Our Week on the Farm (AKA Grandma and Grandpa's House)

The kids and I went to my parents' house for a week. Utah Dad stayed behind to work and do some projects for his MBA. My sister and her family joined us. My goal for the trip was to get the kids outside as much as possible. The week started out hot and windy and we hid inside. Fortunately, the weather improved and the kids were able to go outside.

The kids were so excited to meet the newest baby horses. Scout (the paint) and Kit (the brown one) were born this spring. Having two new babies sort of made up for the loss of the kids' old favorites Cookie and Chip. My parents now have eleven horses and six are a year old or less. Ollie and Bess, the foals born last spring, quickly became favorites. They are escape artists. They got out of the pasture near the house so we put them in with the other horses by the pond. They got out from that field too so we moved them to the corrals near the house. Having them close, the kids were able to visit frequently and feed them "salads".

In the evenings, we would walk down to the pond to feed the horses a few oats. The kids just could not resist the pond. I am allergic to Russian Olive trees, sage brush, alfalfa and probably horses (apparently I'm allergic to my childhood), so every time I walked outside I was pretty miserable (even with allergy meds) but I used two boxes of tissues and endured.

The kids spent a lot of time playing in the new sandbox that the guys built during our Easter trip. I got to sweep up plenty of sand and try to scrub it from their hair.

The kids also love the swing in the maple tree and the tree house where they can do puppet shows. My mom also installed a television and DVD player in the tree house this summer. I think they watched part of one movie. They were too busy to sit still.

They insisted that we return to the pond to attempt to catch frogs. We could hear some but they were never able to capture one in their jars. They really just like getting wet and muddy.

We took pictures of my sister Kim's girls. They are so darling. They're getting anxious for their new baby sister to arrive this summer.

We went to my nephew's tournament baseball game one evening. He hit a home run. He's pretty, dang awesome. The kids lost interest and we ending up playing at the park. It seems that I am allergic to baseball too.

My sister-in-law and her boys brought over one of their new baby bunnies. The kids fell in love with it and proceeded to beg for their own baby bunny. I'm nearly 100% sure I'm allergic to bunnies too.

One hot afternoon we took the kids to the Western Heritage Museum. They had all kinds of fun things to look at and learn about. The kids had a great time searching for all the items on the Bingo cards that the museum gave them. 

I was excited to discover that the First Lady dolls that had been in the library during my childhood were now part of the museum. I had just recently been wondering where they had gone.

We played some basketball.

One afternoon, my sister planned a picnic for the kids. After they ate, they raced each other in gunny sacks.

Neal went golfing with Grandpa, Uncle Marcus and his cousin. He had fun and only regretted that he didn't ask Grandpa if he could drive the cart.

The kids built huts under the lilacs where we had our own huts as children. We did some weeding in the strawberry patch and helped Grandma cover the raspberries with netting. We pruned some bushes and made some fences to protect the new fruit trees from the deer.

We let Neal stay up each night with the adults to play the marble game and eat lots of ice cream.

I used transferred all our old home videos from the archaic little tapes to DVDs and watched hours of footage of Neal laying on the floor as a baby.

I helped my mom deep clean her book shelves where I discovered a book about my dad's family history. I spent some enjoyable time reading about my ancestors--especially the crazy stories. My mom introduced me to the new LDS Family Search and I'm anxious to spend more time researching my family history.

(picture from www.ldschurchtemples.com)

My sister and I went to the temple one afternoon during my dad's shift. We saw our 9th grade geometry teacher. I always enjoy going to the Vernal Temple. It's small and intimate and relaxed.

The last evening there we attempted to take some "cutesy" pictures of the girls. They were only a little bit cooperative.

We had a fabulous week and the kids are already begging to go back again this summer.