Staying on our toes...

WOW!! Lifes' been keeping us on our toes. So many changes in such a short period of time. Kory hasn't worked for the Mine now for 7 weeks. Despite the lack of the paycheck it has been so nice. I have had several people come up to me and say how much happier we seem to be. I'm sorry we appeared to be miserable but Kory and I both feel happier and I'm glad it show's.  

Kory started school Monday, July 1st. He has classes Mon.-Fri. from 8am- noon. Up until this week he's been home almost every afternoon. I don't know what to do with him sometimes. The kids and I are loving having him around so much.  He helps do dishes, helps with dinner and laundry. We'll sit and watch a movie in the middle of the afternoon. He help's the kids with their show animals. He gives the kids quad rides around town almost on a daily basis. He'll sit down and play the Wii or board games with the kids. It's almost like having a new dad around. It's something we haven't had in a very very long time and we've never had it this good. It's been awesome to have this past month. This week started his clinical. Kory has been assigned Tues afternoons, 1-5pm and Sat. mornings 8-12.  This past tuesday was his very 1st time working on the public. He said he felt a little anxious but also knew that with the practice he's had thus far working on fellow classmates he was confident that he could do it. He had rehearsed everything in his head and was ready to start when his first client walked in. She and her daughter were getting a 50 minute massage done together. He was disapointed to learn she didn't speak English. This was also her very 1st massage and he could tell she was a bit uncomfortable with the "get naked and climb under the sheet". He said despite the language barrier and her uncomfortablness it all turned out all right. His second client for the day went better and he was more pleased. It was an older lady on vacation from California. She has had many massages in the past and was quite comfortable with a "man" working on her. Kory was quite thrilled to "feel" knots in the muscles around her neck and upper back. He was pleased that he was able to massage most of them out but was a bit frusurated that he couldn't get them all out despite his efforts. He knows that if Jared had been there he would have been able to get them all to release. She gave him a $5 tip in the end. Woo Hoo!!  I'm glad he's loving school. He feel's a bit overwhelmed sometimes with as fast as they cover information. He feel's he isn't really able to soak up all the information. He's had a few final's already and just recently started on some of the 2nd courses. He got a high B on one of the finals and was a bit discouraged about that. Being how fast these classes go and the fact he hasn't attended "school" and had test's and homework for 9 years I thought he did pretty good. He doesn't care for the time's when he receive's the massages but doesn't mind giving them. From personal experience they get better and better each time! He's looking forward to January when he hopes he can learn more from Jared.

Our plan's have been to stay in Alton at least until next summer. Kory does travel 2 hours each day but the shop he works out of is just down the street with very little overhead. We can't beat that!  We've had a few unexpected expenses pop up that we've had to take care of and Kory is on the search of a few cabinet jobs. We're all hoping that he get's another hotel job that is coming up in the next month or two. If we get it we should be set until the end of his school year. The kids are happy here. They enjoy being so close to their cousins. They like their school and the friends they have there. They would like to stay one more school year too. Being this is our 3rd elementary school we've attended in hte past 6 years I'm content to stick around one more year too. Hunter's going to be in 5th grade this year. If we end up moving next summer he will attend 6th grade in Middle School. I can't believe how fast our kids are growing.

