rasbandfamily.net

Who's the short guy on home plate?

Yes, that's Stoney. We went to the Isotopes
game on Thursday and Stoney was the last to
run the bases. The reason no one is in the stands
is because the game went past 11:30 and it was
almost midnight by the time the kids got to run
the bases.
Here's a couple of other recent pictures

That's Jay and Trina underneath the
Mulberry Tree behind the Brigham Young
home in St. George.

That's their girls at their piano recital in
Phoenix when we were there in May.

If I had a Maid

Or a gardener
I have some catching up to do with the house and yard. Now that I'm retired I'm taking advantage of the recovered time. Clean back bedroom closets. (Check) Thoroughly clean bathrooms (Check) Wash mini blinds in front bedrooms and livingroom (Check) Wash windows iin front part of the house(Check) Clean Kitchen - Cupboards and drawers. (Check)
As I was mopping the kitchen floor today I was thinking what it might mean to have a maid. If the maid did all the things in the house that I've been doing over the past few days might it not become the maids house?
If a gardener did all the things in the yard Darrell and I've been doing over the past few weeks might it not become the gardeners yard?
I think so.
I have missed being the maid and gardener of our house and yard. That's what makes it ours.
Rest of the house here I come.

Yard and Chickens

Mom and I have been working in the yard
and it's starting to look pretty good.
The tulips are blooming

The chickens are also starting to grow and
get excited when we let them out in their pen.

Stoney and Pierce are sporting new doos

Truck bedrails

I got the last of my rails installed today.

Working in the Trenches

We've been slaving away on our backyard for over a year now and are finally getting something to show for it.

For those of you who came out when we first moved in you'll remember that our backyard was almost entirely rock with a small kidney shaped area of grass (who came up with that concept, by-the-way? what use is a small patch of grass?)

We figured that if we were ever going to use the backyard for anything we were going to have to put in grass. Who wants to throw a frisbee in the rock, or kick a soccer ball in the rock, or wrestle in the rock? No one, of course, so we scrapped up all the rock. I wish I had some "before" pictures so you could see how much of a monumental job that really was. It literally took about 4 months of me coming home every day and shoveling rock into a wheel barrow and moving it to the front of the yard. Luckily I got the idea to advertise on Craig's List and we were able to get help getting rid of it that way.

Anyway, a portion of the yard was already set up for automatic sprinklers I thought it wouldn't be too much of a task to just expand it to the rest of the yard. Wrong! As I did my research I learned a lot more about sprinklers than I ever wanted to know, one of which things is that if you have too many sprinklers on a single line the water pressure is too low and they don't work well. So I had to add another value and create another watering zone. After the 4 months of shoveling rock I was getting pretty handy with a shovel.

Using Visio I created a to scale version of our backyard and determined the perfect layout for the sprinklers to give us complete coverage of the backyard. This consisted of moving 4 of the existing sprinklers and adding another 7. It came out to be just under 100 feet of trench that we needed to dig.

Unfortunately the soil in our backyard is similar to cement so the digging didn't go as speedily as I hoped. One afternoon I actually got Alexis to help out for a little bit and after 15 minutes she proclaimed, "This is really hard work." Yep, thanks for noticing. Katrina helped out some and eventually it was all dug.

We measured, cut, and glued all the PVC together. Checked for leaks. And then buried everything.

I wouldn't advertise our yard on Lawn and Garden but it's definitely got some potential and it's getting lots more use than it ever did. In fact, we turned on the sprinklers last weekend and the girls had a blast running around in their swimsuits (how's that for all you folks still having cold weather?).

With the way that the grass has been spreading we should have a nice full lawn sometime around October. But if you need help with your sprinklers, don't come to me for help and advice, I think I'm retired at least until I don't remember how tough of work it was. :)

Chicken Project

I wondered today if this was our new assignment since we no longer have children or grandchildren to take care off. 14 baby chicks who rely on us for everything.
Got tired of the smell about a month ago. Oh yes that was when we got them. Well, we've been waiting for it to warm up enough to put them out. (Not happening) The smell has been getting worse the bigger they get. Today was it. Out they go. I don't care what the temperature is. We got a real heat lamp and grandpa built a door to the Hilton Hen House. We hauled the feathery creatures out to their new home.
We've noticed that the White Rock chickens are the most mature. They try everything first. Roosting on the feed and water bottle and it was a White Rock that jumped out of the box into the play room. You'll notice that it was a White Rock that was the first to stick it's head out of the 'House'.

Hopefully they will learn that their food and water is on the ground and find their way there.

We had to do a little Hansel and Gretel game to coax them down the ramp. We sprinkled chick starter on each of the little steps. But soon there was a small gathering in one corner. I don't think they knew how to get back into the 'House'.

They seem to be getting the idea. I'm sure before the next few days are over they will have it down.

Cutchen Kids

Just some fun pics...
While Elly is quickly getting older she still seems so little to me. She is starting to smile and laugh and it just makes me anxious to see what her little personality will be like. She's our little doll.

Sadie adores her sister...I've only caught her once poking her eyes. But unlike the boys it was out of curiousity, not plain meanness.

And Sadie is a character. She is two going on 13 as she puts on my make-up, or 8 as she plays with the boys. I'm just glad she lets me dress her up.

Sadie posing for Jacque:

And this one...how can something make me feel so warm and fuzzy inside but make me want to pull my hair out at the same time. This kid is equal parts sweetness and menace. Love him watching tv in his undies with gloves and a camo hat. I could just kiss him!

Chickens & Wall

The chickens are growing fast. It's not unusual to
see one on top of their feeding Jars.

Today one actually jumped out of the box so
we decided to let them spend a little time outside
in the chicken coop.

We moved them back in for the night but
put some wire over the top of the box.

While we had some time off this last week decided
to finish up repairs on the wall.

This is the repaired inside wall.

This is the repaired outside wall. It doesn't look
too bad. It actually dried a little more but it's a little
lighter than the original stucco color. I'll spray a
sealant on it to see if it darkens a little more.

March Madness

Hunter never thought turning eight would be so great!
What a month for Hunter! He has never been so excited to have a birthday. Eight meant many new and great things for him. First, he was baptized. He was the sweetest thing ever and tried really hard to be good...that day. It was a special day and we are so grateful to all who were part of that.

Hunter had a fabulous birthday party with his friends at the Archery Shoppe (sorry, no pics). Another event he had to be eight to do. He had a blast.

After his baptism he had family over for pizza and cake and more celebrating.

He is now a cub scout.

And Rob decided he needed to quit sucking his thumb. This was Rob's solution:

Thanks to an orthopedic friend Hunter now sports a nice red cast. We're hoping after a week the thumb habit will disappear. I think it might be child abuse to send him off to school with an unnecessary cast....and it only cost Rob a pocket knife. Not a bad deal, huh?

Chicken Update

Here's an update on the Chickens.
I finished their yard today.

Here's what they looked like a week ago
Saturday when we got them.

Here's what they looked like last Thursday
when Mom added the 3 new ones.

Here's what they look like today. Notice
we're missing the little Rhode Island Red.
Mom noticed she wasn't looking very good
this morning and pulled her out but she only
lasted about an hour after that.

The rest seem to be doing great and growing
quite fast.

On another note Pierce decided to trim his hair a
little with scissors so Mom and Dad had to finish the
job. He makes a good Michael Jordon.