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.

Pesky Pest Control

Yesterday I cleaned all day long to prepare for the Pest Control guy to come and spray, only to have the scheduled hours between 2-4 to pass and calling to find out if he had forgotten and then getting a call from his wife around 5:30 informing me that their work truck was in the shop and she thought he would have called me. I wasn’t the happiest and when she wanted to just schedule it for Monday morning, I informed her that it would be fine but that I had my house torn apart specifically for him to come. It kind of dampened my attitude for the evening. I told Adam that I needed to get out of the house as I had been slaving away in it all day long and was going to go insane. We ended up taking the boys to Phyllis’ and then using the 2 gift certificates to JBs that Monica had given me back when I helped with the peach canning. We enjoyed the time alone, especially me to enjoy a cooked meal that was actually warm when I ate it, as with feeding the boys food isn’t quite the temperature it is meant to be when I get around to eating it. Phyllis said the boys were great for her, which was nice plus Tyson didn’t cry when we left without him. After driving home, Ben brought over his date, Tia and we all watched Hoodwinked. I finished cleaning by doing the dishes during it all. Ben stayed the night and watched the kids this morning as Adam and I attended the 6 am session at the temple. We then headed over to Wal-Mart to get some diapers and milk and I was glad to still find the sale my neighbor had told me about on Campbell’s Cream of Chicken and Mushroom cans, so I stocked up for food storage on that. While heading out of the parking lot I called Ben and asked him to get the boys ready for Jarem’s baptism as it looked like we weren’t going to make it back in time. After arriving at the church and not finding very many cars there we found out that the baptism was changed to 9:30, which made everyone who was rushing through the door after 9 am on time. Ben managed the two boys just fine and we are glad he was willing to do that. After the baptism we went out to the flat and since it was a blustery cold and windy day it was a great day for football. I spent a good amount of time changing diapers, bathing Lincoln in grandma’s sink after relieving some constipation pressure, and then rinsing off Tyson in the tub after Phyllis gave him a haircut. I also spent time throughout the day shelling Phyllis’ pecans that she had cracked and by the time we left that evening I managed to finish the whole bowl. We went over to the Steele’s to have cake and ice cream for Gage’s birthday. I never thought I would say this, but at the end of today I found myself not caring much for football at all, though we are glad the Cougars won. The picture I included here is from one morning earlier this week, when I found Tyson giggling and Lincoln chewing on his toes. I managed to snap a picture of the attach right as Lincoln looked up at me. He sure enjoyed Tyson's big toe.

Finally, A Fun Weekend

Well, we finally were able to get out and do something yesterday. And I am finally making some time on Sunday to post about it instead of a month or two down the road. Friday was such a beautiful day, which made me want to get out on Saturday with Adam and Tyson and enjoy it. So, it started out with a trip to Smith's Mesa (no Smith's is not just a grocery store Caleb), and then I thought it would be much more fun with family and friends involved, so we ended up with families of Cody and Shelley, Stuart and Heidi, Matt and Jaymie, Caleb and Stephanie, Daniel and Susie, Tarek who was here for the weekend, RomaAnn and Taylor, and some of Mark and Bonnie's kids. We had a great time eating bbqued hotdogs, dutch oven potatoes (made by Cody), the guys pulling a truck out of some quicksand mud, and playing ball tag. The picture is of all the guys that played and it shows the muddy conditions, although I don't know how most of them look cleaner than their 4-wheelers. Adam and Taylor managed to come out looking the muddiest as you can see from the pictures of Adam. I took this cute picture of Tyson, Lizzy, and Sequoia. They were enjoying watching the ball tag game from the truck bed with me. Most of us arrived there at around 2 pm and came home around 7 pm, then a bunch of the guys went to a church and played basketball until late (Tyson and I stayed home and went to bed).

I gave the lesson on "Encouraging Unity in our Families", in our combined Young Women/Relief Society meeting this morning. There's always a little bit of a relief when it's over. I do enjoy the lessons I study for Young Womens, because they can always be applied to my life right now and focusing on doing those things that will unite our family is so important as that is something Satan works so hard to destroy. Sunday is just great to have.

Recap on Preparations for Christmas and Christmas

So I didn't take too many pictures over the Christmas holiday, but I think I snapped some shots of some of the main events that took place around here before Christmas day came. On the 15th we did manage to take the time early in the morning to go up to Smith's Mesa and hunt for a better tree than what we had. It was the kind of tree that you just giggled and laughed at every time you sat down in front of it, all because you just couldn't help it when you saw it. Anyway the hunt was kind of fun as I don't think I have ever been on a Christmas tree hunt before. It is not exactly as I would have imagined it to be though. I would have thought us to have to get bundled up in snow gear and trudge through feet of snow to find one. This hunt consisted of driving in the warm truck (no complaints there) and looking out the window as we drove up the winding dirt road, noticing a tree that could be a possibility but then driving by it and realizing the gaping hole on the other side of it or that it was two trees forming the perfect tree. After arriving up on top of the Mesa on to the Stout family property and driving back in a ways, then getting out and walking around through sage brush and a few patches of snow, then we pulled out the DeWalt saw, not those old fashioned saws, and cut it down. It took about 2 hours for the excursion and we were able to get it back to the house and set it up, then head out to the flat for the next event of helping to cut up a cow.

