Still May

I'm working on catching up here.  These pictures are from May.  We've been up to a lot, so things just might pick up around here :)

My brother, his wife, and their children moved back to Utah.  They've been in SC for two years while he attended graduate school where he finished with impressive honors and such.  This is especially amazing as they went through some particularly difficult times while they were there.  I know they miss their friends and family from there, but we love having them here!

We were glad to be able to have surprise graduation party WITH them a few days after their move.

While we were all together we had an opportunity to hear first hand about some of the things they've been doing.  During they years they were gone they had a baby girl.  Through a number of miracles they were blessed with a few days with their daughter after months of worry and wondering.  As you may have guessed about me, pictures and mementos really touch my heart.  Getting to see these little things of my little niece was a very special experience.  A year after she was born along came her baby brother.  He is a tall handsome heart-breaker at just a few months old.  We miss her terribly but are glad to get to know her older sister better and her younger brother as well.

Here are a few miscellaneous pictures -- pictures Sabrina made using Runts candy, Sabrina and Lizzie playing tiger-tamer, a flower present Sabrina gave me from school (with something nice written on each petal), me sitting outside in the shade while the girls play below, and K/L/S with Cutie Pies.  I remember my grandpa buying Cutie Pies.  Yum!

One night, well after the girls' bedtime Michael declared we were going to see Avengers (which had recently come out).  He and I had already seen it once, but we did both want to see it again.  And the girls had just spend the day watching Iron Man and Green Lantern.  We went to a 10:30 showing -- the movie didn't even end until 1am!  The girls were perfectly behaved and loved the movie.  

This spring we planted a whole bunch of goodies.  We now have 5 young fruit trees: apple, cherry, pear, plum, and apricot.  There were a few apples, cherries, and pears when we planted the trees.  We had to tie strips of mylar streamer to the trees after the deer ravaged the new growing ends.  We lost all three apples in a windstorm and all 9 cherries disappeared over night when they were nearly ripe.  At least there are still many pears growing nicely.  I'm excited to see how the trees do next year!  We also planted a dozen or so tomato plants, along with zucchini, broccoli, cabbage, peppers, and more.

Sierra learned how to get through the locked kitty door that was already installed in the storage room door.  She could stick one claw under the flap and flick it outward so she could slip through.  Unfortunately one day (the same day as field day at the elementary school) she had gone in there when we were all gone.  Michael stopped by home and heard horrible yowling.  She appears to have gotten her left back foot stuck in the string ladder of the venetian blinds over the window.  She was caught hanging by her foot with no other support for her weight.  We do not know exactly how long she was stuck there.  At great sacrifice to his poor scratched up arms, Michael was able to cut the strings and get Sierra loose.  I was able to ditch field day and come home to gather up Sierra and take her to the vet.  At that point she wouldnt' walk on her foot at all and it was very swollen.  By the time we got to the vet she was putting some weight on it, but was actually calming down a lot.  In the end it resulted in soft tissue damage, but no dead tissue, fractures, or dislocations.  Her foot is still pretty swollen in the lower right picture, above.  That evening she cuddled by Daddy on the couch, which was nice since he felt like the "bad guy" for being the first to find her when she was so scared and hurt.

When I was young, growing up in Oregon, we didn't have any grandparents near by.  Stick with me, this is relevant...  So we adopted some.  Or they adopted up.  All that matters is that when we needed a grandparent, Sam and Donna Gardner were there.  We often walked to their house on a Sunday afternoon, where we'd walk through their beautiful yard, count all the owls in the owl room (in my pre-teen recollection there were well over a hundred!) and get a stick of clove or fruit stripe gum or a pink mint for "getting the count right" (which I'm pretty sure had a wide margin for error).
Sam Gardner passed away many years ago, but Donna passed away in May.  She was being buried nearby in Salem, UT and there was a graveside service.  I was able to go with Sabrina, my mom, and one of my sisters.  I suppose that means I'm out of not only hereditary grandparents, but the adopted ones as well.

Random miscellany: The girls were playing in the sprinklers and the weather was beautiful.  I wasn't up for sitting on a camp chair or walking a lot as it was a bad pain day, so I opened the french doors and pushed my big chair about 5 feet to the other side of the door.  It felt most luxurious to sit on my big chair in the warmth and listen to the kids play below.  Ginger likes to be taken outside with a leash and harness so she joined me on my cozy chair.  

Sabrina needed a picture taken of her "smiley eyes".  Those are smiley face gummy fruit snacks she's holding up.  And on our last day helping in Kate's class I had to steal a picture of those sisters sitting together. 

This year we got our first strawberry out of our strawberry patch.  We used fake snakes to scare the squirrels away!  That worked at first, but pretty soon there were enough ripe berries the squirrels were willing to brave it, and we ended up with a bunch of nibbled stubs of berries again.  So we went to the cayenne pepper trick.  We sprinkle plain cayenne pepper on and around the strawberry plants.  The strawberries still taste great, after a good rinsing, but we've only had a few nibbles.  One nibble seems to be enough to warn the squirrels off.  Now we're finally getting a few ripe strawberries each day!

Bye Bye Birdie: We discovered a dead bird on our front porch.  I'm guessing it flew into the window and broke its neck.  The girls were very sad.  They asked if we could please have a funeral.  So we found a little spot of ground nearby and buried the bird.  I'm sure you cannot read it, but the next day I came out to see the little cardboard headstone that reads: Brd bodee  We love that brd.  (Bird body.  We loved that bird).  Never mind that they didn't know that bird at all, I love the tenderness of children.  The live bird eating a worm in the lower left, above, is one we watched a few days later.

The fun thing about having a camera phone is that I find the most random pictures on my phone sometimes.  These were particularly entertaining.  I'm sure the girls will really appreciate them when they hit their teen years too ;)

I belive this wraps up the month of May.  I cannot believe June is nearly over!  We've hardly stopped to draw breath since school ended!  Too many wonderful things keep coming up.