Despite our plans things have a way of changing. Our landlord, Kathy, and her daughter in-law showed up about 2 weeks ago out of the blue. They took pictures of the house and was making a list of things that needed to be fixed outside and out in the barn. They let me know they are going to list the house for sale as soon as possible. We weren't sure if they really meant it because they haven't followed through in the past but last tuesday a contractor showed up and was working out in the barn. When they built the barn they converted part of the top portion into a little 1 bedroom apartment. It was never finished. It's got a workable bathroom but no kitchen. Since tuesday we haven't seen the contractor back. We learned that the contractor does that on the side as he works full time elsewhere so once again we wondered how serious our landords were. Last night Kory got a phone call from our lanlord. Apparently the contractor contacted him to let him know that there was more work that needed to be done in the barn than what was told to him by his wife, Kathy. Von says the house is a pain in the but. He want's it gone! He's decided to not worry about the barn but to focus more on the actual house. He's asked for a list of things that need to be fixed in the house. He'll than decided what he's willing to fix and pay for and have Kory do it if he has the time. Some of the things are quite obvious like the holes behind every door upstairs and the other holes in the walls that who only knows how they came to be. The girls bathroom is missing all 3 drawer's in the cabinet. It's our opinion to replace the entire bathroom cabinet. Not only are the 3 drawers missing but the cabinet doors are cracked and the bottom of the cabinets are warped do to a terrible plumbing job using pvc pipe and duct tape. One of the sinks we don't use becuase it leaks a lot every single time which is why the bottoms are warped so bad and probably what caused the drawers to break many years ago. If it was up to us the whole thing would be trashed and be done over, this time the right way. When Kory mentioned this to Von he said that it would cost to much and asked him to only replace the drawers.  Apparently the new owner's will have to find out on their own what a crummy piece of cabinet and plubing issues it really has. So tonight Kory and I will walk around the house and make a "fix-it" list of our landlord's. We don't know how much they want for the house but in the past it's been a ridiculous price, over $400,000. A few months ago they were offered $175,000 by Kory's brother in law Dustin... they really didn't like that. Our landlords called around trying to get someone local to offer more. In the end no one would offer more and so he accepted the $175. However, by then Dustin had come by and asked Kory to give him a tour of the house. Kory poined out the things that were broken, are about to break because they were done wrong, against code and just down right dumb! Needless to say Dustin took his offer back. There's just too much to do to fix it up the right way and at that price for the income level Alton has to offer. Von mentioned to Kory that he's tired of hearing the locals say they can't afford the house. He's going to fix the cosmetics and try to sale it to someone from California. I'm not sure what that's suppose to mean! 

So we really don't know how long we will stay in Alton. If money wasn't an issue I'd be gone now. I'd love to get into a neighborhood full of kids, something we don't have right now. Our area has been in a drought for quite some time now. For several weeks now we've had rain almost every day. The older locals are telling us this is a sign that this winter we will be once again be slammed with snow. The two winter's we've been here we haven't had half the snow they usually get. It's not uncommon for the snow to be higher than the fences and street signs. Kory's got pictures showing them as kids sledding off the roof tops. Apparently this is the norm. If what they are saying is true I don't want to be here!  Kory wouldn't have to commute, we'd be closer to stores and doctors, etc. 

This week the DI has brought a trailor up for us to use. Each day the kids and I have picked a room and we have completly gone through everything. We throw broken and unusable things away and have taken things we don't want anymore but still in good condition to the trailor. Our downstairs is clean! When we moved in there were 2 couches that had been left behind. Talking to our landlords last night these couches don't belong to them so they will be taken to the DI trailor tonight! We did the girls room upsairs a few days ago. Yesterday we picked the upstairs family room. We went through every puzzle, every game, every book. We got rid of the broken VHS player and all it's video's. We donated the DVD's we haven't watched in years. My family room looks so good! Today we'll do the boy's room. It makes me feel good to dejunk and get rid of so much. I guess if we end up moving earlier than we'd like I can just pack and not feel like I need to go through everything first. 

I'm so glad we made the decision for Kory to quit the Mine and go back to school for these next few months. I don't know where we are going or where we will end up but I do know we will be O.K. We'll have each other and we can make anything work.        

Life's About Changes.....

I wrote this about 9 weeks ago and afterwards decided I wasn't going to blog it. However, this an important part to our lives, a major change and I decided I want this entry in our family book when I eventually print it out.

I'm scared. I'm nervous. I'm anxious. I'm second guessing myself.  My head's telling me we are crazy, what were we thinking, how are we going to manage? My heart on the other hand tells me everything's going to be all right. We're doing what is best for our family! Kory just gave his 2 weeks notice to the Mine. A place that we have received a steady, predictable pay check for the past 2 1/2 years. In 2 weeks we will officially be jobless. AWWWWWWW!

Since January of this year Kory has been frusturated at work. He HATES the 6 days a week, 12 hour shifts that he has been on now since January. This work schedule was suppose to be temporary, just a few weeks. Almost 20 weeks later he's still on the crappy schedule with no end in sight. Being we thought this was suppose to be temporary Kory accepted several small cabinet jobs. These small cabinet jobs take him away even more and is taking much longer than anticipated due to his 12 hour shifts that won't seem to go away. Work and the extra work he's doing is really affecting our family. It's very common for Kory to go to the shop at 3-4 am, return home for breakfast at 6 and than leave for the Mine by 6:30 am. He then return's home that night about 6:30 pm for dinner and to read scriptures with the kids. By 7:30 at the latest he's usually left for the shop again and doesn't return home until after 10pm. This crazy schedule of his is affecting our marriage and the relationship with our kids. We are both trying to be patient with each other but's it's very difficult. I know it's hard on him to feel so stretched out as he is. To have so little sleep day after day. I know he's not happy that he's very seldom around. He know I'm not happy with our current situation. We both know this is not good for our family.

