So...the pictures are pretty self-explanatory: brothers loving on each other, jumping on the trampoline (Jack is now doing flips)...
As we were warned...Spring isn't always...uh...spring-y here in Parowan. In fact, we were told not to plant a garden until after Mother's Day, since there have often been ice storms in the beginning of May! Here was one of our last snowfalls.
We took the boys bowling - the first time for Toby and Joe! They all loved it!
Living here in Utah has been wonderful for our family of "bird nerds"! :-) We see so many different types! Sadly, we get to see a few too many up close because they fly into our wall of windows in the living room. The boys have created a little bird cemetery for the ones who die. And they are constant watch for ones who are just stunned by the strike. (We have cats in the neighborhood who spring on downed birds!) We gather up the stunned ones and put them in a shoe box until they are strong enough to fly away. This little Junco ended up flying out in our house and Josh had to capture him to release him outside!
Toby and Jack are master tree climbers! (They love this tall birch tree in our yard!)
We made sure each boy (and Mom and Dad, too) have baseball gloves so that we can all play catch as a family.
Other creative spring-time antics: setting up the Hotwheels track in the apricot tree!
We get lots of hammock time in!
We also celebrated our second Passover Seder together in April. It was a wonderful meal and time of fellowship, remembering how Jesus is our Passover Lamb!
Brother love!
The boys really spend so much time outside. Drawing with chalk, playing with their Hotwheels cars...you name it! We love our back yard!
Here are some beautiful peach blossoms! We have an apricot tree, two apple trees, a peach tree and various grape vines! Can't wait for harvest time!
Books and a baseball glove....can't get much better than that!
Josh and Jack have been playing football for a while now and Jack has quite a spin on his throw! But now Josh is trying to teach Toby, too! He is a willing student...but is still having some trouble not being afraid of the football as it comes hurtling toward him. (I don't blame him!)
We got a pet! A Beta fish named Freddy...complete with a Fish School building! He overlooks our homeschool area.
At the beginning of May, our power went out for about 8 hours one night. It was still pretty cold, so the boys slept downstairs in sleeping bags by our gas fireplace. They thought it was pretty fun!
We took our longest road trip yet (since having Toby home) and visited my family in Phoenix. It was great! Toby had been waiting for so long to meet some of his extended family members. He had so much fun with all of his cousins there!
And he got to meet his fellow Ameri-kranian cousin, Danny! (Interestingly, I asked Toby to speak a little Ukrainian to Danny to see if he understood...and Toby stumbled and couldn't remember his Ukrainian! I'm not going to let him lose his Russian language ability....and we'll still try to keep his Ukrainian reading/writing skills up!)
And here he is...meeting his first grandparents! Grammy and Papa!
What a treat to visit with two of my long-term school friends, Erika and Brenda! These two ladies have known me since early elementary days. It was so fun to see them!
And another special visit. In 1999, I met a special family who came as refugees from the Former Yugoslavia. (I have many special friends from this part of the world!) These handsome guys were just little boys when I met them and I loved them dearly. I had lost touch when I left Arizona for the Air Force, but was ecstatic to re-establish our long friendship with the Kleut family....and to introduce my own family to them! The oldest, Dusko, is now a dad himself!
The drive home was beautiful. We stopped to have a picnic lunch near the Colorado River.
While all of our boys are deeply interested in nature, there is something special about George. He takes his time to really see things that most of us miss. One morning, he spotted something spectacular in the tree just outside our living room window. He found a hummingbird nest!!! This is something rarely seen, since hummingbirds usually build their nests high up in trees and out of view. We watched this mama bird for over a week...she spent most of her time sitting on the nest or smoothing it with her neck. It was one of the only times I've seen a hummingbird stay still for so long!
Sadly, after a two-day wind storm which shook the branches pretty violently, she seemed to have abandoned her nest. We kept a lookout for her, but she never returned. We gently pulled the branch down to look and see two eggs - one already broken and empty - the other barely the size of a jelly bean! We took the nest into the house and tried to care for the tiny egg, but it broke and we were so, so sad. What a thing to observe!
There are so many places to discover within a few minutes' drive from our house! We are continually thankful to the Lord for allowing us to live here. The beauty takes our breath away! One day, we took a drive for about 15 minutes up to the Yankee Meadow Reservoir. The road has only been cleared of snow for a few weeks now - it is impassable in the winter. On the drive up, the boys saw a porcupine, Josh saw a fox and we saw several birds.
Another beautiful place is just a few minutes from our home. There is a fairly easy hike up to a waterfall, on which our friend Sharon accompanied the boys and I. Just beautiful!!!
Our little town put on a wonderful remembrance ceremony for Memorial Day. The cemetery was decked out with American flags and was beautiful!
I think we've caught you up on our Spring happenings! We are really enjoying summer and will post pictures of those adventures soon!!!
1 comment:
Whew, I had to take in this update in two sittings so I could take it all in and enjoy every last picture. You are such an amazing "boy mama" with all your outdoorsy nature loving! Love all the pictures (except for maybe the dead birds!) and all the updates! Miss you!
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