Our Creek and The Baby Digger

Some of you know, we had a beautiful creek running through our back yard, see pic above. Sandy City decided to take the water from the creek. With no water, we were left with a dried up stomping ground for neighbor hoodlums. We (Justin) decided to plow it in and extend our yard about 20 feet. Through some connections, we got to have the 'baby digger' for a weekend.

And it begins...

A few hours later, goodbye creek. The only pic I have of the creek filled in has Isaac showing us his muscles in his favorite hand-me-down sweat pants (no, I don't let him out in public looking like this). Our spring will be filled the taming the jungle that grew back there and making it just perfect for our family.

Halloween 2010

This year Isaac picked our families Halloween costumes. We were on our way to Ross, don't remember what we were shopping for, when he just started rattling it off to me, until all of us had our Halloween costume assignments. I got to work and a week later we were transformed.

Gracie Girl

(October 18, 2010) Grace is obsessed with two things right now 'favrics' (fabrics...is she her mommas girl or what?) and tea parties. This morning was a light bulb moment for her. Why not combine the two. What a cute little stinker! Thanks for the fabric animals Mom, she still plays with them contantly.

Honey Harvest

The long awaited day had finally come. After loosing our first batch of bees in the spring, we weren't sure how much, if any, honey we would get to harvest. October 12th was honey harvesting day.

Justin all ready to not get stung...not successful... The bees are very protective of all their hard work and didn't really like us taking their honey!


Isaac and Justin getting all the bees out of the boxes of honey. At the beginning of the year I would have freaked out at the thought of my kids sitting this close to a box of bees, but I guess you just get used to it. Bees really aren't that scary.


You can usually tell when nectar has curred and reached the honey stage because the bees will put a wax cap on the honeycomb. Sometimes not all the honeycomb on a frame has been capped. You can tell if it is at the honey stage and safe to harvest if you hold it upside down and it doesn't drip out of the honeycomb.


After all the bees had been removed from the hive we brought the production inside. The bees would have attacked us if we hadn't.


Justin is using an uncapping knife. Don't know if that's a technical term or not... It's like a hot bread knife used to cut the wax cap off the top of the honeycomb.


After the caps have been taken off both sides of the frame you slide the frame into this contraption, a honey extractor. It's basically a 50 gallon barrel with some slots in it to hold the frames. Close the lid, turn the handle, the inside frames spin and honey comes flying out!


Fun for the whole family

After the honey was extracted we transferred it to this 6 gallon storage bucket, straining it to make sure we didn't get any wax chunks in our honey.

This year we harvested 6 gallons of honey and 2 pounds of beeswax. The bees are currently on hiatus until about April.

Tinkering

This morning Isaac and Grace decided our table and chairs needed a little tune up. They promptly brought all Isaacs tools and spare car parts upstairs to do the job.

Shhh...don't tell Isaac the nail head goes the other way.

Capitol Reef...Again

And, back to Capitol Reef, this time with our friends the Chamberlains. Again, enjoying several hikes, the Fruita school house, the fruit orchards and the amphitheater presentations. On this trip Isaac discovered what an echo truly was. He and the Chamberlain kiddos loved hiking in the Canyons for that very reason.

Gracie Turns 2

In September Grace turned two. I love how Isaac is 'helping' her with everything. Here are a few highlights.

Graces LOVES Ariel from the Little Mermaid. So, she got an Ariel tea party set. She is the meaning of the word girl. We aren't up but five minutes in the morning before she's asking to get dressed and do her hair. And, of course she always has to have a bow in her hair and must wear a 'skirty.' She loves to play with her baby and is becoming quite the little mother. She is very tender hearted. If there is even the slightest hint of disappointment in your voice when talking to her, her little bottom lip starts quivering. And, I don't know what we'd do without her love for singing. She is almost always singing a song. She lights up our days.

Cute Kiddos

Just a few pics that help me remember how much I love my kids! These two have grown to be pretty good buddies. I LOVE it!

The Canyon of the Broken Mountains

That's what Isaac calls Capitol Reef National Park. He (we all) love to camp there. We headed down there the first week in September with our friends and neighbors the Ellsworths. I love camping with other families that have kids. Makes me feel better when my kids throw fits and don't sleep at night.

We had tons of fun playing on all the old farm equipment, watching the horses, hiking and picking the orchards clean.

My Two Hooligans

Something like this happens almost everyday. The picture doesn't do justice to the amount of soap suds that mounded my bathroom counters and floors. Somedays I get a little irriatated by the shenanigans these two pull. But, most days I'm just really happy they have each other and enjoy one anothers company. Even if I have to clean up after them. At least my bathroom was clean, right?!

Uintas

I know some of you, if there are any readers left, are wondering if we'll ever post again. We'll it's my goal to be better at keeping up the blog. I really want to at least finish out last year. So...

In August we took a camping trip to the Uinta mountains with our friends the Johnsons. They have two little boys just about the same age as Isaac and Grace so it makes camping with them really nice. Tent camping in the Uinta's in August is pretty chilly, but we survived. Here are a few highlights.

Cecret Lake

One of our many hikes this summer. This one happened to be in August. We hiked up to Cecret Lake, ate peaches by the lake side and hiked down. Our kiddos are quite the hikers, both insisted on hiking the whole way themselves. We were there right at the peak of wildflower season. Great time to be in the mountains.