New 'pet'?!

This little skink has been living many days lately under the straw bale in the garage. She's actually one of the few critters around here who doesn't run for it when they see Dr. Mommy coming! (yep, 'my' cat is totally afraid of me most of the time)

I don't eat lamb

Except for this one. A family tradition when I was growing up was that my grandparents came to visit for Easter and Mom and Grandma always made a lamb cake. I haven't had one in years, but this year my youngest cousin was getting his first so mom was inspired to make me one. He was waiting in the kitchen cabinet when we got home from Wichita.

Lucky Sam

Last weekend we were in Wichita for K's step-nephews' wedding. Friday night K's family and some friends enjoyed a lovely production at Mosley Street Melodrama. One of K's HS classmates was lucky enough to be selected to go onstage and participate...he was quite the good sport, seen here showing how 'low' he could sing!

4 of the 5

Four of our 5 horses anxiously awaiting feeding time. From l-r we have Sparky, As You, Streaker and Twister. Sparky is wearing a fly mask to help keep the light out of his eyes to ease his recurrent uveitis, aka moon blindness.

the hills are burning

It's spring in the Flint Hills, and that means time to burn the pastures. It's a good thing for the environment as it keeps trees and other unwanted things from growing without the use of toxic chemicals, but it does create quite the layer of smog for a few weeks. The other day on our way home a pasture was burning right next to the road. A bit disconcerting to drive through, but I did get some neat pictures.

Catching up

Ok, so I've not been doing a very good job again lately on the blogging thing. For some reason this time I seem to be a bit more motivated, so hopefully that motivation will stick around...maybe it's because several people have emailed wanting to see pictures of different projects, and I'm tired of emailing everyone seperately! I know I have only included 2 crafty things in my pictures, despite the fact that I have actually have been doing many crafty things. We've made several bears in the last few months, but the pictures are on Mom's computer, and I have done some scrapping, but I tend to not take pictures of those things. But now that we have most of the floors replaced and most of the painting done, I'm hoping to have more time to be crafty...and blog about it. So, now that it's April, maybe that can be my New Year's resolution!!

How can you tell when it's time for the ducks to move out of the bathtub?

When you open up the door and see this:



Yep, Maude managed to climb out yesterday. Since it is still fairly cold outside and they are still downy, this meant that we had to create a duck 'playpen' in the garage for them.


They seem to really like their new space though, and despite the cold weather today have spent the morning out and about.

A little snow

It's a bit blurry, but yep, that's right, 9" of snow on the last Saturday of March. And this was 2 hours before it stopped!
And then as soon as it stopped the sun came out and it started melting. By Monday the only snow left was in the shadow of the barn.

Newest family members

The 6 little girls (I hope!). From l-r we have Buffy, Fawn (in back) Elle (in front) Maude, Winnie and Jackie. This picture if from the day they arrived.
This is one week later. I think these little girls are growing faster than any ducks I've had in the past! From l-r Jackie, Fawn (in back), Elle (in front), Maude, Buffy (in back), Winnie (in front)

Peeking ducks

K thinks most people would find it odd to have ducks peering in their back door...I'm not sure what's so odd about it though! laugh

A zoo??

In January we visited family in Missouri. At K's step-moms we got to visit a whole menagerie of critters! It was just like being at a petting zoo! I really wanted to bring one of the bunnies home with me.

Christmas gifts

Thanks to an awesome teacher (Bettina) I learned how to knit and wet felt baskets in August. So they were perfect gifts to make for my friends for Christmas.

Cowboy

Doesn't he just look like he was made for this? In November we headed to Southern KS to help some friends wean their calves. This is their son after he had brought in one part of the herd. He's finishing up a diesel mechanic degree this spring and then will attend KSU in the fall. He isn't sure what he wants to do for a career, but I'm positive it will be something where he can spend a lot of time working on the farm.

Fall centerpiece

Thought I would share the centerpiece I created for a fall party we had to attend for work. Was a bit of a last minute thing, but I was quite pleased with how it came out...and even better someone was willing to buy it in the silent auction!

Taking the parents to FL

My parents on the beach for the first time last August! They were like little kids the entire trip. We had only landed in FL and as we walked out of the airport restroom Mom had to give me a big hug and thank me for a wonderful trip. It was a bit exhausting as we had extra people to keep up with and had to move at their pace not ours, but it was well worth it to see the smiles on their faces! We even got Mom up to the top of the lighthouse (she hates heights) and Dad playing out in the surf (he hates swimming), so all in all a great vacation!

