pays to work for a General Contractor some times. Kendra picked out a fantastic looking tile, too.

Happy Birthday Madison

Madison had her 7th Birthday on Monday and all she wanted to do was invite friends and play with them at a park that had a water feature. The park she choose was smaller and wasn't crowded at all. We actually had the whole park basically to ourselves. They played in the water and played games for about one hour then we went back to the house and made paper crowns, had cake, and opened presents. She had a BLAST! Life is so simple when she is happy with friends.

Apples, Apples, and more apples.

We picked 25 gallons of apples and that made a lot. I thinks this is the total count of production for the two weeks I was in Durango. We made three pies and one apple crisp. I brought home over 36 jars of jam (raspberry, strawberry and apricot), 12 quart jars of apple juice, 8 round tables of fruit leather (roll-ups), 18 pints of frozen raspberries. My dad's raspberry patch was doing very well this year. By the time we left, we had picked around 120 pints of raspberries. TONS! I also helped my mom freeze raspberries for my siblings in California, and my nephew froze some for his family in Rexburg. We also made jam for my brother. It was a busy two weeks and I think I forgot how much work I used to do in the summer when I was growing up.

More Farm Pictures

Here we are making applesauce and fruit leather (roll-ups). We didn't roll them up. We spread the applesauce on a round table on black plastic and let the sun do the work. We did 10 tables of fruit leather, five apple and five apple/apricot. We got home on Saturday night around 6 p.m and that night I was exhausted . Driving 10 hours and the work we did the last two weeks I slept very well in my own bed. We did do some fun things too. The kids played badminton, played at the Durango rec center, played at two awesome parks in Durango, went to the Durango fair and saw pigs, cows, sheep, goats, rabbits, chickens, duck, and turkeys. We also enjoyed Grandma Sheila's new patio with a new firepit.

More of Farm life

We have more farm stories to share. The other day we made apple pies, apple juice and apple sauce to make fruit roll-ups. I had the pictures but didn't bring my camera to the library that has the internet connection. I will post those later this week because we are going to do more apple juice, apple sauce and apple pie filling on Wednesday. I think the kids are getting sick of all the work we have to do on the farm. This morning they asked what was on the schedule and I said nothing unless you want to do more apple sauce to make fruit rollups with. They declined and wanted to go to the park. So we went after lunch. The park was good for a while until they got bored but the Animas River (which runs through Durango) was only 20 feet way. It was hot and so Parker, Madison and Paige went and put their feet in. Not one minute later, Parker was jumping into the river with a big splash and is know soaking wet to his neck. Madison sat down in the river on her knees and so she is soaking wet too. Of course the camera is at my mom's house. They did have fun but when the wind blew they were freezing wet with mountain river water on them. It was an adventure today. My computer A/C adapter died so I had to go buy another or life without the laptop would be just horrible on the way home on Saturday. Meghan spent four hours at the public library getting caught up on here emailing, posting and talking with friends. Meghan is the one who has been away from real-life technology for almost three weeks (who can blame the teenager from going through technology withdrawl).
We are having fun, but still a lot of work to do on the farm to help my parents. Stay tuned in for more pictures of FARM LIFE to come later.