"Have you made the blog private yet?" - Special Agent Justin Owens "No" - Me "We need to do that" - Special Agent Justin Owens "Why?" - Me "BeCAUSE I don't want people to see our stuff. There's weirdos and pedophiles out there and I don't want people to have access to our stuff" - Special Agent Justin Owens "But we have friends who aren't really close friends that look at it" - Me "What about people that don't like law enforcement and the IRS and see stuff like this and come do crap to our house" - Special Agent Justin Owens "Ha Ha" - Me as I type this as he is talking to me. "They could come shoot us!" - Special Agent Justin Owens as he quietly shakes his head and gets up and leaves and mocks me for mocking him. "I'm drinking milk without a cup so there!" - Special Agent Justin Owens Okay I guess I should make our blog private. Justin is in law enforc...
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Lately I've had to remind myself to pull the camera out and take pictures of our family every once in a while. These last few weekends and evenings have been so full of outside project work that we haven't had a chance to do anything fun. The coop was done enough to bring the chickens home but we have more chicken run to add as well as nesting boxes inside the coop. Justin has been working on those items every spare moment he has, and the next project to start immediately after this one is the clear out the area where we are going to put the playground (we bought a nice playground about 4 years ago and put part of it up at my parents' house). In the meantime, I'll just update about the kids. Brighton is doing great in school and really enjoys his teacher. I'm making more of an effort to find other boys his age so he can have more social experience with friends since Adaira has been his only friend for so long. I've noticed he's a little bit awkward sociall...
Bringin Home the Chickens! After many weekends of hard work out in the heat, Justin (and me! I helped some, but mostly Justin) finally finished our chicken coop & run (well almost, we still have some nesting boxes to put up inside the coop - but it's enough to bring the chickens home!). In the back corner of our yard, we have a ten stall mare motel that sits 7.5ft. from the fenceline. The 7.5ft. between the mare motel and the fence has always been overgrown with weeds, grass, and hornet nests. I thought it would be a great place to put our chicken run since chickens are great at keeping the ground clear of anything but dirt (they'll eat anything small and green, as well as just about anything that moves) and we wouldn't have to try and maintain this area anymore. The mare motel runs 60ft. long, so it is a great distance to give the chickens lots of space to run (and did I mention without the tall grass the hornets wouldn't have a place to nest?). We've got Bar...
I may just be opening up myself to a bunch of judgment and criticisms with this post here but it is what it is. I've been thinking a lot about motherhood for the past few months. Most of my thinking stems from guilt I feel about my lack of mothering skills, in that I just don't seem to live for being a mom like so many other women I know. Don't get me wrong, I love my kids! But I also love my alone time, the time I have to work part time with other adults, and the time when all the kids are safely tucked in bed. Growing up I didn't dream about being a mom. I didn't like to babysit AT ALL! When it came time to start our family it really wasn't out of a longing desire to be parents (though I was excited for the new chapter in our lives), it was more about timing and that we'd been married a couple years and it just seemed like it was time to start a family. I'm not the super fun mom I always thought I would be, and my lack of "natural" capabil...
Monsoon Photos Furniture Makeovers & Brighton's 1st day of school! The monsoons this year have been a little disappointing, but we have gotten about 2-3 huge rainstorms. Unfortunately two of them were at night and we missed them, but the one we got to enjoy was crazy fun! I love this time of year. As storms approach, the sky gets dark and all of the colors (blues in the sky and greens in the grass) turn vivid with a yellow hue. It's awesome! Approaching storm... Don was getting rid of these nightstands. Justin and I have never spent the money to get a proper bedroom set, and still don't want to spend the money, so I asked Don if we could have them. About 10$ in paint, new handles, a stick of sandpaper, about 30 minutes of time and a masterpiece is created! I bought black satin spray paint to base coat it, then some oil rubbed bronze spray paint to lightly dust it with when I was done. It's definitely an improvement and they match the rest of our house no...
Blue Ridge Reservoir & Dam On Sunday we tried to do more things alone as family since we weren't going to church. We took a drive about 30 minutes away from camp to Blue Ridge Reservoir. I had never ventured past the first parking lot, but it turns out if you pass the first parking lot and follow the bumpy road for another mile you reach the dam. We hiked around it and down the canyon behind it and it was just beautiful! I've never seen a spillway before either and that was cool to see as well. The reservoir is huge, this is just a small portion of it behind us. The spillway. See all the trees? There are hundreds more just floating in the water behind the spillway just waiting for a huge rain to make things start flowing! Cool blue-bellied lizard Dale must be smiling cuz he's got the best gig around! The canyon behind the dam was just gorgeous This excursion took place on our hottest day camping, stopping to cool off our feet in the COLD water was a great ...
Kinder Springs Tire Swing When I was younger there was a swing tied to a tree on the side of a hill up here at Kinder Springs. It used to keep all of us occupied for hours! It was awesome because the slope it was on made you feel super high off the ground when you'd swing out away from the tree (My oldest brother Dean actually fell off of it one year and broke his arm and busted his forehead open) . Long ago the rope broke and the tree eventually fell over, but several years back someone tied a rope to an Oak tree in the meadow and the fun continues! Brighton fell off of it this year but luckily didn't break any bones. It did leave him with a big bruise on his back though! You can see in this picture why Justin was the favorite "pusher" Dirty faces are definitely okay at Kinder Springs! My attempt at a "super push." Basically it looks like I lifted my legs off the ground and off to the side to give the illusion of flying in the air. Let's face it ...
Kinder Springs! Adaira with her wildflower bouquet We made our annual camping trip to Kinder Springs this year a couple weeks ago. Man I love this place! Looking at these pictures just makes me want to be back there. My family (Ellsworths) have been going to Kinder Springs ever summer for over three decades. When I was younger we would camp for an entire 2 weeks at a time. I have such great memories of this place; you know those places that make you feel nostalgic from all the childhood memories you have there? That is what Kinder Springs is for me. We only camped for four days, but one day when the kids are older I hope to make it a little longer (hopefully at least a week at a time). The weather was pretty great with lots of rain, though on the one day we didn't have rain it was pretty hot, high eighties to low nineties at least, too hot for a little guy like Dale to take his nap in either the tent, camper or car! Dale was not quite ready to be a good camper this year. Our ot...