 Our families vacation to Nauvoo in March really helped us see that we needed to make changes for our family. However that's easier said than done sometimes. How do you change jobs living in Alton, Ut. Our current home's population is around 100 people. The people that work here and in the surrounding area are farmers/ranchers, school teachers or work for the county road.  Kory's dad does own 1/3 of a very large ranch with thousands of acres of property. Kory could work for the family ranch, it was an option that we knew we had. Being there has already been one fall out between two brothers over this family ranch that has really caused some contention between the siblings and parents we really didn't want to put our family in a similar situation.  Besides that Kory HATES cattle and horses. If he could run just the farm part of the business he'd be happy with that. But due to our more cold than warm weather season's the farm part of the ranch is only in operation 3-4 months out of the year. The rest of the year it would be expected that he would work with the cattle. Kory contemplated going back to school and getting a teaching degree. He wouldn't want to teach elementary but secondary eventually ending up in a college setting. Kory's about to turn 34 though and I'm 33. We know we're not that old but it would take a few years for Kory to earn that teaching degree. So we feel we are to old for this option. Where would he work during school? He'd want to attend school full time so the part time jobs available to us don't pay very much. How would we support our family of 7? Me going back to work full time to put him through school was an option but we felt we couldn't afford child care for 5! Working for the county road was another option we looked into but they paid quite a bit less than the mine did and worked simialr hours. Kory didn't/doesn't want to be a Miner for the rest of his life or work for the County. We knew we needed to make some changes but weren't sure how go about it. We started searching the internet for job openings in the surrounding towns, Kory talked to a few cabinet shops in St. George and Cedar just to see how their business were doing. The economy seems to be picking up but we didn't feel like it was enough to open our cabinet business up full time again. So we continued to do what we were doing while praying, sometimes begging, that something would come up to allow us to make the changes we needed.

About two weeks ago I was talking to my mom on the phone. After I vented to her once again about our job situation she mentioned her Massage Therapist. This guy, Jared, has been helping my mom's sciatic nerve issue she has had since last summer.  Last summer she was told by a few Chiropractic's that they had each done everything they could do to help her and the next step would be surgery. Trying to avoid surgery a neighbor talked her into making an appt. with Jared. At this point she didn't know if a massage therapist could really help or not but she felt it was worth a try. In the end he was able to help her, no surgery! Since than he has been able to help my mom and my dad with other issues relating to the muscles.  Jared does not work in a spa atmosphere. He does not give "come relax, feel good" massage's. He has his own office in St. George, Ut.  His clients are those that are in pain. He try's to issolate the muscle causing the grieviance and than massage the knots out of the muscle. We have talked to several of his clients and all we hear are praises about him. Once he is able to relax the paticular muscle, the extreme pain in gone. These people can once again walk without being hunched over. They can stretch their muscles and not be in pain. They many times are sore, very sore after seeing Jared somtimes they are brought to tears it can hurt so bad while he is working on them but by the end of the appointment the actuall pain is gone. Back to my conversation with my mom. She mentioned that she had just had a visit with Jared. He mentioned to her that he is very busy. So busy that he's booked 6 weeks out. He is currently seeking out other massage therapists to train in what he specifically does to help expand his practice and clientel. People call him in pain and they can't wait 6 weeks to see him so they end up going back to their medical doctor or back to the chiropractor. He know's he could probably help them in ways these other proffesion's aren't able to but because he is so busy he's loosing them. During my conversation I asked my mom to get a few more details from Jared. Kory has always had a desire to learn massage therapy but he has no desire to work in a spa atmosphere and so has done nothing with it. Could this be our answer?  Several day's later my mom called me back. Sounds like Kory does have a chance at this. He just needs his massage therapy license. Kory has talked to Jared once on the phone. He is going to go down next week and watch what exactly he does. We have prayed about this numerous times and feel we are making the right choice. So Kory has enrolled in Massage Therapy School. He starts July 1. He will be attending full time, 5 days a week, 8am to 5pm. We live an hour away and he will commute when school starts until school ends, the end of January. He will than need to take the state license test. After he has his license he will do a short internship with Jared and than he will be working on his own. At the moment Kory would like to work with Jared in his office, sometime of a partnership for at least a year or two. At that time if we feel it's right maybe we will branch out on our own.   

