Building a Foundation

We decided to try to build a wood shop in the back yard so:

1-All the tools have a place to live.

2-We don't have to carry them all outside in the day and back in at night.

3-We can have them all set up to use whenever we want to build something.

4-We won't have tools all over the yard.

5-OH, and one more thing. I can have my laundry room....well...for a laundry room.

It may take us a whole year to just build the thing, but we're going to get the cement foundation poured on Friday. Of course since I've never really poured cement and Jayd is the only one with any experience, we kind of let him be in charge and we got some frames ready.

It was a lot more work than it looked like though, so we asked for some help. Good thing Cory, Rodney and Dan helped. We had to get 30 wheelbarrow loads of gravel to put in the frames, and then we cut the old railroad ties to finish around the swings. It would have taken Jayd and me all day doing it by ourselves. So we're ready for the truck to bring in the cement on Friday. Wish us luck!!

Old Chimneys and New Pathways

So what do you do with all the old bricks from a chimney?

You make a pathway to the water faucet so you don't have to step in the mud, and if you look close you can see that it isn't very level, but at least the water will all run away from the house.

And now you know what do do with any old bricks.

(Ignore all the apples on the ground, I can't keep up but if some of them don't fall off early the branches on the tree will all break cause it's growing apples by the bushel!)

Rides, Late Nights and the Zoo

This summer seems to be in a hurry to pass, so we wanted to take the time to do something memorable with the boys. They got to spend a week with Josh and Ashlee and had a blast. They spent 2 days at Lagoon on all the scary rides and had a fun time. Just hearing about some of them made me dizzy. They had some late nights staying up playing "Wryth" with Josh and that was a real exciting thing for them. They showed me pictures that Josh drew of their characters. If he ever gets tired of school, he could illustrate books or something with his drawings. They are amazing.

Dan and I drove up to Tooele on Friday and got the boys from Josh and Ashlee on Saturday morning at the zoo. The only one that has been to the zoo before is Jayd, but he was only about 1 year old, so he doesn't remember it at all. (go figure)

We were accompanied to the zoo by our friends Allan and Kayleen and their children Anna and Josh. Grandpa Jay and Shirley met us there and Jeremy and Jeanette arrived later, so we had a fun filled day, visiting with family, friends and watching the animals. Jarell was thrilled seeing all the animals he's only read about in books and seen on TV. He took the camera and got some good shots of some of them.

We started the day by watching a bird show. They had all kinds of trained birds flying around, some just barely whizzing over our heads. There were some large birds of prey and an American Eagle. It was very impressive. Jarell gave a cockatoo a dollar bill and it put it in a donation box.

The boys liked this big metal elephant. It made weird trombone noises.

Jarell was happy that there were some penguins, his favorite animal.

Josh McQueen, Jeremy, Jeanette, Joel, Jayd and Dan

These turtles were fun to watch.

The wolf came right up to the fence. It almost just looks like a big friendly dog.

This tiger was too busy eating and wouldn't turn around for a good picture.

The giraffe wasn't shy though and came right up for a picture.

We had a great time at the zoo and hope it won't be 17 years before we go again.