Hello again! So, I've got quite a few photos to share today. Last weekend was Hubby's birthday. He got some $$$ for his birthday and this is what he picked out...

Then MoMo helped to make the cake. Chocolate cake with chocolate frosting of course! Except I saw Almond Joy flavored frosting at the store and put that in the middle. Personally, I'm not a fan of coconut but everyone else liked it!

Mostly we just spent the day relaxing at the house. MoMo and Peanut Butter had an interesting way to hang out.

Doesn't look very comfortable. LOL It took 3 to light all those candles. Just kidding! We actually didn't have enough candles to do one for every year so we used candles to form the number. (41)

This weekend (Memorial Day weekend) we went to Nevada's oldest permanent settlement, Genoa. (pronounced jen-OH-uh, named after Genoa, Italy) But when it was founded in 1851, Genoa was actually not in Nevada but Utah Territory. Nevada as a state or territory didn't exist yet. Nevada became a territory 10 years later in 1861and then a state 3 years after that in 1864. Anyway, today Genoa has a number of antique shops, Nevada's oldest "Thirst Parlor" (bar/saloon), a few other shops that sell jewelry, souvenirs and the like, and Mormon Station State Historic Park. We had fun browsing the shops, had lunch (and ice cream) and generally just explored. Unfortunately, we mostly neglected to take pictures. But I'm going to go ahead and say that Hubby was the one who actually had possession of the camera so it could be considered his fault. ;)

Then yesterday we decided to go to the lake. We just made a day trip of it, didn't camp overnight. Hubby tried a little fishing (no luck and no fish), the kids floated and splashed in the water, dug their own graves, and I mostly relaxed in the shade with my trusty Kindle. (really! They started digging holes the approximate size of their bodies, occasionally lying in them to see if they were the right size yet. They actually told me that they were digging their own graves, though they were quite shallow as far as graves go, and Big R even wrote an epitaph in the sand. Perhaps they were in a macabre mood from the incident that I will tell you about a bit later.)

Look at his face! What a goofball! Anyhow, we all had a really great time and headed home as the sun was going down, a bit sunburned and sandy but happy.

Ok, so yesterday before we headed to the lake we had a sad event. One of our chickens died. :( I went out to fill the feeders and found her in the duck house. We buried her and MoMo decorated the grave with rocks and even put a headstone on it. I think that's why the kids were digging graves at the lake. They had graves on their minds.

MoMo still wants to add Miss Blossom's name to the headstone. I found some photos of Miss Blossom as a wee chick. She's the black and white one here.

Well, I think that about covers it. Hope you are having a great weekend!

So, MoMo and I had a fun adventure today. Her class had a field trip today and I went along as a chaperone. First stop was an archeological site where there are ancient petroglyphs carved into boulders. There is a trail with information posted along the way. Unfortunately I left my camera on the bus so I don't have any photos of that. Oops! But then we went to a nearby alkali flat to search for a mineral/rock called wonderstone. Wonderstone is made up of different layers in shades of purple, red and yellow. You can find some really cool patterned wonderstone in the area. We've got a ton of it that we've collected in the past so I didn't really pick up too many pieces. Also, we know a better spot (inaccessible by bus, though) where you can find lots of really nice specimens that are already naturally smoothed down and polished. Anyway, I did get a few photos of MoMo and her friend hunting for wonderstone. (MoMo is in the yellow sweatshirt)

 After that we headed to Sand Mountain, which is a sand dune 2 miles long and 600 feet high. Normally it is a popular spot for quads, buggies and the like but it not being a weekend it was mostly deserted. And as we didn't have quads or buggies or anything, the main attraction was trying to climb to the top on foot. It is not so easy. After all it is sand. Lots and lots of sand. Sort of like walking 600 feet on the beach, except steeper and higher. Much steeper and much higher.

 See those blackish specks going up the mountain like a trail of ants? Yep, those are people climbing up.

This is the view as I started up.

 Here's the view from higher up but I'm not to the top yet.

FINALLY I made it to the top. That last bit was a killer. I basically had to crawl/drag myself the last yards. It was the steepest bit. See?

Here's me at the top! Woo hoo! I pretty much collapsed in the sand there for a while.

Now you might be wondering, "Where are the pictures of MoMo?" Well, when we first arrived we had lunch. She scarfed hers down and darted up the mountain whilst I ate mine at a more leisurely pace. Also, she went up much more quickly than this old lady did. In fact, she went up to the top, went down to the bottom, then back up to the top again! So, I made my climb solo. But here she is on her second climb.

I wanted to get a picture of the two of us together at the top but I forgot and then she went off with her friends and it just didn't happen. I'll tell you what, though. We were FULL of sand. Like sand in places you didn't even know you had. Like we'll have sand coming out of our ears for weeks. But it was fun.

