A couple of weeks ago we had a pleasant surprise of hosting Rinar's cousin Ranel, Kathy, and their daughter Ananda for Sunday dinner. It was nice to have them come over. Ranel had a lot of stories about Rinar's dad Lynn. He remembered Lynn from when he was a little kid and when Lynn was a bit of a wild child. It was fun to hear stories about him. Ranel was full of stories and it was nice to remember.
He also had us test out a new game he has created called Treasures of Freedom. It helps you to memorize important documents in American history. We played the Gettysburg Address version and it seemed like the kids really enjoyed it. Kathy even took a little video and put it on their website.
After dinner with them, the week just got crazy busy. I don't even know what happened. It is kind of a blur. I guess this is what happens when I enter my project mode. I kind of get tunnel vision a bit. But first, this is a cute picture I took of Noelle at the library with her dirty, booger nose.
Mother's Day was really nice. On the Saturday before, Rinar was playing with the kids and they composed a percussion piece for me. It was pretty darn hilarious. They were all pounding on their different kitchen "instruments" and having a great time.
All of my kids made me a card that listed all of the reasons why they love me so much. I think some version of food made it onto all of their lists. Haha! They love food as much as me.
We also had my brother and sister and their families over for dinner and were able to Facetime our mom for Mother's Day. It was an enjoyable conversation with her and Dad.
Then on Monday I had to take the boys down to Provo to do year-end testing. Since they are doing a charter school homeschool, it was a requirement. It was actually a good thing for them to take an official test. They have never done that before in their lives. It was a two day test so Monday and Tuesday were pretty booked for that. I had to find things for the little kids to do while we waited for them to finish. On Monday I took them kicking and screaming to Bridal Veil Falls. None of them were very happy about going on a walk, but Harry was especially not happy. This picture was at the exact spot where we turned around and went back.
On Tuesday we hung out with Catye and Paul at the park. It was an enjoyable visit and the weather was magnificent. I was also able to see Catye's cute apartment. She has done a fabulous job decorating.
Now I did mention the whole project-mode thing. Yep, we put in a large garden in our backyard. There used to be a playground there. It came with the house. I decided to sacrifice it and sell it on KSL. Luckily, we live exceptionally close to a city park and our neighbors across the street have a playground, sandpit, and trampoline that the kids can play on and believe me, they do. The nice thing is that I can see them from the kitchen window. I was never able to see the kids in my own backyard. I think this is really working out a lot better.
It was a whole lot of work to get the garden ready for planting. I had to move all of the ground cover. Then I got humus at Home Depot and Rinar picked up a truck load of compost from a neighbor. Once it was all laid out, I started to turn all of the soil. I didn't have a darn tiller. But at least I was burning a lot of calories.
Fortunately, Ryan and Lindsey M. have a tiller and he let me borrow it since I still had about 40% left to turn. I had the garden plot ready by Wednesday and then planted it. I am using the square-foot gardening method. We also planted three fruit trees and some strawberry plants. When I planted the garden I had all of the kids come out and plant something. They have been really interested in it and have been watching every day for the seeds to sprout up. I sure hope I start to see something soon. I know that they will be really excited.
It is interesting to be able to actually have a garden. I am really excited about it. And as I have been laboring over this for the past two weeks, I can't help but draw parallels to child-rearing. Just like these plants are now so tender, so are my children. It takes lots of care and nurturing to get them to grow strong roots and to be fruitful. But I am really enjoying the journey.
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