Oil, Bread, and Basketball

This last week didn’t have too many eventful things happen if you don’t consider your child playing in oil and covering his face and clothes with it being one of them. I lose my cool when buckets of oil get left around and for some reason my boys always find them and decide to play in them. At least this time I went to the flat prepared as I had dressed my boys in their shop clothes. It’s funny because how many children do you know who say the following, “Mom, I need my oil shirt?” It’s not like these shirts are difficult to find. So in this picture of Lincoln I should point out that most of what is on his shirt is what was there before, it’s just his face that looks the worst of it. Susie came over with her friend Hailey/Comet, and we made homemade bread. Comet was surprised that we really meant homemade bread as we ground our wheat, used fresh honey and such. I can probably count on one hand how many times I’ve made bread so I’m not exactly a professional and it was a first for Susie so I think it turned out quite well for our inexperience. Adam, had 3 days of OSHA training this last week which he was not too much of a fan of since the classes went from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. each day and he is not use to spending his days that way. On Thursday evening I took the boys with me to our ward’s Pinewood Derby. I wish I had taken my camera with me as it was quite the scene when the cars would go racing down the track and Tyson, Lincoln, and another little boy about their age, would make very excited gleeful screeches. The Cubmaster said that next time he was going to invite the whole primary as watching my little boys was the best out of the whole event. It was very entertaining. On Friday evening Adam had a church basketball game over in St. George, so we all went over as a family. It is pretty much a family event as Tyson and Lincoln have to get their basketball clothes on and take their basketballs with them. During timeouts they get on the court and try hard to make a basket, so they entertain everyone in the process. After the game we stopped at DQ and grabbed dinner to bring home and eat. So this picture shows my boys after their game. On Saturday we went to the temple in the evening and that was nice to finally make it back there after about 1 ½ months of it just not working out. Phyllis’ stepmom passed away this past week so many of Adam’s siblings went to Las Vegas for the funeral. Tyson had been dealing with a mild case of asthma which required the breathing treatments so I didn’t feel up to going, but Adam had planned to go for the funeral and decided at the last minute on Saturday morning to stay. We did the chores while Wynn and Phyllis were gone. The boys and I collected the eggs which is always fun to walk around the farm and find the places that the chickens lay them (the usual places as well as some new ones) so it is like having and Easter egg hunt every day. My eye caught a brand new baby calf (about 3 days old) in the cow pen. It was very cute, but I didn’t have my camera with me, so I’ll have to snap a picture later and post it.

Tyson the Trash Boy

On Thursday we walked out to get the trash can and Tyson has become quite the helper and rolled it all the way back to the house by himself. I snapped a picture to show how big he has become. Two weeks ago my goal was to get a mirror hung above our gas fireplace, which I still need to accomplish because every time I have asked Adam to help he doesn’t have the tools with him that he needs to do it. This last week my goal was to clean/wash all of the filters and such to my shop vac and vacuum. That worked its way to the top of my list when I went to vacuum up some invading ants through some window caulking that had cracked in the back room and only found a cloud of dust coming out of the vacuum. When I decided that the time was present to clean all the filters I found out that one of my boys must have released a clip where the filter was, which was causing the consistent cloud of dust. It’s just another one of those things that gets pushed aside and only gets done when it no longer functions properly, which is always at the most inconvenient times. It just held me back a little while longer before I could go out to the flat on Saturday. On Saturday Adam and Daniel transported loads of cow manure to the lower part of Wynn’s land, with the really old dump truck and Cody’s nicer dump truck, while Mark loaded them up with the backhoe and Wynn spread it around more with his tractor and later that evening Stuart used the bigger tractor to plow the field. Adam said that when he had let the cows out of one corral that even though there was green grass all around them they made a b-line towards a plastic sack and ate it. Dumb cows! At church today there was a girl who sang a hymn and Tyson turned to me and said with excitement, “Mom, it’s Lillie.” Even though she had the long blonde curly hair like Lillie I had to assure him that it was not her. Phyllis has been feeling some flu like symptoms all weekend so we gathered at Cody and Shelley’s house on Sunday afternoon for dinner. We enjoyed sitting out on their lawn in beautiful weather and listening to their waterfall. It made for a great environment to visit and relax. It was enjoyable to visit with Uncle Mark and Aunt Michelle Steele who came into town to visit Caleb and Stephanie and so they all joined us for dinner. We headed over to Stuart and Heidi’s house around 6:30 p.m. to celebrate Lizzy’s 8th birthday. She plans to get baptized in April. Emily, one of the twins, came crying to me because she could not find Tyson and Erika. I took her on a hunt for them as well as Lincoln’s missing boot, from when Heidi had watched them earlier in the week. She was good to stick with my more thorough search for Tyson and Erika as they would not have been found under clothes or under the bed and such, but I figured it would make it more fun in anticipation of finding them and I would accomplish searching for the boot. After heading down the stairs and searching a few places there I informed Emily that the kids were outside in the sandbox. I then opened the furnace room and to my surprise right there on the floor as you walk in was the missing boot. It was an exciting hunt which had great success for both of us. The evening was an enjoyable time spent with family.

