Good Times

6-28-11 BBQ at the "Price's" home. Most all the SWAC swim team kids were there to celebrate one of our swim moms (whos leaving for Kentucky...Sad) and our dear coach Mike (who will be leaving all month of July). It was a great evening and our kids are such a joy to be with and watch!

6-28-11 Here are my Lemon Cake Pops I made for the BBQ! They were yummy!


6-19-11 Melina finishing her 100m fly...Go sweetie!

6-19-11 Olline practicing her diving at the swim meet in Spokane!

But you are a shield around me, O Lord; you bestow glory on me and lift up my head. Psalm 3:3

Birthday Love

I am thankful to be 35! God has blessed me. I have great family, super friends, and a Lord that is always there for us. Here are a few photos Melina took of my birthday yesterday...

Here is the cake Melina made me!!! It was sooo yummy! Homemade and delicious! Thanks sweetie.

We even hooked up with my parents on the Xbox Kinect Live! Can you believe that we can do this stuff? They are in Washington and we are in Idaho! It is just so cool.

I opened my gift from my parents on video chat. They got me a Oberon Kindle cover. I usually never promote any items, but this one I have to mention. Check out there stuff. It is all handmade and super beautiful! www.oberondesign.com

Genuine Peace - Usually we think of peace as something that happens when nothing else is happening. In other words, no conflict plus no worries equals peace. But the Bible doesn't tell us to sit around and hope for peace. It tells us to seek peace and pursue it. Do you want peace in your life and relationships? Do something about it. Be calm and patient instead of argumentative and angry. Try to change a situation rather that complain about it. Peace isn't for passivists; it's for activists. - from True Images Bible - NIV

Psalm 34:14 - Turn from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it.

God Bless!

Can't UPDATE my BLOG...errrrgggg!!!!

FYI...I was trying to make my blog nice. However, I am NOT a design computer girl! So please just hang on and I will be trying to get my Blog somewhat normal later. I am frustrated. So I will leave it tonight and try to fix it tomorrow. I have really messed it up! So sorry.

Chicken Coop

I wanted to show our almost finished Chicken Coop. We are so close to getting this just like we want. We do want to run electricity out there, but that will come later. We don't need it for the summer. Hope you enjoy...

Here is Craylola. She is a Buff Orpington. Can you believe that they are 2 months old now? I think we have done pretty good so far. No dead chickens yet!

This is the back of the coop. I still need to paint the nesting box. We have also added cedar trim to the outside. So the wire window you see has nice cedar trim on it now. The trap door under the nesting boxes is our clean out door. I can just push the wood shavings out into the wheel barrel and dump it into the compost!

Inside the coop - chicken feeder. We do need to adjust the angle of our PVC pipe. It is not flowing smoothly yet...too flat.

Roost - we used our old swingset monkey bars for our roost. We may add more roosting later. This is working perfect for now. They like to fight over the top one! Crazy Chickens!

Here is the front door. Sorry so bright, I over exposed it! Oops. Can you see the water and the other side of the nesting boxes? I have them blocked for now, so they don't poo in them. They may start laying in September and I will take that off.

Here is the outside caged area. It goes under the coop as well. Great for protection and I don't have to worry about them while we are gone. We also used the old swingset ladder for a roosting spot. Here they were loving the morning sun!

Here is our chicken door handle. Just pull and the chicken door goes up! All you have to do is hook it on the that hook and it stays open. When you need to lock them up...unhook and go! Fun! I love this!

Here is where we greet the ladies in the morning! "Hello Ladies"! They peek there heads out and slide down the ramp! They are happy little chickens.

Here is the front. Need to take new photos so you can enjoy our new cedar trim. We added it to the door and along the edges of the whole coop. It just made it look so much better. I am going to paint the door green. You see...we have been trying to reuse when we can. The coop was painted with our left over house paint. The door will be our "house trim" color. Every day we seem to get a little more finished. It has been a great experience and I SO LOVED working with my husband on this. It's hard work, but so much fun!

One more for the day. We went for a drive up the mountain and a few deer were roaming the woods. Isn't he beautiful?

For God so loved the world...Bless you all!

Waters are Flooding

I wanted to share a few photos taken on the 17th of June. Our waters have been flooding everywhere. I have never seen our waters so high. We have lived here 12 years and this is the first we have witnessed this. It is pretty cool looking to see our docks under water.

I hope you are having a blessed day. Remember who you are...and let us remember why we are here on earth! Jesus loves you!

Schweitzer creek flowing fast.

Jade, Melina, Olline, Ben and Amanda walking on the flooded Liberty dock. Usually we see four or five feet more of this walk way.

Walking on water!

Come back soon. I am hoping to post a few swim meet photos and more chicken pics!!!

Bike Time and Chicken Coop

Well, as you can see Olline has finally learned to ride her bike. It has been a yearly process, but she put on her knee/shoulder pads, gloves and helmet and took off. I worked with her Friday and Sunday and on Sunday she was off on her own!!! Yeah!!! We are so very proud of her. So now with Melina's new bike and Olline riding on her own we can now go on family bike rides.

6-12-11 Melina helping Olline get started

6-12-11 "Check me out mom!"

6-10-11 Inside coop - chicken door

6-10-11 Nesting boxes for our chicken's eggs!

Here are the nesting boxes from the outside. We have since attached the cover!

6-10-11 Louise and Craylola! Fat birds.

6-10-11 Chickens in the Corner

I will post more photos later. We have made huge progress since these photos. Can't wait to show you. Chickens are not in it yet, but we are so close. It is raining buckets today, so photos will have to wait till dry weather shows up.

God bless you all!

Blessed Family

The last few days were super blessed with our parents coming to visit! They are my parents-in-love (or "-in-law" as some say). We are so grateful they were both able to come and spend time with us and their grand-daughters. We had a wonderful time. God shines through them and we are so thankful with God filled parents!

THANK YOU mom and dad for coming and loving us unconditionally! You coming here were was much needed. The girls were so happy you were here and will take these memories with them now as they grow! They love you both so very much. Especially playing checkers!!!! Thank you! Sugar Sugar!

6-1-11 Grand-parents and Grand-children! So wonderful to have us all together!

5-31-11 Meme and Olline going for a good game of checkers!

5-30-11 Jade and his dad duelling it out on a game of checkers! So intense!

5-31-11 Our beautiful apple tree blossoms. I sure hope that we get good apples this year!