I feel like everything has happened so so fast! Within a week we have made this major, life altering decesion for our family. We have made enough money over the past few months that we were hoping to buy property with. Instead we will live on this for the next 6 months. Kory and I both feel like this is what's right for our family. The next 6 months aren't going to be easy. But we hope that this future job will give us what we want; the income needed to pay off student loans, a flexible job that will allow Kory to coach the kids baskettball team if he wants, go on field trips, to be around and available to our kids when they need him. If money get's tight during the next several months he can take on another cabinet job or two. I know we'll be O.K. It's when I sit down and really think about what we've done and focus on the "what if's" that I start to panick! I know Heavenly Father has answered our prayer. I know we have made the right decision.
  

Christensen Family Reunion

This weekend was our families 2nd Family Reunion that was planned this summer. This is a picture of my dad and his 10 siblings. My dad, David, is on the far right in the red shirt.

 The reunion this year was held in Manti, Utah.  Wanting to spend the 4th of July with Kory I missed out on the 1st day but was able to see most of those that attended on the second day and than came home today with my kiddo's!

 The 1st stop in Manti was the temple where I met up with my parents and some of my siblings.

 In front of the temple is a very steep hill. The kids along with Uncle Jason enjoyed rolling down the hill over and over again.

 Here's Madelyn, mid roll. Love the swinging hair motion!

 Hunter got going so fast that he went head first a few rolls!

 Here's cousin, Elena participating in the fun too.

 Here's Uncle Matt and cousin Brionney.

 After the temple we headed to the park for some lunch. We had pizza,

 and kool-aid

 and than Grandpa treated everyone with an ice cream bar.

 back row: Carlaya-9, Jamie-4, Emily-6, Noah-7, Brayden-4

front row: Mya-2, Elena-3, Madelyn-9, Brionney-1, Kylie-1, Hunter-10

 Litte boys always seems to find a way to play with water.

 Uncle Mat tried to take a rest at the park on the bench.

 Kylie enjoyed crawling on the grass.

 My parents built this house in Manti when I was just a baby. The gradkids wanted to drive by and see the house that their mom or dad use to live in a long, long time ago.

 At Uncle Rick's house in Manti, we set up some water fun. We had a wiggly water sprinkler and a slip n' slide.

 With 2 reunion's 2 weekends in a row and Grandma's camp in between that we are all very very tired. We've been busy and have played hard! Brayded fell asleep while waiting our turn to get dinner.

 Look at the family now. The room was full! It's amazing to see how the family has grown over the years. Grandma and Grandpa had 11 children, 60+ grandchildren and now over 120 great grand children.

 After dinner there was a few games and another family auction that raises money to help support the next reunion, like paper goods, toilet paper, etc.

 During the family auction Brayden fell asleep once agin on the folding chair.

It was so good to see my cousins. These are the cousins that I grew up with for a short time while living in Utah. I know this side of the family better than any other. It was fun to remenince and to catch up on all of our lives. It was fun to see our children playing together. It's odd to think that not to long ago it was us running around playing together and now we are the mom's of 5+ kids trying to keep tabs on everyone. I'm excited to think that we'll be having another reunion in 2 years in Utah. It seems most of the family lives in Utah so the reunion's held there are the most attended.



Camping In Cottonwood AZ

Last weekend the kids and I attended the Clark Family Reunion in Cottonwood, AZ. Kory wasn't able to come with us due to his new school/work schedule. So the kids and I followed along after my parents. This will be one of those experiences that I will NEVER forget. The reunion itself was great! It was fun, I was able to visit with cousins, aunts and uncles that I haven't seen in year's. My kids made friends with extended family that they have never met and probably won't see again until the next reunion.

My little family and I camped in our tent.  It was HOT! The weather was unbelivably HOT! There was no escaping the heat. It was over 90 degrees during the day and didn't drop below 70 at night. We sweated throughout the day and night. Being we lived pretty near Cottonwood for almost 8 years I was expecting the heat. When I put up the tent I opted not to put the top covering on to allow a little breeze at night trying to keep us some what cool. That was my 1st mistake. Not putting the top on allowed a bazillion small yellow pollen pieces to fall into our tent. That first night when we got into our tent I realized EVERYTHING was covered in pollen. The suitcase that was left open, the sleeping bags we slept on top of, the blow up matresses, our pillows. I shook off what I could and then we just dealt with it throughout the weekend.  

