Labor Day Weekend in St. George

 We spent a fun-and-sun-filled weekend with Ben, Suz, and Whit in St. George over Labor Day!

Chief Lookiee was anxious to get on the road Friday afternoon.

Beautiful sky on our way to St. George.

Teddy was... popular!

We went to Sand Hollow for a big chunk of the day on Saturday

and had such a great time!  First was cliff jumping, then we found

 a spot to hang out on the beach, and Ben and Ben did a little

free diving in the Scuba-friendly part of the reservoir.

  

The ladies got changed and went shopping to look for a Homecoming
dress for Cat - Suz found her a great dress for HoCo and we found another
dress she might be able to use for prom or another dance.  Success!

Back at the house, we hung out, had a yummy dinner, and watched

Beethoven outside on the back patio using Ben and Suz's projector.

These guys had fun playing Kids Against Humanity.

Eliza helped Suz give Teddy a bath.

After Church on Sunday we spent some time outside.  First we went on a walk

in Ivins, then we drove up on a mountain road before heading back home.

Can you find the lizard?

After dinner we spent a little time at the cemetery.
I'm always glad when we can go there and spend some
dedicated time thinking about Grammy.

We had a fun visit with Reed and Jen, watching the videos of Reed
coming out of anesthesia after his recent knee surgery, and just talking.

Whit and Luke slept in Whit's secret lab
(oversized closet hidden behind a moving bookcase) that night.

Eliza was anxious to do some rock climbing with Dad and Uncle Ben Monday morning.

Whit and Luke went as well, but Luke wasn't as enthusiastic as Eliza.

We also spent some time at the neighborhood pool and lagoon.  We loved it!

(Jack kept sneaking into the clubhouse to watch cartoons.)

After that we went back to the house to eat lunch, change clothes, pack up, and head home.

We loved getting to spend the weekend with Suz's family (including Teddy and Lucy), hanging out and having fun, and enjoying their beautiful new home!

Lukelife

Luke finally got his Spongebobsicle - a full 4 days before the official end of summer!

"My eyesight is fine. If it was any better, I'd be amazed." -2020

(Calling up the stairs, when a yummy Waffle House breakfast was ready in our very own kitchen during Covid.) "Liiii-za! We have yummy deliciousness!" -8/16/20

"A Tesla and a Lamborghini are technically the same thing." - Luke 8/16/20

"When I grow up I'm going to teach penguins to fight in wars and I'm going to give them backpacks with things that pop out, like chainsaws and other weapons. And they'll fight in wars. Also they can pop out penguin armor. And maybe I can even give them robo fingers." -3/3/21

(While hiding in a pile of stuffed animals.) "I'm trying to return to my thoughts." -3/20/21

After I asked Luke to get my phone out of my purse, the following exchange took place:

Me: You got my phone?
Luke: (looks a little confused and guilty) No, I... (puts stick of gum in mouth)

Luke: Success!

(When deciding which temple to go to for his pre-baptism pictures, he looked at pictures on the Google Home Hub.) "Draper temple... Ooh! Five Stars!" -March 2021

"As you can see, it hurts!" -9/19/21

Luke came home from school telling me that they talked about what day of the week everyone was born. I told him about the Monday's child is fair of face... poem my Mom often quoted. When he heard Tuesday's child is full of grace and I gave him my definition of grace he said, "Yeah, that's not me." -9/22/21

Snap Circuits on a Saturday afternoon

I like to call this section Lukey Asks a Question.

How come DC knows he's the bad guy and if he knows he's the bad guy how come he doesn't know he's going to lose? (6/23/21)

What color and hat would you want if you could be any character in AmongUs? (6/23/21)

What if we get up in the mountains and then we realize something and we get lost and then we know that the Sasquatch is out there looking at us and then we know that he's sending up our smells finding us? (6/24/21)

Do you think Dad would look good in elf shoes? (6/24/21)

What if we turn the temperature to negative 0? (6/26/21)

Would you rather be a line or a zig zag? (Zig zags can jump better but lines can fit into more places.) (Aug 2021)

What else should we do when we find ourselves with free time
on a Saturday afternoon?  Luke suggested we go to the playground.
And this is exactly how he wanted me to take his picture.

Whenever I ask Luke about his day at school when I pick him up in the afternoon, the first thing he usually tells me is what game he and his friends played at recess.  They all sound pretty much the same to me, but when I asked him if they're all the same but with different parts to play, he was adamant that they're all very different.  Except they have one thing in common: fighting.  These games are played several boys in 3rd grade and occasionally a few girls.  I asked him to recall for me what games he plays at recess and this is the list he spouted off rather quickly:

Russian Invasion
World War II
World War I
Revolutionary War
Civil War
The Nazi Invasion
Gladiators
Hunger Games
Call of Duty World War II Zombies
Zombie Invasion
The Iconic Marvel Universe
Camping Zombies
Survival Camping
World War II Zombies

I never knew that a red Skittle would do this to your tongue.