Mudding, Sinus Blockage, Vegas

This last week had its ups and downs. On Monday afternoon we went up to Smiths Mesa and rode Vaughn’s 4-wheelers. We managed to get our family of 4 on one, Vaughn and his date on another, and then Royce and Adar (the 2 exchange students) and Adam’s nephew Josh on another. We dressed ourselves prepared to get muddy and possibly very cold as from the time we unloaded the 4-wheelers on the lower Mesa area we mudded our way up to the top and checked out the ponds that were filled with water from the snow and rains. No one from the family had been up there to see how everything was doing, so we used that excuse as an adventure and had a lot of fun. I was glad Vaughn let us use the 4-wheeler with the seat, which made it a very comfortable ride for me and the boys. That is a small waterfall in the back of the photo flowing off the lower part of Smiths. On Tuesday Tyson, Lincoln, and I accompanied Wynn and Phyllis to JB’s for Phyllis’ birthday. I wasn’t too impressed with them when I mentioned it was her birthday and the guy asked if she had her driver’s license to prove it. Never had that happen before. Phyllis didn’t have hers with her and so she didn’t get any kind of a treat. My little boys even sang Happy Birthday to her when we got there and were waiting for our food. Not Impressed! On Thursday I had Adam take me to the IHC in the morning on his way into town as I had this horrible pain above my left eye that was throbbing and pulsating and I had a difficult time sleeping because of it. When a nurse got there just before 9 a.m. I called over to her from where I was sitting and informed her that I felt like I was going to black out. Throwing up was an uncomfortable feeling as well as I kept eyeing the garbage can by the door and trying to decide if I could make it over there if the action became necessary. Luckily I didn’t need to use it, but after being wheeled back to a room, talking with the doctor there, having a CT scan on my head, getting two different shots in each bum cheek (that was a first), and getting the results back that I had a major sinus blockage (they decided to do the scan since I was having feelings of blacking out and they wanted to make sure there wasn’t anything brain related causing that) that probably was bacteria related, so we picked up antibiotic and Adam took me home to sleep the afternoon off. Phyllis was so kind to let us drop the kids off that morning on short notice and watch them all day, while I slept at home and felt much better that evening. On Friday early evening we went to Las Vegas and stayed at Joe and Haylee’s new home. Haylee had planned an Abbott cousin’s party (Phyllis’ side of the family) for Saturday afternoon. We went Saturday morning for a drive to the Hoover Dam and were able to see the new bridge that is still under construction, which is absolutely amazing that structures like that are even thought possible. The party was fun and we stayed up until about 3 a.m., so with the time change and the difference from Utah and Nevada time we were really up late. We slept for a few hours and then drove home Sunday morning so that we could make it to our Stake Conference. Lincoln was having some throwing up issues so Adam stayed home with him and I took Tyson to conference. We spent the rest of the day at the flat. Considering my sinus issue it was a fun week.

Grandma and Grandpa Come Home

On Monday I drove to Colorado City and picked up 10 gallons of milk for Haylee and 3 gallons for me. I’ve been feeling like I need to get my kids on raw milk and used this as the perfect opportunity to start. After getting the milk and stopping by Heidi’s to pick up the quilt for Haylee that she had sewn, the boys and I headed to Mesquite where we met up with Haylee and swapped her stuff for Wynn and Phyllis. They had flown back early from their trip to California and we were very happy to pick them up as my boys get a little disoriented when they can’t see G-ma and G-pa on a daily basis. Tuesday I watched my neighbor’s boy most of the day and then Wednesday Adam traveled to Page and Flagstaff Arizona to check on a job and do an estimate. We enjoyed watching the BYU vs. UTAH men’s basketball game that night. On Friday Adam went to a job over in Torrey about 3 hours away and worked hard and fast to remove snow and dry in a roof that was a 12/12 pitch. He was really sore on Saturday and didn’t have much drive to do anything since he had maxed out the day before. From my 2/21 and 2/28 posts I didn’t note my goals for the previous weeks because I hadn’t finished them due to hectic traveling and sicknesses, so yesterday I caught up and finished them. Washing all the cupboards in the house (just the exterior and all the collected dust on top of them), cleaning the microwave, and hanging the clock I bought back in December. These catch me up so I’m excited to pick another goal to accomplish this upcoming week. We spent the rest of the day at the flat and enjoyed visiting with Adam’s sisters and their families that were in town, Monica and Monterey. Adam’s nephew Dallin had some rugby games in St. George over the weekend and I found out that BYU and UTAH were having a rugby game broadcasted on BYUTV, so after finding out more about this sport from Doug and Monica earlier in the evening, since I don’t know anything about it, then Adam and I watched the game that night. Very interesting. I’m impressed with Dallin for being so brave to play it. My brother Vaughn and Royce, and Adar (our two exchange students from home) came into town late that night. I got a call this morning to substitute in a primary class this afternoon so I had Vaughn bring Tyson and Lincoln home after sacrament meeting since Tyson was having some bowel movement issues and Lincoln still wasn’t feeling that well after having a fever since yesterday morning. We spent the evening at the flat and made plans to go 4-wheeling tomorrow. I didn’t get any pictures this past week, but will be sure to this next week.