Cherry Time!

Every July we head to Rob's parents' place to help with their cherry harvest. They have around 3,000 cherry trees over 11 acres. We look forward to this yearly event, because it's a chance to see all of Rob's family. Cove is a beautiful place, nestled up agains a moutain. Grandpa grows the best cherries there!This year we had 30 pickers to keep up with. Rob is looking for more buckets to dump into the bins.

The pickers are paid by the bucket, so we have to punch their card for each bucket, and keep track of where they move throughout the orchard. I keep referring to the work with "we," when really I'm mostly down at the house trying to keep our kids entertained, or at least out of trouble.

Rob's sister Sena hard at work in the orchard- when she's not busy teaching swimming lessons or water aerobics at the local swimming pool.

Grandpa R. heading up for another load of cherries to take to the co-op. From the upper orchard they have an amazing view of the valley, and the mountains. Isn't it just beautiful?!!! Rob and Grandpa getting back from a trip to the co-op. They had 14 loads in one day (that's a lot)!Our kids' favorite thing to do is eat cherries. Sticky cherry juice mixed with the dark soil they have there, makes for really messy kids. Sarah would get so dirty that she had to get cleaned up before even getting in the tub.
Disgusting! Have you ever seen such dirty feet? Let's see... Oh yeah, last year at cherries. Nathan, my clean one, even gets messy. Matthew apparently likes eating dirt as well as cherries. He was very disappointed that he couldn't reach the cherries on the trees by himself.
More to come on CHERRIES...

The Pines

The Pines is what we call my parents' property in the Uintas in Wyoming. It is so beautiful up there- it's one of our favorite places to go. We've built a bunkhouse and are working on a bath house. There is a lot of work to do, but we love going up and enjoying the great outdoors and being with family. Eventually we will build a cabin here.

Rob and my brother Evan are working in the bath house.Grandma Z. in the bunkhouse. We went to Meek's Cabin Reservoir for an afternoon paddling in our inflatible kayaks. It was so beautiful and peaceful. The best view is from the center of the lake looking towards King's Peak, but Rob won't let me take our camera out in the boat (I don't blame him). You'll just have to imagine the beauty.
Sarah boating with Uncle Evan. Rob taking Sarah and Nathan.
Sarah loves her Uncle Evan and Aunt Toni. Evan took her wading in the lake. Burrrrr! She and Nathan didn't seem to mind the cold.

Sarah was thinking it was so funny that her Mom and Dad just had her go pee in the lake. What great parents eh?! She was hilarious! (Hey- there wasn't a bathroom or outhouse for miles!)

4th of July Parade

Our kids were all sad that we didn't make it to a parade for Independence Day, so we decided to have our own. We decorated our bikes, scooters, strollers and kids. We gave them candy to throw- which they thought was the best part! We even had music donated by Grandma & Grandpa's neighbors. It was so cute. Several neighbors came out to watch our procession. We even had some neighbor boys follow us, picking up all the candy we threw.

Cute Kids

Have I ever said that we have the cutest kids in the whole world? They are so much fun!

Matthew loves to ride on his Mater. Sarah loves being in pictures.

Notice Sarah's beautifully painted fingernails- compliments of her friend Emma's birthday party. Thanks! She didn't know about such things until now. Now she wants me to paint her toenails too! She loves it! It's good she has girly influences from her friends, because she doesn't get it at home. Nathan used to run away when I wanted to take a picture of him. Now he knows I might put it on our blog, so he hams it up. That's a lot of posts for one day, but I needed to get something on here for Grandpa to look at. Love ya!

Nathan Earns His Bike!

We were planning on getting Nathan a new bike this spring for his birthday, but he opted for a scooter instead. He loved going to the cul-de-sac behind us and riding his scooter with the neighbor kids. One day I looked out to check on him, and he was riding the neighbor's bike! He had taught himself how to ride. He was way too big for his little bike, yet we didn't want to just buy him a bike when it wasn't his birthday or Christmas (we're funny that way). Anyway, we decided he could earn a new bike by reading 50 books or chapters. He wasn't loving reading, and we needed to get him reading more over the summer. This seemed like a great solution. Luckily it worked! It took him a while to get into it, but now he loves reading, and loves his new bike. Now we bike everywhere! I am really enjoying biking to and from school with him everyday. Sarah and Matthew ride in the bike trailer and think it's pretty fun. We are so proud of him! It was a lot of work.

Daddy's Back!

Yeah! Daddy is back from Washington. We were really glad he could be there with his Dad and Mom in the hospital, but after 6 days we are thrilled to have him home.

Nathan's Lost Tooth

Nathan lost his 2nd tooth, and looks so cute with a gap in his mouth. His first tooth he lost had another tooth coming up behind it, so we never got the toothless grin. He was so excited to lose his tooth, yet had trauma over leaving it under his pillow for the Tooth Fairy. He wanted the money, yet wanted to keep his tooth (why... I don't know!). That went into a conversation about the Tooth Fairy, with far too many questions! How do you explain such things that really don't make sense at all?!

Grandpa R.

Our Grandpa R. was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) last week, and is now in the hospital undergoing intense chemotherapy. Our hearts and thoughts are with him, and he is always in our prayers. We are glad that Rob was able to go be with him and Grandma R. We appreciate his sisters being able to be there as well. It breaks my heart that we aren't able to be there too. I wish they weren't so far away. I started this blog so we can stay in touch with them better, and send our love.

We love you Grandpa R! Here are some messages from the kids.

The kids love to play out side. Check out Sarah's amazing flexibility! I had never thought of trying to go down the slide while doing the splits. Rob put in a ton of hours on our back yard this summer. It looks great, and is so fun.

Nathan, Sarah and Matthew. Despite how it looks in the picture, Matthew really does love going down the slide.

Let's try out this Blogging

I'm new to the whole blogging world, so let's see how this goes. Rob and Nathan are in one boat, and Jill and Sarah are in the other. We had a great time paddling around Meek's Resevoir.