Luke has a love of all things stuffed-animal.  Above, Luke is with Peter, his souvenir from Hawaii.  (It's a stuffed penguin like the one in 50 First Dates, which was filmed at Kualoa ranch).  He brought Peter to school for show and tell this week but when I suggested we put Peter downstairs the night before so we wouldn't forget to bring him to school, he requested I make a bed for Peter.  So I swaddled him in one of Luke's baby quilts.  Luke was pretty happy to see him all cozy the next morning.

On a related note, Luke has been seeking out two varieties of books at the library, as pictured below:

He likes learning about Polynesian islands, and he's particularly interested in Hawaii, and told us he knows quite a bit about it.  And the Bad Guys books are really funny.

August Miscellany

Cousin fun while the boys hung out with us one Saturday:

 

Sunday stroll through a new (to us) walking path in PG

When your little brother does your makeup.

More Sunday Shenanigans

Maybe not the most productive piano practice session.

Helping Jack's baseball team with field cleanup
(in exchange for not being charged for use of the field)

Jack helped too!

Reward for baseball field cleanup: doughnuts

Setting up camp in the front yard.

Luke wanted to help me make a marble cake one Sunday afternoon.

It looked and tasted great!

We attended the annual summer party for Ben's work,
this one celebrating TEN YEARS since Matt started the company.

Apparently, Jack dominated at the jousting.

More high points of the party: face paint, shave ice, and craft sodas.

Eliza had a little extra fun with her face paint before cleaning it off completely.

PS> There is a bit of theme in these pictures of Eliza and Luke having fun together.  I love that they're such good friends!  Really, all of the kids get along very well and it's so great.  I feel very blessed!

The Chicken Chronicles 8.27.21

This month started out like any other month for the chickens, with normal day-to-day feedings and pecking and dust baths and such.

I don't remember the context of this picture, but it must have been staged
because the Chickie Hens still don't like to sleep in the coop.

This was the second time we've had a little puppy around our chickens.

It's cute to see the way they interact!

Luke & Blue

*Notice Bandit's awesome tail.*

And then toward the end of the month, tragedy struck.  Our neighbor's (big) puppy dug under the fence and went after the chickens.  The two roosters and three of the older hens were obviously attacked, with Ms. Felix getting the worst of it.  Poor Jack discovered what happened when he went outside to check on the chickens after church and found Coda in the yard.  He took her back to the neighbor's house and told everyone what happened.  In the yard, there were tons of feathers and the chickens were all hiding, so that at first we weren't even sure how many had survived.  Ben came in and told me he thought some chickens had died and I went out to find Eliza in tears and everyone in a state of alarm.

Thankfully, none were killed, but Hei Hei and Buttercup were wounded, and the roosters' tails were completely gone.  They all look so different after surviving a dog attack.

Ms. Felix was hurt enough that she wasn't moving except for very heavy breathing.  We wondered if we'd need to take her to the vet to get her injuries tended, but after looking at resources online and asking a local "backyard chicken enthusiasts" Facebook group for advice, we were encouraged that with proper care she would be able to recover at home.  So Ben applied antibiotic ointment to her wounds, we made sure she had enough food and water, and kept her isolated in the coop.  She took it upon herself to rest for a few days.  For the first few days, when she walked, she limped.  But within a week she was moving like normal.  And she only took a couple of days off of laying.  Talk about a tough cookie!

Shortly after the attack.

In the coop, 2 days later.

In the coop, 3 days later.  Happy to have some tomatoes to snack on.

We think Dixie was in the coop laying so she wasn't out when Coda came in the yard.  The Chickies like to hang out in the bushes, and they're pretty fast and less trusting than the older chickens, so we assume they were either already in a protected location or they hurried to safety when Coda appeared.  Ben has said he thinks Coda was just trying to play with the chickens because she certainly could have killed them but didn't.  Whatever the case is, it was alarming that the dog came into their safe place and they were trapped.  I just kept thinking of how scared they must have been.  Also, we wonder if the roosters were trying to fight Coda off at all, and how things happened exactly.

Nothing like a good dust bath to help you recover after a vicious attack.

To end on a happier note here is our adolescent rooster, Henry,
and his rubber chicken-like crow (squawk?).

I'll be impressed if you can watch this and not laugh.