More fun!!!

Just some more pictures of us working on the trench this past Saturday. Jon is beginning our straight shot to the road around the corner from the first 50ft that we finished last weekend. He said that on the side by the fence at the start to this corner it only drops about 6 inches. Then from this point of the corner to the road it drops 3 ft. So that last section we should have some good water flow. Very slow moving project. We had to lay out the white soil protector, lay a couple inches of gravel, lay the pipe (glue it) then put more rocks on top of the pipe (another couple inches above the pipe, but there was a lot more gravel than that to shovel because we had to fill in all the voids), lay another layer of the white material on top and then cover again with more gravel.

This is the view that we have left from a little past the corner area. As you can see we have not even put the white soil material down yet.
So far it is just Jon and I working on it. There is nothing for me to do until he gets the pipe down. Fortunately about 12:00 his nephew and two of his sons came and helped us until about 4:30. The whole day it threatened rain...fortunately it didn't, but was quite cool.

2nd pile of gravel going down. You can see the color difference of the gravel dumps.

Kind of a view by the fence of what we have already completed. We still have a little of work here. The dirt piled on the grass was already moved (only took me 3 1/2 hours one day to do this). We still need to get some of the dirt away from the fence by the cement boarder and figure out what to do to separate the grass and gravel section. Can't wait to get rid of that pile of rocks you see below...that is where the trampoline is supposed to go.

Just a shot of the messy backyard.

Another view of the completed 50 ft section of trench. Girls at the neighbors house looking for bugs...you can see them up against their house.

It was so nice to have the help this day from his nephew and sons, we would definately not have gotten as far as we did. We got the pipe and material buried a little past the swingset, but we still have to cover the pipe down to the street another 20 ft or so. Then we will go back and just use up the rest of the gravel and see how full we can get the trench with just gravel. The garden dirt will just be sifted and dumped back on top of the pipe after we lay the section of 100 ft weed protector we bought. After we are done with this we will need to form our swell on top of the gravel and weed protector and put larger rocks of some kind to make a dry riverbed. Then we get the fun process of sifting out the rocks from the dirt piles and putting them in the flower beds. Then hopefully purchase and plant another tree.

Hopefully after all this is done we can get the swingset put up. Then start clearing out the area for our trampoline. We still have lots to do. Hopefully the weather will cooperate sometime so we can actually work on it more than one day a week. Again this weekend (Jon has Friday off) it is supposed to rain and be 48 degrees. I guess we will see how much we can get done. Jon's nephew and family volunteered to come out for a service project on this past Monday to help. But of course it rained at 5:00 and stopped at 6:00 (didn't rain the entire day until then). It was too muddy to get out in it. So we just had dinner and visited (which I am sure no one minded other than it would have been nice to have the extra help).

2011 Annual Easter Egg Hunt

The Friday before Easter we went to Jon's sister's house in Riverton for the annual Easter Egg Hunt. We always have a bbq and then the older kids and usually the dads go out and "hide" the eggs. I wouldn't really call it "hide" the eggs because the majority are in plain sight. We have so many hard boiled eggs and plastic eggs that they run out of hiding places so they are just thrown on the lawn or left in plain sight. It also makes it easier for the really little kids to get some when they can just run up to them and pick them up.

The kids are let outside in groups according to age. The really little kids are let out first and then slowly the other kids are allowed to go out and look.


Brittany found one in the downspout.

Brittany would not smile in the group picture. She looked mad. When we got home that night she told me that she was sorry she didn't smile in the picture. I asked her why she was not smiling and she told me that she was mad because Kylee got more eggs than her. We keep trying to remind them it's not about how many you get it is the fun you have while looking for them. (Kylee got to go out one group before Brittany so she had a little longer to look)

This Easter Egg hunt used to be for the entire family. Everyone is still invited but the majority of the kids in this group are Jon's sisters grandkids. There are probably only 4 kids that are not hers. The family has gotten so large that the different families have split up and done their own for their own grandkids. We still have fun with a smaller group.

Here we go again.....and some bike fun!

Well we thought we were done digging up our yard last year. But we are now digging a trench along the back of our yard and on the side by the fence. Hopefully we will be able to get all the flooding issues resolved with this because we are not sure what else we can do. We only have 150 feet to go with the digging and then we have to fill it back in. So we started digging on Friday.

The girls were riding their bikes up and down the road while we were working in the back. Brittany learned how to ride her new bike without training wheels a few weeks ago but I just got around to taking pictures. She was so excited to get the training wheels off. Kylee is just not quite ready...she relys on the training wheels too much still. They both love going fast!! So far they do well with the helmet rule. Have to remind Kylee sometimes but she has been going and getting it too and fortunately both put them on before they head out.

Spring Break 2011

We didn't do much on our spring break this year. But we did take the kids to the "Dinosaur Museum" at Thanksgiving Point. Eventhough we have already been there before, they are constantly asking to go back to the "Dinosaur Museum". So of course they had lots of fun. It was actually quite crowded, which I didn't necessarily think it would be. There we a few buses full of kids and not all of them very young. So there were lots of field trips in the building.