lima beans, fledglings and friends

Lima Beans....you can't tell by the picture but, this was Tara's 5th grade play.  She was the little girl who refused to eat her lima beans...and had to appear in court. 

The class made up commercials and everything.  Everyone participated.  It was a fun way to end the year.

All the kids had field day this week.  But, I only took my camera to school on one day (the day of the play and Emily's field day.)  The other kids you can see on fb.  Thank you other moms for shooting and posting my kids!

Emily has a lot of good friends.

Anna was the best partner for the water balloon toss. 

Mrs. B and Emily together.  She said Emily was going to fail 3rd grade.  She promised she'd fail so that she could keep her again for another year.

3 more days left of school and what do you do?  Mow the lawn and put out the sprinkler.  They already have the summer spirit.  Top it off with Brusters and you have the perfect Saturday.

Tara's new love.  Thanks alot Marisa!

 Emily finally has time to work on projects that she got for her birthday.  A shag rug with a smiley face and LOL across the bottom.

Flowers anytime are wonderful!  Thank you sweetheart!

Here's the baby bird we tried to save.....sometimes it's just out of our hands. 

happy bubbles

It's been a while since we've had time for a really bubbly bubble bath.
 Abraham Lincoln...., Brigham Young...., Santa.....it's fun to pretend!

Winding down

We had a bridal shower for a co-worker this past week.  Here are all the teachers and aids that I work with each morning.  This is definately a special group of ladies.  It's been a memorable year at work this year.

Since the weather has been fantastic, we have been playing outdoors everyday after school.  The boys new game is bey blades......glorified spinning tops.  They battle it out at the end of the slide.

The girls play in the trees and found 5 new baby birds.  Here they all showed up with the same toy.

Here are the battling bey blades.....last one left spinning wins.

For teacher appreciation day, I stayed with Tara's class while her teacher took an extended lunch.

It's been an up and down year for Tara in that portable....at times: floods, ants, air and lights and toilet  not working, having to walk extra distances in the cold and hot weather, but, she's made it through.

Tara spend the last two weeks in art club making plates and prints.  Here are a few things she came up with.

This was Emily's newest creation with her melty beads.  Looks like the subtle hints are sinking in.

Our Saturday in Nashville

We went to Franklin to help clean the grounds of the Nashville temple.

We left at 5:30 am. and drove 3 hours.  It was a beautiful day.

 We began by cleaning the fence (wiping off bird poop and spiderwebs)

 Then we were asked the clean the skirt of the temple which was too close to the ground and couldn't be pressure washed.

 We wore blue gloves to keep our hands dry...

then we weeded the mulch areas around the trees and bushes in the back.

Emily wanted to stop and smell....and photograph the roses.

Gene went up the help clean the roof (the pressure washers didn't work up there and a whole crew had to clean it by hand.)  He took Tara up to see the view.

The kids worked really hard for a good 2 hours and took a break.  Gene just kept going.  I had the hardest time staying awake on the trip home.  I drifted over to the bumpy lane twice before I switched with Gene.  He got us home safe and sound.  (Wakeing up at 4 am is not a good or safe thing for Angelina).

Jacob said, after he looked at the clean temple said, "we should take these buckets and sponges home and clean our own house!"  Yes, we should, Jacob!

Our grass is greener

We weathered the storm.  I didn't get any pictures of our water addition....it wasn't something I wanted to remember.  We cleaned up as best we could and now we are in the queue for a professional clean early next week.  Obviously there is a long waiting list.  We are super glad though that we all made it through that storm that was really awful for some people around us.  We even had no damage to our cars (which is amazing with the size hail that we had).....Some friends at work had cars that looked like someone took a hammer to them.  We must have had a little protective umbrella over our cars.  It seems the preventative work we had done to the back of our house wasn't enough so, we had a couple inches of water leak in our front room.  We had a long night mopping up/soaking up and ringing out towels (since it was close to midnight when we discovered it) and then went out and bought  a wet/dry vac.

Anyway, we are happy to be together and alive.  The kids were amazed to see what happened around us and to friends...and were so glad to know their prayers (in what was a desperate time of need -because of the noise and fearful storm it was) were answered.

Yesterday Gene mowed the grass, tried to put the gravel driveway back together, trimmed the bushes and the kids just could not stay inside because it was such a beautiful day.  I took some pictures after we ate dinner on the deck.  This is one of the few times a year it's possible when there aren't too many bugs to get into the food.  They had fun with the trimmings....

I had to include this picture too...because someone (we guess another neighbor) took a turn (since Gene usually does it) and mowed our neighbor's grass ...or should I say waist high prairie land.  Two miracles in one week! 
On another note, Gene's grandmother, Edith Zavasky, passed away this last week.  She was living in N.C. near Bob and his family in a facility.  And, Justin is now in the MTC getting ready to go to Angola (correction from last time, I thought Mozambique) Africa-Portugese speaking.
We hope everyone has had safe journeys in their new cars (from last weeks accidents -James, and GrandmaC!)  We are so glad no one was hurt badly.