Happy Father’s day, Rock!

Yes.  It was yummy!

For science this week we ordered caterpillars that we get to watch turn into butterflies!   It has been a fascinating experience thus far so when Penny invited us to go to the Butterfly house at the zoo, we jumped at the chance!

The zoo is beautiful!  It had this fun giraffe slide right as we came in.  Liberty wanted to go down it so many times I thought we’d never get to the rest of the zoo!  On the slide is Reagan, Lincoln, Levi and Cade.

Lincoln is 6 months older than Liberty, but they’re pretty much the same size and so cute together!  (When they are not yelling at each other) Neither one of them has had to deal with a peer of the same age very much and it has been funny to watch them duke it out.  She didn’t really want him on ‘her’ lion in this picture.  Thus, no smile.

Prairie dogs!

Look close-all four kids were in this one bubble looking at this pompous Prairie Dog.

I just missed this one nose to nose with Reagan.  It was hilarious!

Butterflies!

Liberty was the first one to have a butterfly land on her.  She was ok with it at first, but then got worried and shook him off.

Next was Reagan.  He had lots of butterflies land on him, actually.

Here’s Levi, moping and sitting as still as his little four year old self could sit.  He has wanted to have a butterfly land on him ever since I told the primary story about butterflies and reverence in church a month ago.  He tries very hard whenever we are outside to get one to land on him.  So this was his big chance and he was frustrated it was taking so long.

Penny and Derek were next. 
Derek won with TWO at once!

Still waiting…and watching….

Hey, when ya got it, flaunt it.

This one landed on my sunglasses.

Cade got a yellow one!  His favorite color.

Levi attempts to coax one onto his hand…

Success!!!


This was an answer to prayer, let me tell ya!  Thank goodness for tender mercies.

Reagan and I got our first taste of farming life last week when we helped Aunt Janie and Uncle Calvin bale their hay.  I’m so excited about all the hard, worthwhile work by boys will be able to do at their farm!

The bales hadn’t had time to dry out and so they were pretty heavy.  Reagan couldn’t actually lift one.  He was very frustrated about that.  But hopefully next time (they do this three times a year!) they’ll be able to dry out more and we can lift them.  Ok, I’ll admit it, I couldn’t really lift them either.  Here I am, “baling hay”.

My job title was “Truck Driver Extraordinaire” as Uncle Calvin put it.

Believe it or not, this was taken the same day as the above beautiful blue sky pictures.  It was threatening to rain when we first started, but the rain held off and turned to sun.  That’s Derek in the background.  Truth be told, he did most of the work that day.  He also broke out in hives because he’s allergic to hay!

Reagan found a little surprise in one of the bales.   A snake!!! 
Afterward he got to see the 20 some animals that Byams have.  5 horses, 2 cats, 2 dogs, a bunch of chickens and I’m not even sure what else!  Reagan collected the eggs from the chicken coop. 

Looking forward to more fun at the Byam farm!

We left GJ and headed for Boise on May 28th.  We stopped in Provo for lunch with Mason (Rock’s brother), had dinner with the Weiss’s (good friends from Duvall) and had a night cap with Mike and Monica (Rock’s sister and brother in-law).  Mike and Monica got to watch the “cooped up in the car all day, we are homeless and know it, please give us some structure” children jump all over the hotel beds and hang from the ceilings like hooligans.  I’m sure they went home that night and thought, “Wow.  Maybe we’ll just get dogs instead.”   

Here are some pics with our good friends the Weiss’ who always make time to see us and welcome us into their home.  The kids go berserk and have a grand time every time.  David and Launna are the kind of friends who we can pick right up with even after years apart.  We’re so lucky to know them!

The next day we got up bright and early and drove the rest of the way to Boise.  I got this picture that morning before we left  the hotel.

Just before we headed into Boise I took this picture:

It really exemplifies the transition we were about to make.  Boise itself doesn’t look like this.  It is much more green and the mountains/hills are much closer.  But the expanse of blue sky is so much bigger than we’ve ever lived with for most of our married life!  Rock is thrilled not to have all those trees in his way.  I’m not so thrilled to have all those trees not in my way. 

