School Supplies

Summer is approaching it's end. The kids start school August 20th, and I have started accumulating some of their school supplies. When I brought them home from the store this weekend, Dallin was very excited to see what his 2nd grade supplies were. He helped me organize them into piles: the 2nd grade pile, the 1st grade pile, and the extra stuff for us to keep on hand. Not long after, I found him at the table with these:

It's hard to resist a brand-new box of crayons.

Goodbye, Old Friend

Last month, driving home from Scout Camp, Arthur hit a coyote. As a matter of interest, this is the second coyote that little green car has hit in it's life with us. The first coyote was my fault. We hit him coming through Nevada on our way home for the holidays. That coyote was MUCH bigger but only scratched the paint a bit and took out one of our fog lights.

Well, this much smaller coyote (may he rest in peace) took out the second fog light and the radiator, deployed the airbags which smashed the windshield, and a few minutes later, the engine seized. Thank goodness Arthur was fine--just a little shaken and annoyed at breathing in the toxic airbag fumes.

AAA wanted to charge Arthur $300 to tow him to Albuquerque. So Arthur called me so I could tow him back. In our 4 cylinder van. Feeling a little skeptical and nervous, (all we needed was a banged-up van too . . .) I drove out to Cuba, (80 miles from ABQ) with some rope, some duct tape (just in case?), and some walkie talkies.

Arthur tied the green car to the van with rope, and we each took a walkie-talkie so I could warn him when a stop light was coming, since he couldn't see anything so close behind me. I'm still surprised it worked, actually.

That little "green car" as it was known in our family, was the first car Arthur and I bought together when we were first married. It's taken us a lot of places. But it would have cost us more than it was worth to fix it. So, it was time to say goodbye.

If you can believe it, someone actually bought that car on Craig's List for $350. He's a mechanic and has plans to fix it. As they were loading it on his trailer, his 7-year-old son said, "When we get this car home, we will have 8 cars at our house!"

So now we had to get a new (well, new to us) member of the fleet.

Meet "the white car."

A 2002 Ford Focus with power windows!

(No more crankin' the handle for Arthur.)

We are all pretty excited to have a car that has power windows and power locks. And we can thank Craig's List for this one too. Gotta love Craig's List.

Photo shoot at the Botanical Gardens

Emma flew home last weekend, but the Friday before she left we took her to the Aquarium and the Botanical Gardens for some fun. We LOVED having Emma come stay with us.

She is such fun, and we miss her!

Anyway, here are the pics from our Botanical Garden Photo Shoot. (We need Melanie to help us be more creative with costumes or make-up or something.)

Entering the Children's Enchanted Garden:

We loved these cool twisty vine trunks. We took a bajillion pictures by them.

Japanese Garden

Somebody save her! The damsel is in distress!

Recent "Quotables" from the Kids

When we got home from our long drive home from California a few weeks ago, we got out of the car and Daphne said, "I smell Nona's house." To which Dallin replied, "It's Emma."

We watch Kung-Fu Panda at our house a lot. I mean A LOT. It's been our favorite for almost a year. As a result, I hear Hayden saying things like, "ba, ba, ba- boooooooooo!" (translation: I love kung-fuuuuuuuu.) Or "Kablooey!" he actually says that one really well.

One day in church I saw Sean giving himself the Wushi finger hold and saying, "The wushi finger hold? Oh, you know this hold. You're bluffing! You're BLUFFING! Shifu didn't teach you that! Nope, I figured it out myself. Skidoosh!" And he flexed his pinky.

Another Sunday as we were all taking our piece of bread during the sacrament, Sean took his bread from the sacrament tray, and looked over at me with a mischievous smile and said, "I taked two."

I was commenting during dinner one night that I wish I could a fly on so-n-so's wall to see how they got their kids to turn out so well. Dallin said, "Mom, why would you want to be a fly? They'd probably kill you."

Garden Woes

My garden has been rather pathetic this year. None of my fruit trees produced a bloomin' thing. I planted a bunch of green beans and I've only harvested a handful, Hayden is taller than my corn, the strawberries didn't produce, and my melon plants never got started. I do have a grow-box full of potato plants--not sure when to harvest those, but they seem happy enough.

Also I planted several tomato plants, one chili bush and three cilantro plants thinking maybe I could bottle some homemade salsa. Well, so far, my cilantro all died, the tomatoes have been less than prolific, and my chili plant has been going bananas! I think it kind of ironic that the one vegetable (is chili a vegetable?) that I don't know how to use (except in salsa) is the one that's going gangbusters on me. I picked five today and there are five more on the plant. It's like the giving tree-it just keeps on giving! Maybe I'll dry them and make some New Mexico Christmas ornaments.

One day, Hayden found a shiny red chili just waiting to be picked and thought he'd help me out.

This is what he thought of it:

On the upside, my basil is doing great, and I've already made a few batches of pesto with it. My family LOVES pesto with pasta.

Anybody know what to do with all that chili?

Putt-Putt Golf

On Wednesday, Arthur took half a day off work and went golfing at a really nice course in the East Mountains for free! So we thought we'd go golfing too. We golfed at the distinguished public course, Hinkle Family Fun Center. And we also rode the bumper boats. Good times.