 One of the best parts of Family Reunion's is all the food. No one went away hungry!

 As if the heat wasn't bad enough to deal with all over the camp site had a MAJOR infestation of ants! Big Red ANTS! Ants became a toy that we coundn't keep the kids away from. This is Brayden and his cousin Mya catching the ants! The ants were literally everywhere. You could not escape them. They even got into our tent. By the time I got home I had 20 red ant bites just on my arms. I never did count how many I had everywhere else on my body. We really couldn't go anywhere and not find ants.

 When the ants got boring the bigger kids moved onto bigger creatures. You can't see the lizard that Emily helped catch in our bug catcher. These little kids were pretty proud of themselves!

Kylie is not walking yet and so I tried to hold her most of the time due to the ant issue we were having. If I couldn't hold her I'd pass her off to Grandma/Grandpa or an older sibling. There came a point however that this 13 month old little girl had had enough. She wanted down! And so she too played in the dirt right along with the ants. She kept covering herself with dirt! Kylie must have been blessed this weekend as she didn't have a single ant bite.

 It was so unbearbly hot that during the day we tried to escape the heat by hanging out with Grandma and Grandpa Christensen in their cabin. However a 12x12 cabin doesn't offer much for 4 adults and 9 kids. We tried taking this kids on a hike but it was just to hot to enjoy it and all we got was a bunch of complaints from the kids about the heat! We took the kids to Sonic and got everyone their very own slushy thanks to "happy hour". One afternoon we escaped to Wal Mart and let all the cousins play in the toy section. Another afternoon we found Cottonwood's Rec Center and was able to spend a few hours swimming indoors, away from the heat. During the day the camp site was pretty empty but about dinner time the WHOLE family came back. After dinner we all sat around in our camp chairs visiting or we created our own entertainment. One evening we held a family auction. For $40 I bought a children's illustrated book called Hairy Legs and Wagon Wheels. This is a book that a distant cousin wrote and than had published. The story is about hairy trantula's taking a ride on the old school's wagon wheel's. My Great Grandpa A.V Clark use to tell this story to the kids and that's where this book originated from. When the story was mentioned at the reunion it struck a chord in me. I vaguely remember sitting at my great grandpa's knee's and listening to him tell this story or at least a similar one. It has been so long that I don't remember how the story goes or how it ends but I remember feeling frightened for the spider's when the school kids discover them on the wagon wheel's on their way to school. I haven't read the book yet but am anxiously waiting to read it to my own kids this coming week. 

 Grandpa Grow brought Grandma. Grandma had 2 of her siblings present at the reunion. I think it's safe to say they were a bit taken back with Grandma's condition. Until you try to talk to her and visit with her you don't understand what Alzheimer's has done to her. She didn't know/recognize her siblings. Most of the time she thinks my mom is her sister, Barbara. Comparing her state of mind now to how she was at the reunion 2 years ago there have been some drastic changes. This will be Grandma's last reunion she attends with her family here on earth. It's just to hard to travel and take care of her outside of her own home.

 .

One of the highlights of the reunion was going to Slide Rock with many, many cousins in Sedona one morning. Oh boy did we have fun! The water was freezing which really helped us feel like we were escaping the heat! We brought a few toy's to help entertain the little ones. Brayden was quite content to sit with his bucket. He'd fill it up with water and than dump it on himself over and over again.

 This is cousin Carlaya, Madelyn and cousin Zhana goofing off.

 Here's Hunter sliding down on one of the rocks!

 Uncle Jonathan and Hunter taking a break in the shade.

 For snack we brought a water melon and kept it in the water to keep cold.

 Miss Emily enjoying that cold water melon in the sun.

I didn't get as many pictures as I would have liked with the kids actually going down the natural rock slides. Jonathan and I were there by ourselves so he'd take the bigger kids to the slides and I'd stay in the shallow area with the little one's. There were so many people there it was hard to keep track of all our kids. Slide Rock was definetly a blast! I hope to one day return just for fun with Kory.

As I said I really did enjoy myself at the reunion. We all could have easily done away with the heat, the ants all over the ground and in our tent, the personal belongings covered in pollen and the swarm of bee's that decided to camp out above our tent the last 2 day's/nights we were there. But I'm glad we went. I'm glad I stayed (there were many moments I felt I had reached my moment and was ready to head home early). I'm so glad the kids enjoyed themselves. Madelyn and Emily want me to get the adresses of their new friends so that they can write to them and keep in contact until the next reunion in 2 years.