We arrived at our new house on Zeus Way to find our truck just delivered and we were able to start on it that night.
 
The kids found this in the back yard:

Surprise!!!  Thanks to Derek and Penny for setting it up for us!  It was a huge hit and the kids have been on it every day since!  Here’s a finny video of Libby and Lincoln enjoying the ride for the first time.

Here’s the last installment from the GJ trip!

Fun at Grandma’s House We had lots of fun just hanging around Grandma’s house while in CO.  The boys discovered two of these Collared lizards under a rock behind the house and spent the whole week trying to see them again. 

Grandma read Winnie the Pooh to the kids and they laughed themselves silly.


Mr. Potato Lib

Reading together in Grandma’s chair

Talking to Daddy on Face Time. 

The wonders of modern technology.

We found a fantastic hands on Science and Math center that the kids loved.  (Thanks to Kerri for the tip!!)  We just barely scratched the surface of this place! 


 

Reagan worked on this Tower of Hanoi puzzle for a long time, but he finally figured it out.  His first response, which was typical, was to get mad and say, “This is dumb. This is impossible.”  But he stuck with it and I was proud of him because it was tough. You had to move all the rings from the first peg to the third peg without moving more than one at a time and without putting a bigger ring on top of a smaller ring. 





Liberty thought this guy was fascinating.  So fascinating that she actually touched it….which is more than her mother would do.

On another day we went on a walk around Grandma’s street….
to see this view: (click on it and you can use your mouse to scroll around the picture)

The Mountains around Grand Junction are amazing. This is Grand Mesa and the Book Cliffs. WOW!

John, Paul, George and Ringo    Reagan, Cade, Levi and Liberty

On our last night in GJ we had a barbeque at Great Grandma and Grandpa’s house.  We roasted smores, met the new chickens and played in the grass.  It was a grand ending to our time in Grand Junction.  We sure loved getting to spend so much time with Grandpa John and Grandma Dot.  We love you both and look forward to visiting again now that we are closer!
And a special thanks to Neil and Nancy for all their help in our move.  Thanks for putting up with us for a whole week!!!  They never believe me when I say this, but I LOVE my in-laws and am so grateful for them and the good relationship that we have.  We had a great time in GJ!  We love you both!

Here is some more from our trip to CO.  We are in Boise now, but I am taking a break from unpacking to get caught up on my blog!
Monday morning, May 28th, (a day early) we woke up to find Dad and Grandpa pulling up to the house after driving non-stop across the country.  It took them 32 hours!  We were glad to see them.  And they were glad to be done!
 
While Rock and Grandpa slept that morning, Uncle Dave and Aunt Jeannie took us on a hike to show us some of the rugged beauty of Colorado. 

I don’t know if it was the hat or Jeannie’s calm peaceful demeanor, but Liberty bonded with her right away and would not leave her side the rest of the hike.


We saw all kinds of cool rocks.  Cade named the one to the left behind Reagan the “Ice cream cone rock”.

Levi did a little assisted rock climbing to get to this really cool little cubby hole.  Then everyone had to climb up too.



Reagan overcame his fear of heights for a little bit and did some rock climbing as well.




Between Dave, Jeannie, and Grandma, Liberty got a free ride for most of the hike. Thank you, guys!
The next day we drove up to and around the Colorado National Monument.  It was breathtaking!  (Disclaimer: my computer is not cooperating with me today, so these pictures don’t quite do the red rock justice.  Sorry!)

I put this one up so Alli can have a new scary goal. You can get to that rock/stool at the bottom left from where we were.  And it’s a big drop into nothin beyond that!

Livin on the edge.  The guardrail stops just beyond Cade’s head-take that Aunt Alli. 

Independence Monument

Independence Monument-skinny angle.
I loved the Monument.  The kids got bored after a while, though they loved Independence Monument.  The idea of that big rock standing all by itself was very intriguing.  I’m so glad we can see it whenever we go visit G & G!

