Cry Havoc

It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves

 Sweet are the uses of adversity which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, wears yet a precious jewel in his head.

 It is meant that noble minds keep ever with their likes; for who so firm that cannot be seduced

Love is a smoke made with the fume of sighs. 

My Grandmother's Long Shadow

My grandmother was a gardener. She produced fruit and vegetables like America produces fat kids. She supplied her family and the rest of the neighborhood with greens aplenty. And she did it in the dessert of Utah. She's getting on in years now, and her capacity to bend and weed a bit limited.

We're attempting to carry on the legacy a bit. It's not a huge garden. It certainly wouldn't sustain us, but we might have a spare zucchini or two to share in a few months if bugs don't kill them like they did last year.

Nora eats spinach.

Snap peas and beans

Owl decoys don't really work. The birds are still getting our strawberries. Does anyone have a real owl?

The open-house is almost over. We got to be very involved with the tours for a couple days. The activity and attention it's brought to the church has been great, but I'll admit that I won't be disappointed when the excitement dies down.


We took the girls through yesterday. I'm reminded of the open-house/dedication of the Denver temple when I was a boy. I only vaguely remember it. I think I was about Lucy's age.


It's quite a blessing to have a family that is much more attractive than I am. I'm like a gangly E.T. surrounded by bunch of pixie-cherubs.


Sometimes your thumbs aren't enough.

Get 'em while they're HOT!!

Would anyone like to have a couple large masses of concrete? They're both about 100 pounds with a short metal pole sticking out of one end. The usefulness of these things are boundless! Here are just a few of the things you could use them for:
1. Anchors...for those boats of yours!
2. Paper weights for really, really big pieces of paper!
3. Book ends for really really big books, like the ones you never read in college!
4. Awesome, manly piñatas! Just get some guys together, put on a helmet, a blindfold, and some football pads, spin around, and start swinging that sledgehammer!
5. Centerpiece! Provided you have a steel-frame kitchen table.
6. Trebuchet ammunition!
7. Headstone, for a loved one that you didn't actually love at all!
8. An idol! If you're tired of worshipping the true God, why not switch to something a little less demanding? This mass of cement!
And those are off the top of my head!
I'll help you load them into you car.

It's been a bit cool over the last few days, the girls are bundling up with the few warmer items we have available.

The temple open house is going on as we speak. Jon got to help with parking the other day while Becky was helping with refreshments. We'll both be leading tours through on the 18th.

The girls had some friends over for a sleepover a couple weeks ago. Everyone was lovely, but I suddenly have a lot more empathy for my childhood friends' parents.

And really. Those giant concrete turds are available immediately!

You know you've met the perfect couple when THEY initiate a date where you are dressed like this:And you know you found the right man when he can see you dressed like this and still find you attractive:
And you know two guys are good friends when they can pretend they're driving alone in a minivan while dressing drag. But did you know that our husbands made us wear little girl tights on our heads and nasty, nasty used slippers on our feet while we repeatedly got up at a nice Italian buffet restaurant? Maybe we'll invite you next time. If you ask nicely.

Sorry ladies, they're taken.

Red Bud

We have a great big, knotty red bud tree in our back yard. It dropped a fairly large branch into the yard the other day, and though the loss of a good 4th of its canopy is not a positive sign for the tree's future, it did offer a photo op for the little darlings. If they were any cuter, I'd just spew chunks all over myself.


And here's a couple more.



That's all. No. I'm done. You'll have to wait until later. I'm serious.

It's done

We originally estimated that our little construction project would be done by Thanksgiving. ThanksGIVING. Well, it turns out that we had to work and eat and pay attention to our children occasionally and go to the bathroom and several other things that take time. But the carpet went in this last wednesday, which was the only part of the project we paid someone to do for us. A big shout-out goes to Kyle Cromar, who engineered the structural changes and did a good portion of the early construction, Joseph Dawson who assisted with the roof, Jesse Neidholdt who kept our house from burning down from an electrical fire, and Becky's family who helped watch kids and helped with mudding and painting.
So, this:



Became this:


And this:


Became this:


And this:


Became this:


For these:


Yes, that is a dog collar around Nora's waist. She is a puppy.

The Icy Tundra

We finally had some snow. It was enough to cancel school which meant that dad didn't have to work on his birthday. Sam decided to break out the psychedelic snowman kit. I'm sure Mr. Pschedelic Snowman would agree that global warming is a myth, but we didn't really get a chance to have a long conversation about it since his first opportunity to exist happened February 13th, and he's pretty much gone already. Oh, well. We'll discuss it next year.

Toothless Joe Jackson

Sam lost another tooth. And she looks cute, and we had some nice soft lighting for this picture.


The ball's in your court, Hyrum Shakespear.

Dinner

So, Becky made a lovely meal last night, which included cupcake meatloaves, mashed potatoes with secret cauliflower, and some warmed-up canned green beans. We emptied both cans into the warm-up-the-vegetables-in-the-microwave pot that everyone has, and then we warmed them up in the microwave, and then we began to serve everything up onto our plates.

Yes, that is a bright red grasshopper with its legs cut off. Whether it became red due to the preservatives/salt in the greenbeans or it was born red because it was a grasshopper from hell, I cannot be sure. We threw away all the greenbeans.