So, I know it's been a lot about MoMo lately and not too much about Big R (who is officially taller than his Mama). MoMo's been doing her dancing and things while Big R is all about gaming. But I do have a picture of him that I took a few days ago that is a good one. I can't believe how big he is!

And then I made some jam. Everything just came together perfectly and I felt like it was a sign or something. I had seen a recipe for strawberry vanilla jam in a canning book I recently got from the library and knew I'd like to try it. I filed the recipe to make at some future date. Then My MIL brought me some vanilla beans when she came up to visit. (Thanks again)! I was mulling over what I wanted to use them for but hadn't decided on anything. Then I found the most luscious, juicy, tasty, beautiful strawberries (on sale!) so I figured that I HAD to make the strawberry vanilla jam. And believe me it is fabulous! I'd totally share with all of you but the recipe only made 3 pint jars and one half pint jar. It's about half gone already. We've been eating it like crazy. But when I find myself with all the ingredients in hand again I'm planning to make as much as possible. Right now I'm kind of obsessed with it. So delicious! I'll totally share some of my next batch(es)! Maybe...

Surprise! Thought I forgot about you, huh? Well, some of you may know that MoMo is dancing with the swing dance team here. So today I have some pictures to share from that. This first one is from a performance they did at a local elementary school's "Fine Arts Night." They did a line dance to Beauty and a Beat. This was at the beginning of March.

 

Then last Friday they did one of their 2 main performances of the year at our town's Dancing With the Stars. These pictures are from the dress rehearsal. 

I did film their DWTS performance but I apologize for the low quality video. I used my camera's video function since we need to replace the battery for our camcorder and it's not that great. And then at the end of the video whoever was doing the music messed up and didn't play the whole song. There's a pause in the song then the song resumes but they stopped it at the pause. That's why the kids are holding the pose so long because they were waiting for the music to start back up and then it gets kind of chaotic because the kids didn't know what to do. But they really did a terrific job even with the music incident. So without further ado, I present MoMo and the Swing Kidz performing to Don't be Cruel!

Well, we just got back from a nice little vacation. The kids got to skip school, hubby took some time off and we traveled to Las Vegas then on to my parents' house. One of the highlights was that my kids had their very first flight on an airplane. Hubby dropped the kids and I off in the Big City then drove to Las Vegas and picked us up at the airport there. After he dropped us off in the Big City, we had several hours before our flight so we hit the movie theater and had a double feature (Despicable Me 2 and Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2). Then we took a cab to the airport, made our way through security and settled in at the gate to wait for boarding. Here are some photos of a couple of extremely excited kids at the airport.

My photobomber

another photobomb

the gate

I'm going to fly on a plane!

Waiting patiently

Unfortunately, near the time they were to begin boarding the plane, we found out that the flight had been delayed an hour due to adverse wind conditions in Las Vegas. :( Then after an hour we found out it was delayed yet another hour. :( But they finally cleared the plane for takeoff and we got to board.

Yes! OK'd for takeoff!

We FINALLY get to board!

Here are a couple onboard.

At the gate but finally on the plane

about to take off

The actual flight was uneventful (unless you count the really inebriated group across the aisle from us. But at least they were happy drunks).

Hubby picked us up at the Las Vegas airport and then we drove the rest of the way to my parents' house. We had a great visit. And enjoyed the warm weather. We'd had below freezing temps (overnight) before we left our house so being somewhere that was in the 80's was a treat. Of course, visiting with family was an even bigger treat. But we had to head home yesterday. No planes this time. I have to say I prefer flying. ;)

Anyway, today we did some harvesting from our garden. Since we've had freezing weather already most everything is dead or dying. We had about a million billion tomatillos out there. We picked an overflowing 5 gallon bucket full plus more. Maybe another 3/4 of a 5 gallon bucket. And there are still tomatillo plants out there with more tomatillos to pick. I'll be roasting and freezing some plus canning some salsa with them. We also harvested potatoes. I don't know how many pounds we dug but it was quite a lot. Both Yukon Gold and Red Pontiac potatoes. Plenty of large sized potatoes for eating plus plenty of little ones to use for seed potatoes next year. Here are the kids digging potatoes.

this is just a fraction of the potatoes we dug

conjoined potatoes

The kids dug for a while then got tired so I was left to finish digging. Our chickens were having a ball scratching in the freshly turned dirt and eating all the roly poly bugs they could find. There were a LOT of roly polies. The chickens were in heaven. Tomorrow we'll have to finish picking tomatillos and start processing them. That's pretty much the end of the garden for the year. There are some more carrots out there and some parsnips but I think that's it.

Alright, well, I guess that's all for now. Bye!