Madelyn turns 9

Good Morning Beautiful!

On June 25th our family celebrated this pretty girl's 9th birthday.

As with tradition we put candles in our breakfast!

 She was able to blow them all out on her very first try!

 This Birthday Girl was a bit anxious to open her gifts!

 Love this smile on her face! She's just realizing what the case of earings mean.

This pretty girl is finally getting the chance to get her ears pierced!

 Woo Hoo!

 I'm not sure what she was most excited about. The pierced earings or the new bike.

 Madelyn wanted to invite some cousins over for dinner and games. Because we were leaving to AZ for a family reunions the next day and the family she wanted to invite over had mutual obligations they came over later that night for a few games.

 Madelyn, Brayden, Emily and Ruth's behind's playing twister. A new favorite of the kids.

 Had a bit of a water fight. We also played Blokus and Boxers and Briefs but I missed the picture opportunity. I love to make cakes but our family just doesn't eat them. Madelyn wanted a fake "artsy" cake and a cheese cake. Due to us leaving the following day I talked her out of the fake cake for the time being but she did get her cheese cake to share with the family and her cousin's that night.

When we returned from our AZ family reunion I took Madelyn and her cousin Carlaya to Claire's to get her ears pierced. Aunt Sheri and Aunt Hanna tagged along with us.

 She was just a bit nervous! Can you tell???

 Her nerves got the best of her and we had a few quick tears after the matter. And yes I know I'm a terrible mom for having to document those tears!

 Then those tears turned into laughing hysterics.

 In the end she survived! She loves them! She's following the instructions given and makes sure she twists and cleanses numerous times a day. She can hardly wait to be able to switch them out and match her outfits.

Happy Birthday Madelyn!

We've been busy...

I feel like this summer is going by too fast already. We've had a great 4 weeks of no school already and we've only got about 7 more weeks to go.

We've gone swimming,

 We've made sock bubbles

 Look how long Madelyn was able to get her bubble strand.

 We've gone shooting in our very own front yard with cousins.

This is cousin Seth taking a turn. Seth is 2 weeks older than Hunter and a whole head taller too!

 We've played with regular bubbles and then tried blowing them with our hands. Madelyn won hands down in this department.

 We've baked and have tried making new things.  For whatever reason I've always struggled with Monkey Bread or otherwise known as Pull-apart bread. I can't seem to get my pan to cook evenly so the tops are always burnt and the bottoms are still doughy. We tried baking them in a cupcake pan  this time and they turned our PERFECTLY!

Kylie loves it when we bake. The beaters are her favorite part.

 Now that's is warming up outside we've spent a lot of time on our bikes.

We've roasted marshmallows outside.

 More shooting with cousins.

 Skipping rocks and fishing at the resevoir.

 I'll admit the kids have also had plenty of "veg" time. Whether it's in front of the computer, watching a movie or playing the Wii.

 We've also got our "show" animals that the kids are taking care of this summer.

 We got our goats just 2 weeks ago. There are a total of 8 in the pen right now but only 2 of them are ours. While we've all got family reunions out of town these next few weeks we've decided to keep the goats all together until the reunions are over with. This will make it a bit easier on everyone while we each have our turn of being gone and having some one else feed these funny little animals.

 We also have pigs. We've had our pigs for a few weeks now but the kids enjoy "checking" on them numerous times a day. All of our kids have their own pig for the fair this year. Hunter and Madelyn are in 4-H and can show 2 animals which is why we also have goats. Emily and Brayden our in the Pee-Wee 4-H program and can only show 1 animal. We are hoping these animals will grow and make weight. We want our kids to be able to earn money with these show animals that they can later use for missions and college. Hopefully show animals can give them a jump start in the "savings" department.

 Miss Emily and Brayden with their pigs.

 Madelyn and her pig.

 Here's a picture of all 4 of them. I missed a picture of Hunter and his black pig.

 Here's a baby calf that is being kept near our pigs. He lost his mama and is being bottle fed. The kids enjoy feeding him a handful of alfalfa everytime we walk by him.

Our summer's going strong. We've been busy but have had fun along the way. We've got 3 upcoming reunions in the next 4 weeks that we are all looking forward too. I love reunion's. I love sitting around and visiting with my cousins that not too long ago it was us running around causing mischief. It's great to see my kids develop friendships and making memories with our extended families. Family reunion's here we come!