As you can see from our tree hunt and the cow experience, Tarek was visiting for the weekend and joined in on the fun. This picture was the only one I could find to post that hopefully wouldn't disgust anyone as I still cannot stomach the scene that takes place in the beginning process and had to send Crystal down to get a few pictures of the guys during their bonding time. I am improving as I actually helped wrap and label the meat, but during the Tyson pregnancy I exchanged some babysitting for Heidi's twins while she did my part. There's just something about the scene and the smell while being pregnant that is pretty much unbearable.

As for Christmas eve we gathered out at the flat with all the family that were in town and joined together for the traditional dinner meal, that was really yummy, attempted the chimes to Christmas songs and did improve by the end, and this year Phyllis had the returned missionaries share any experiences they could remember during Christmas time on the missions that testified of Jesus Christ. Of course we had to pull out the donkey head used for the manger scene in memory of Ben, as he was the donkey every year and is spending his last Christmas serving a faithful mission in Eugene, Oregon. So I took out the camera just to take this picture for you Ben.

Christmas morning was cold, but as usual it was not a white Christmas here. We woke up early and headed out to the flat with our gifts for each other and those we had for Christmas this year in the family. These pictures are of Tyson in his "Where's Waldo" pajamas and Adam after eating breakfast. Even though it was a pretty mellow morning due to the youngest being Tyson and Marshall not really knowing what we were doing and the next youngest from them being Jared, who is now a chilled Young Man, it was still very nice and we all were able to sit on couches. The little things we are grateful for. It was fun to see what everyone gave to each other and to have the time to relate the gift giving and joy to the most precious and best gift of all in our lives, the birth and life of Jesus Christ. What a blessing!

The rest of the week posed some challenges with working on roofs, especially those in the mountains, so Adam had an extended vacation, which I tried to let him enjoy in doing whatever he wanted. This last picture is one that I came upon while checking on Tyson "Where's Waldo" and just when I thought I was going to have to make the rounds again to locate him, I found him safely secure holding Adam's head in his lap and as you can tell from the picture it was like a search for "Waldo" in Phyllis and Wynn's room as there were many people gathered watching a country western. And of course it's always good when brothers get together. How Stuart, Adam, and Sheldon managed to squeeze onto that bed with Sara Ann about to fall off the other side is a wonder, but still a good picture moment.

The Deer Hunt

This posting will cover this last week's events, which mostly consisted of Adam engaged in his yearly deer hunt and myself just recuperating from being sick and taking care of Tyson being sick. I'm just glad with this go around of the sicknesses that we didn't have to take Tyson to the hospital, which is what it has regularly been in the past. Basically to document the deer hunt, Adam was given the go ahead to get the landowner's tag for his father's property in East Zion (I missed the deadline to turn in his personal application). Anyways, I had his dad fill out the needed landowner information and Adam took care of the rest in setting everything up for him to go. He left last Friday afternoon and came home Saturday night. He went again Monday morning and brought one home that early evening. Last year he left his deer at the cabin and when he went back to get it it was devoured, except the bones (Bear). I lectured him how it was a waste of our money for the tags as we both had them but I never hunted due to Tyson coming our way and Adam not bringing anything home, so I told him not to waste our money this year. So today we went out to the flat and cut it all up. I mostly lingered around from a distance since it smelled very gross to me and I don't plan on eating any of it, but am glad to have it around for Adam to enjoy with his meals. His brother Jared was decked out for the cutting. As for Susie and I, we went to our doctor's appts. that we scheduled back to back in St. George. Crystal, Adam's younger sister, watched Tyson for us and took him on a walk to visit Shelley, Adam's older sister, at work. That's where we met them before going groc. shopping. That about sums up this past week.

Busy Saturday

We ended up not going to a family reunion on Adam's side of the family as Tyson's fever continued on through yesterday and he finally woke up this morning chipper as usual (although he was a little wobbly when he tried to walk, but he progressed as the day moved on). Yesterday was pretty much the same for him as Thursday and there wasn't much we did because of that. However, today was pretty eventful as we began the morning by hooking up the dump trailer to Adam's truck and delivering his partner's wife's car to there house. I would have taken a picture of it but we would all rather not remember what it looks like. Actually it looks just fine on the outside except for the side mirrors as after his partner blew the motor and they couldn't get it to fit in the trailer (while on their way back from a roofing job), then he busted the mirrors off and it finally fit. Not the wisest thing to do as that is one more thing to fix, but he was in the moment of frustration and for some that can lead to some pretty stupid decisions. After dropping off the car we headed out to the flat to load up a little red pickup that needed to be dropped off at the mechanics' by our house. Adam wanted to do some dirtwork with the backhoe, so after using it to load the pickup into the dumptrailer he quickly instructed me how to drive the backhoe back to our house while he pulled the trailer. I was going to take a picture of me in it but I ran out of battery power. Later in the afternoon Adam went out to the shop to change out his injectors. I tried to get a nap in for Tyson but that didn't work so we bought some icey things at SnoKaps and joined Adam out in the hot shop. Tyson made himself at home there by cleaning up a few of the tools for Adam and then also helping any way he thought he could by his normal fiddling around with the tire. He was definitely due for a good scrubbing by the time the day was finished. Because on top of that I gave Adam and Tyson haircuts so they could be a little more clean cut for church. After everyone showered Adam and I did the timesheets for the company for the week, straighted up the house and are going to bed.