Midway through 2010

I know it's been forever, a year to be closer to the truth but man time flies and I don't know how someone gets this all done. To recap the events that unfold below. We are now pregnant with number 4, yes it was planned. We're not going to find out if it's a girl or a boy we figure it will be more fun this way. I have some much to keep me busy that it doesn't bother me not to know, I'm just excited. We own a rooster and 5 hens, we used to have 2 roosters but we just recently butchered him, an experience I don't think I'll ever forget nor do I want to ever relive such a thing. Let me back up a little, the pictures in the beginning are of Robby's family. We were saying farewell to Robert and Nikki, Rob's parents, who are serving a mission in Sweden right now. I have some pictures of our first family camping trip, it was great. I also have some pictures of my garden. I cut off my first watermelon today, only to find out that even though it was huge it wasn't even close to being ready. It was still white inside with really big white seeds. We have green beans, and cantaloupe growing, plus we've been eating fresh beets and zucchini. I've already made two double batches of zucchini bread. We've had red onions and I was able to save a cabbage, the caterpillars have been getting into stuff. Then the last part of the blog is the Junction, Cougar Ranch family reunion. We had sooooo much fun. We got down there on Friday and camped out until Sunday. Oh I also forgot to tell those who don't know, we're in Logan, UT now. Well I hope you enjoy the pictures and we miss everyone.

The family farewell for Robert and Nikki Anderson. It was nice to have everybody there to wish mom and dad farewell. They are enjoying Sweden and love their mission which is great.

Christiaan pooped out at the family farewell for Rob's
mom and dad. He's so cute when he sleeps. He's also cute when he's awake but I love when all the kids are sleeping cause then they look truly peaceful.

These are our chickens. So far 3 of the 5 hens are laying eggs, the other 2 should join in soon. The black rooster is the one we butchered, his name was Oslo and he was a really good rooster. Cardinal is our Rhode Island Red and he's gorgeous. We wanted to enter him in the county fair but we just recently clipped his feathers to keep him out of other people's yards when we let them free range. The country fair won't even judge him with clipped feathers so I'm bummed cause he's beautiful. After butchering a chicken I don't know if I could do it again it was awful and especially since Robby and I didn't know what we were doing, but the kids aren't traumatized. Sammy personally wanted us to cut his head off so she could watch him run around I don't think she knew what she was saying cause I think that's pretty gross but more humane than what we went through. Sammy also wanted it to be Cardinal that was killed cause he's more aggressive.

Our kids favorite past time right now is getting wet. We now have a slip and slide but before that it was the sprinkler on the hose which serves its purpose. Chris and Jon are generally good buds, Sammy sometimes is the third wheel they all take turns being groups of two.

JJ learned to ride his bike without training wheels and without my help. I took of the training wheels he hopped on and took off before I could even stand up. The kids a natural athlete. The pictures of the trees were so my mom could see how pretty they became. She left before she could see them in bloom.

So this is my gardening for this year. The watermelon I'm holding, thought it was perfect, not even close to being ripe. Apparently these watermelons get even bigger. It's probably hard to see but I have a roma tomato plant that came up with the weeds right in between my melon plants. I don't even have roma tomato seeds, how crazy is that.

The kids had plenty of suckers at Jon's birthday. Robby bought the tootsie pack of candy so when the piniata broke it seemed like all the kids grabbed the suckers first.

JJ turned 4 July 15th and
it was the best cause Robby was able to be there. JJ, Chris, and I were all throwing up the night before his actual birthday so we moved it up a day. But who could go wrong with cupcakes and a homemade piniata. After seeing
Rick's piniata's at the reunion I have some
better ideas for how to do things next time.

Not long ago my Brother's family came up and visited. We went
to Huntsville, UT to spend some time with them. There was a cool
waterfall on the way out of the canyon so we stopped and took a
picture. The picture of the lake is Bear Lake, and it is soooo pretty
but polar bear cold. I actually did fully submerge in it but I must
have been crazy at the time cause I don't think I'll do it again.

Our kids were such good sports on the hike. We probably went a total of 3 miles there and back to our campsite. Christiaan probably only went 2 miles cause he pooped out the last mile, but what a cutie.

This campsite was wonderful. The water was cold but it felt great. We had hot dogs for dinner and sausage and eggs for breakfast. We also had smores of course.
We love the tent we bought it was a really good investment. We plan to camp for many years.

I had some movies to add that Robby took but they're taking forever to load so I'll have to figure it out another time. One was a panoramic view of the Cougar Ranch while people were having some fun and the other was a hula hoop thing.

I started off sleeping next to Robby but by morning you know how it goes everyone ends up in bed with you. Sammy had already woken up. The kids standing in line were waiting to bowl. They had so many prizes they let the kids do it at least five times each which means we took home a lot more than we came with.

Joan found out that the Anderson Family are related to a lot of really important people. Nikki and Robert probably already knew this though since they do a lot of genealogy.