Happy 4th of July

Courtney made these dresses from Staci's pattern who gave it to Alysa, who gave it to Courtney. They turned out pretty cute!! This picture makes me feel very patriotic for some reason!

No pictures...please.

I feel like the week comes and goes and we failed to capture any moments on camera. We're either too busy having fun or too busy being busy, I'm not sure which.

We've been having fun at Seven Peaks this week enjoying the 95 degree weather. I also took a client golfing on Friday and got absolutely fried like a lobster(tough job). Golf score: Definitely above par, IQ: Definitely less than par, should have used sunscreen. And then we had a very fun work BBQ and swim party on Saturday to add pain to misery. There's nothing quite like hanging out with your co-workers in your swimsuit. Kind of weird, but fun nontheless. Pools are meant for hanging out with strangers. I decided against wearing my speedo for the fear of getting fired come Monday morning, or unrelentless ridicule. After seeing what some people wear to the pool, a Speedo would be considered over-dressed. Sorry for digressing!

I'm rambling anyway cause I don't have a lot of useful information to post on the blog right now.

Oh, I did make some fabulous hotdogs for dinner Sunday evening and I'll be happy to share the recipe with you. Directions: Hot dog heated to perfection, bun, ketchup, mustard, the usual. Here's the simple yet kind of weird twist. Take a whole Kosher pickle and skin the pickle. That's right...skin the pickle. Dice it up the skinned pickle portion which should theoretically be the majority of the pickle and spread it generously on top of the hotdog and on the bun. You can mix it up if you'd like, such as pickle first then hotdog, or hotdog first then pickle. And yes I know it's like relish, but it's so much better. Relish is a green chopped up substance, but you really don't know what's in it and it smells weird. I prefer the no ketchup option, mustard only, and it throws a bit of a german cuisine twist to it. Try it. Call me crazy, whatever. Courtney loves it when I cook. She experiments on me 1 meal a day, 7 days a week, and I cook about 12 times annually(or perennially) and it usually involves eggs or steak, or both.

Here's another random thing I've been doing lately. Hauling hay! First it started with our annual(again perennial) calf torture event. I help my buddy Brady brand, castrate, and tag his calves. It's much worse than it sounds, but I love it and we work our tails off doing it every year. After getting kicked, spit on, rope burned, pooped on, knocked on your butt, and kicked again, it's easy to rope'em and ruin their day and their future reproductive lives. We turn the boys into 'it's', and the girls stay girls and not one of them go down without a fight. So back to hauling hay. Brady says, "I'll pay you $30 an hour(in hay) to help me haul hay". And I said, "well hay, that sounds like a hayk of good deal". That's better than minimum wage, where do I sign up? I pay $8 a bale to feed this silly horse I got us into so why not work for it for $6 a bale or to keep the math simple, 5 bales of hay an hour, someone should probably check my math. Now when I go run a 1/2 marathon I sweat some, but it ain't nothing compared to throwing hay for 3 hours, multiple days a week. I need two gallons of water afterwards, a massage, and a reservation in bed for 24 hours. And just imagine having hay in places you don't even want to think about. It's like working in the peach orchard in July covered from head to toe, literally, in peach fuzz, sheer fun!!

I could also tell you about the tomato plant cages I attempted to build, but it turned out to be a disaster. They were visually appealing, creative, and fun to build, however structurally not sound. Ok, so I'll give in and buy the simple yet very effective wire cages...boring. Lesson learned, on to my next idea. Have you ever seen something at Home Depot and thought, I can build that for less than it will cost to buy it? Wrong...wrong...and wrong again. Definite paradigm shift required. But then where's the fun, the mistakes, the ooops in life, the times your wife wants to call you a complete idiot, but doesn't? I haven't even reached my full potential yet!!
Maybe we should hide the camera from now on so there's no proof these moments actually happened!!

June Pictures

Adam's Birthday at Chucky Cheese

Adam's Birthday

Adam bought a Go Diego Go set with some of the money he got for his birthday and he got lots of Pokemon toys.

A Cruise...Anyone...Anyone??

This sounds crazy and out of the blue, but we have booked a cruise. We want to invite anyone that would like to come to join us. The dates are November 15th - 20th. It's with Royal Caribbean and it's the Western Caribbean cruise for 5 nights on the Enchantment of the Seas. We will be leaving from Ft. Lauderdale Florida, and stopping in George Town and Cozumel. The prices are very good right now, starting at $379, but those prices won't last long. We have some friends from work that we're going with, however the more the merrier. Our only firm plans are to meet for dinner each night. We would love to see more friends, parents, and family go with us!! It's not an easy decision to make, but we did it and we're very excited to go on another cruise!

If you'd like to use a travel agent we booked it through Lisa Schumann at Morris Murdock Travel. Her number is 801-225-7600. It doesn't cost any more to book it through them and it was simple and easy.

Chicken Fun or Chicken Run?

This picture was taken two weeks ago and they've all quadrupled in size since then. So far they're the easiest of the 17 animals we have. In about a week or so we'll be putting them out in the bigger chicken house as soon as they've all got feathers on their head.

So as you may or may not be aware I really don't have a mechanical bone in my body or if I'm lucky just one. I get hurt pounding in nails, screwing in light bulbs, and measuring a piece of wood. I don't belong in the world of building things. Which is why it was fun to build this little chicken container..with a wire lid...and with hinges and....it actually works. And the wood shavings and chicken 'goodies' go in the mulch pile for an alternative use as well. In the chicken house I'm in the process of building the nesting boxes and roosting areas. I figure if they don't like my craftsmanship then I'll just chop their heads off and have them for dinner. Sounds morbid, but it's true. I enjoyed Chicken Run the movie, a little more recently. For some reason I could relate a little better to it this time. No eggs in week huh? Off with their heads. (Isn't that a Monty Python movie?) So the kids have named them all, not just one or 5. They named them ALL(13). When we do decide which one to eat we'll have to decide between Picachu or Goldie, or 11 others with similarly cute names. Adam's are mostly named after Pokemon characters. Maybe we'll just keep buying our eatable chickens at Wal-Mart. At least those don't get named between the check out stand and the time they reach our freezer.