Grandma Dot and Grandpa John’s Farm 
Thursday we spent the day at Great Grandma and Grandpa Roper’s house.  I don’t know who had more fun, Great Grandma and Grandpa or the kids.

Grandma sat the kids down first thing and told them all the fun things they were going to do that day.

First up; four wheeling!!!



 
Even Liberty got to try.  As you can see, she didn’t like it much.
 
While the boys went four wheeling, Liberty and Grandma Dot watered the strawberries.

 
Then everyone played in the irrigation ditch.  They raced boats up and down the water.


This is my FAVORITE picture!  The Colorado National Monument again.  What a view!

Next we helped Grandma plant some flowers in her garden.

Liberty really discovered her green thumb.

 
Then we went down to the pond to catch tadpoles.

As usual, Reagan and Levi were ready to dive into the mud and Cade held back a little. 

The boys also got to go inside the big old red barn.
I think they all look really old here.  Is it just me???

And here’s a few more really cute ones of Libby:

Picking wild flowers

We had such a good time.  The farm was very exciting for these suburban kids. They definitely had a Grand time!

Thanks for a great day Grandma and Grandpa!

The “Pwopewty”
One of the first things we did when we got to Grand Junction was to go see Rock’s parent’s property or “pwopewty” in Levi speak.  They’ve been talking about building on this land since the day I met them and have owned it for even longer.  Now they are finally here and are beginning the process of fulfilling this dream.  So we went to check it out.

Their view overlooks the Colorado National Monument and it is an amazing view.

In the pasture.

The next day Grandma went out to supervise some work that needed to be done on the property and she took the boys to watch.  They had quite the adventure.

They watched for a while and then Jeff, the excavator, offered to let them try it.  They thought they’d died and gone to heaven.

Levi took the controls like he would a bucking bronco and went a little wild.  Very typical of his personality.  Fearless.

Reagan took the cerebral approach and asked lots of questions, trying to do it just right.  Also typical.

Cade was in awe that he even got to try.

Then they got a fire pit ready for the hotdog roast we’ll have out there next week when Rock and Grandpa get here. 
We’re having tons of fun!

At first our plan was to move at the end of June.  No sweat.  Two months is plenty of time to pack, I thought.  Then we had to move it up to Memorial Day weekend and I got a little nervous.  Four weeks was just barely going to cut it.  Then the move date got moved up one more time to May 19th.  Panic!  I went from having 2 months to pack to having 3 weeks.  Never having packed an entire house on my own, I knew I was in for a major job and I wanted plenty of time to do it.  I’ve been spoiled and the company has paid for movers every time we’ve moved.  There was only one time we moved ourselves.  That was from our apartment to our house in Duvall.  Not too big of a deal when you only have one couch and one bed, a crib and a few dishes, oh and one kid.  And that move was not from one side of the country to the other.  This move was going to be a massive undertaking and I admit to hyperventilating a bit over the decision to move so fast.  But I dove right in and packed everything I could and… it was easy.  I couldn’t figure out what all the fuss was about.  I left the essentials out, but packed everything else.  I was so packed we had time to take all those trips back into New York City and go to upstate New York all a few weeks before we moved.  I was feeling pretty darn good about myself- until the last few days before the move when all the “essentials” had to be packed all at once and then it got pretty crazy. I didn’t see how I was going to be ready.  It really does snowball there at the end.  What almost drove me over the edge, though, was having to pack for a week long trip in Grand Junction with 4 kids on an airplane while at the same time packing everything in the house to be moved.  And to make matters worse, I got food poisoning of some kind two days before the move and got no sleep.  It was then that my wonderful neighbor and friend Natalie stepped in and took my kids so I could get some sleep and finish packing.  She took them every day for 3 days.  I couldn’t have done it without her.  She is an angel.

We had a wonderful little run in with nature just before we left Berkeley Heights.  Thursday morning after a huge rainstorm, we found a bird nest that had been knocked out of the tree by the rain.  Four little baby birds were dead but one little one survived and not knowing what else to do we took care of it for a day.