Thursday, July 9, 2009

Bear with me.....my yard is in bloom!

I was planting irises my neighbor so generously shared with me (enough for 5 big clumps around my yard --thanks Kelli!) and needed to record the summer blooms for posterity (or for if we ever try to sell our house). Love Hostas --this is the only spot front or back where they seem to do well though.
I got some dusty miller last year as an annual, and have really hated the blooms on them in the past (why did Heavenly Father make them YELLOW when the foliage is grey? they don't match themselves), but this year let them go. If you fight them they keep putting up more and more until you give in, and I don't think they are so bad anymore. Bright spot at least.
The Butterfly bushes are all coming into bloom. I bought three originally, but the bushes from the neighbor behind us seeded new bushes into my backyard (thanks Lorraine). Four of them were perfectly placed and I saved them. Free bushes! woo woo!
The lavender is at its best right now too. I once house sat for a lady who's whole garden was just lavender, and raspberries. She had her priorities straight.
The front of the house. Love that Russian Sage. It does so much and asks for so little.

There are the free daylilies (thanks Bonnie and Dad) and my little strawberry patch. This little patch produced two flats of strawberries in one picking, and I made four batches of jam. Plus it supplies my kids and all the neighbor kids for all of June. Not bad for a park strip with no extra coddling, and started with free plants from a vacant lot. Kelli and I decided a plant is MUCH more desirable if it's free. My family motto since I can remember has always been "if it's free I'll take two".

Sunday, July 5, 2009

Cochlear Kids Camp

Hi, this is Tia, my mom's outside in the yard and didn't want to come inside and type all of this up, so I'm doing it for her (it has been a month, and I thought people needed something to read on here, I read it too). The picture above is of us at the cochlear kid's camp shooting bottle rockets. One boy's rocket blew up, we think it was because the bottle was too small. Fortunately, another older boy about my age gave the boy his rocket to use. When it shot up, it spiraled!
This is a picture of me standing close to a bull elk, next to our cabin. I saw it three different times! once by the parking spot, once here, and once a little while after, when there was about ten altogether!My mom and I had just gotten back from a nature walk, where we were the only ones there, before we left, my mom needed something sugary (she was on vacation), so that's why I'm holding skittles. I got the lemonade when we got back.
This is right after Kai's rocket launched off. I don't think we actually got one of a rocket up in the air. We got a video, and they went super high, but no picture.

This is Ari, waiting for her turn, you can see her "evil eye". That's because when we were leaving from a day camp for all of the kids while the parents were at a meeting, Ari's group (eight and nine year old girls and boys) were doing face painting, and we didn't have time for the one she wanted. It was lunch time, and we didn't want to be late. So the guy that was doing it, just drew a big black circle in the middle of her face, my mom drew a few squiggles around it, and called her a Chinese dragon. Then she was happy (she loves everything to do with China, except that sometimes the food they eat has mushrooms in it).
This is Ari, after the horseback riding. Her horse, Scarlet, kept bending over and eating grass. Ari kept yanking with two hands on the reins, as hard as she could, but the horse wouldn't stop! Finally, a ranger had to tie Scarlet to the trail leader's horse. At the end, one of the rangers gave Ari a painted horse shoe (not used, they had some in the gift shop too) with Scarlet and '09 on it. After that, Ari kept saying "My horse kept getting big into trouble!" with a surprised look on her face, as if to say, can you believe it?!?!
Here's Kai and my dad on their horse, Bubba. It sounded like they were having fun (I was behind them), but when it was over Kai said he didn't have fun. I was surprised, since I had had a great time.....
My horse was named Gipsy, and she was beautiful, gentle, and was perfect. She seemed to know what step was right to take, and I hardly needed to look at the trail, and where to go! I almost even fell asleep (one little boy that went before us did)!
Here we are, prepared for any weather, ready to go. The horses finished their last-minute-peeing, and I was a little nervous, for no reason. But I got over it a few minutes after we started.
This is before we even started. The first time we had come up there, it was pouring, and our dad had the van, so we had to walk. Fortunately, it only rained after we got there. The phones didn't work that far up, so we just walked halfway home when our dad didn't pick us up, and we ended up going back up there and missing rock wall climbing. It was fun anyways. Here is the video.