Rodeo time

Had to include this picture. From L-R we have my dad, XR's wife, and Bruce, our CEO/Pres. Bruce is...well, Bruce...sometimes he just doesn't see the point in 'fun'. But here we were at the Kaw Valley Rodeo in July watching Muttin Bustin', and he was laughing and truly enjoying it! Now for those who don't know, Muttin Bustin' is where they put little kids atop a sheep and see how long they can hold on as the sheep run around the arena. Some of the kids fall off immediately, and then some sink their little hands into the fleece with a death grip. It is quite amusing to watch! And even Bruce had 'fun'!

adults?

We have finally bought our first 'real' furniture...a dining room set. So we are wondering if we are finally adults? It does feel that way anyway...finally getting rid of all the 'college' furniture that we have acquired over the years. Have dined at the table every meal we've been home since it arrived, but haven't been able to use the china cabinet yet as we discovered last weekend that the legs got quite banged up on its way to our house. They are supposed to bring us a new one on Saturday, and we asked them to pack it better for the trip down our gravel roads...we'll see if they listened!

This picture is the one we took at the store when we first looked at it. We wanted to make sure that if we looked at it again in a few weeks, we'd still love it as much as we did when we first saw it. We did, and still do!
We bought the table, 8 chairs, the china cabinet and a sideboard as well. Our dining room is quite full!

April Ann trip...Day 3

We had so much fun in St. Augustine on Friday that we decided to go back on Saturday. We shopped along the historic district, visited the old fort, and then checked out the beaches along the intercoastal highway back to Jacksonville. We found the greatest beach at a public access point, and it was hard to leave! Someday when we win the lottery, I want a beach front house here!

I don't have great pics of the fort since it was huge, but here are some of the cannons on the top. They were all different, and captured from different wars that the have been fought in our country.

This is my favorite beach. As you can see in this and the next pic, the storm was moving through so we got quite wet out here, but had sooo much fun playing in the waves.

April Ann trip...Day 2

So Day 2 (our actual Ann. day) of our trip found us headed to St. Augustine to spend most of the day on St. Aug Island. We climbed up in a lighthouse, played a round of miniature golf on a beachside course, and spent the majority of the day on the beach.
I became quite intrigued by the brown pelicans that just seemed to hang in the air riding the breeze blowing in off the ocean.

April Ann. trip..Day 1..Amelia Island

Hmm...so much has been happening, but I can't remember 1/2 of it it seems. First, we had a wonderful 10th Ann. trip in April to St. Augustine, FL. I would highly recommend it to anyone. The beaches between Jacksonville and St. Aug are wonderful, and often not very full of people either. Amelia Island (North of Jacksonville) is really nice too, even though we didn't spend as much time there. But, we loved the place so much that we are going back in a couple of weeks and taking my parents. This will be my mom's first time to fly, and the first trip to the ocean for both, as well as their first real vacation (that didn't involve staying with family) in many many years. We hope it all goes well!

Anyway, it was an amazing vacation for us because we went without a plan and had a great time just randomly doing whatever we thought sounded fun. We have been known to spend the entire time fighting, so this was definitely a great trip for us. The first day when we landed, we had no idea what we wanted to do, but in looking at the map, saw that the Jacksonville Zoo wasn't too far from the airport, and the only thing Northwards that we wanted to do. In the search to find lunch before heading to the zoo, we saw a sign for Amelia Island, and decided that we could go to a zoo anytime, but not an island (a serious downfall of living in KS!) It turned out to be a great choice and we had a lot of fun...tons of surf and shells!

So here are some of the better pics from the day on Amelia Island. As you can see it was rather cloudy, and starting to get dark, so the pics didn't turn out the best:

it's been a while

Well, for anyone out there who is still reading this blog, sorry to not post in a while. We have discovered just how tiring moving 400 miles with 5 horses, 6 cats, 3 ducks, 2 dogs and 2 humans is. But the good news is that we are all starting to settle in pretty well, and we think the house in Missouri is sold (want to see that $$ in the ol' bank account before we count our chickens!). So now maybe life can settle down into a somewhat 'normal' state.
Haven't downloaded any new pictures off my camera lately, but here are a couple of the ice storm we had in December in KS. This first one is the road leading to our house. The electric lines were loaded to ice and bouncing up and down. Needless to say we were without power for the first 3 days we owned the place.

This is some of the rose bushes in front of the house. An older woman used to own the place, and I'm guessing she loved roses from the looks of it. Unfortunately they were not taken care of well and most have converted to wild roses. Think we are going to let them live through this year to see what exactly we have, and then make a decision on what goes and what stays...I'd let them all stay but they have taken over and block the walkways into the house with their thorny tendrils.

Well, lets all keep our fingers crossed that I stay on top of this a bit better in the future!

My First Blog

A new adventure for me. Our website was not progressing as I wanted it to, so I thought I would try a blog instead. Of course being in the midst of a huge move I don't know how often I'll have crafty things to post, but maybe it will save my sanity!