A month!

We moved the middle of Aug! The house was finally done and with moose season starting we needed to be on the property so nothing happened to the buildings. Here are some more pictures of the final product; the hearth got its trim along the sides and bottom.The dining room and kitchen are finished and the windows washed.
We tried something different in this kitchen, Warren put laminate on the walls and then we didn't put a backsplash on the counter. I really like it, it is so easy to clean.
Alectra is showing off the girl's new rug in their room. It is green so their horses have grass to eat when they are playing. :-)
It was harder to get all our stuff from the trailer in this little house than I thought it would be. We traded two big bedrooms for three small bedrooms, a dining room, and a bigger living room. It doesn't seem to have the storage space the trailer had. We seem to all be adjusting and learning how to live in the country. Alectra is helping clean out the big machine shed. Emerald loves driving the bobcat any chance she gets. She is getting better and better at it.
The week after we moved to the Ranch Warren went up north, almost to Prudhoe Bay, hunting caribou with Phil Slabaugh for a week. They had some good bear stories and saw lots of new country. It is over a thousand miles from Homer! WOW!Warren got one caribou and it filled my little freezer nicely. Everyone likes to help grind the hamburger. Of course we never get it ready until late at night so everyone helps wearing their P.J.'s. By the time we are done they probably need another bath.While Warren was gone the kids and I unpacked more boxes from storage, set up the school room and went to the fair. Jayce made it to the top of this climbing wall twice. We all enjoyed the trick horse riders and the pig races.This is what the school room looked like before we started. Emerald said the walls were "macaroni and cheese yellow with avocado trim, GROSS"! Warren painted before he left and the kids and I took the form trailer to Kenai to get carpet.
We just rolled the pad and carpet out on the floor. We will install it correctly when we remodel the whole place. It make a great place for all the school and craft stuff. We started school last week, and so far it is going well.We set an extra bed up over there as well in one of the rooms. Warren wants to fix the bathroom yet and then we are ready for company. Come and visit!

House in July

Not much happened with the house in July with all the other things we were doing. We painted the mechanical room in the shop. All the walls were covered with mold and the floor was orange from the rust and iron in the water that leaked all the time. We put in the first stage of the water filtration system as well.
Here you can see the beginning and how nice it looked when we were finished.We also got the laminate wood flooring all installed and the trim painted and put on. Emerald was Warren's helper on the floor project.Jayce spent the month putting in new outlets, switches and plates. It was a great finish to our unit on electricity in school.
Brandon, his cousin and best friend, came for two days and helped him put up all the new light fixtures. They did a great job and only got shocked a "few" times.
Alectra and Alexis spent most of their time picking up trash and hauling it to the trailer. In between loads they "worked" with toys and leftover scraps of whatever was being installed at the time.There was a grubby, rusty Vermont Castings stove that I gave a new coat of paint. Warren built a new hearth for it, in this picture the hearth is still missing the trim around the edges.
Here is the new front door! The old one was orange on one side and burgundy on the other with no window. What a difference it made to the feel of the living room!
The girls were installing cabinets with Dad. We tried something new, putting Formica on the walls, I'll let you know how it turned out.Last week Warren took the entire week off so a lot of things happened. I'll do another post in the next few days so you can see the results. But one of my projects was pulling out all the bird vetch around the shop. Some guy from the Dept of Natural Resources showed up at the door and said it was an rare invasive weed in Homer and it needed to be controlled. It grows in warm weather, which we've had, and it takes over like Kudzu. So the girls and I pulled out 8 huge, black trash bags of it by hand. We will keep it mowed off until this fall and then give it some Weed and Feed. It actually is an animal fodder and green fertilizer. I might have to propagate some for the animals without letting anyone know. :-)

Warren's Birthday

July 20 was Warren's Birthday. The kids were a little bit worried that we weren't having company for the party so they each got a present for him. Jayce, Alectra, and Alexis got him two new screwdriver sets, one for the tool box and one for the workbench in the shop. Emerald bought him a Stanley thermos for hot coco in the winter. I got him a new stainless steel popcorn popper. Then the girls made him some fancy stone paperweights and a crown.
Notice the crown and the cape, he was king for the day, Emerald said.
I made a triple fruit pie with Raspberries, rhubarb, and blueberries and an apple pie instead of a cake. The girls enjoyed the leftovers for breakfast.

Family Camp

July 17th and 18 was our church Family Camp. I started camp three years ago and it is a lot of fun. It takes up a chunk of my time in the summer but the benefit for our church body is sooo good. This year I didn't have much planning help but everyone helped out when I asked and it was one of the best. Of course after 70 plus days of sunshine, it decided to rain Friday night and all day Saturday. It didn't seem to bother anyone to much, other than the tarp had holes in it that dripped and you had to be careful where you sat.

Warren and Kevin Cooley organized the shooting, 22's and BB Guns. It is always the most popular activity of the weekend. They did a great job setting the rules and making sure everyone had fun safely. Warren is helping Silas Jones, age 2, shoot his first BB gun. When he was done, Warren got the 22 and made some holes in his target for him. He was very proud of his "shootin'".
We have chapel Friday night and this year the Flory's did an excellent job leading worship and Jerry Uligh gave a message on not living in fear. As God's adopted children, his love for us is unmeasurable, we are his chosen.

There was lots of time for stories and talking around the campfire.
The kids played on the tire swing and in the river. We did tie dying and swirl stones which are always popular. Everyone was ready to go home by 4pm on Sat. I just about have all the supplies put away and everything cleaned up, now that it's almost August.
"Can I go home yet?"

Clamming

Clam tides called the end of June and we had promised Steve and Stacey Veldstra that we were going to take them. Stacey went a few times as a child but Steve and the kids had never been. We had enough waders to outfit almost everyone and those that didn't have waders, duck taped their boots and rain pants together to keep out the sand and water. Here Steve and Kailee are taping gloves on as well.
Ethan and Jayce made a good team and had a great time trying to get the biggest one.
We had a beautiful day, sunshine and a light breeze. Kailee and I worked together, I'd dig and she would grab. Tyler is resting, looking for his next show.
The three little girls, Alexis, Alyssum, and Alectra, spent the morning exploring and throwing clams into buckets. Baby crabs, clams and little fish were so cute. Here they are showing Jayce and Ethan some treasure.
I have no idea who this person is but take a look at the beach and all the people! It always amazes me that there are clams there year after year, and when the tide goes back out, the beach will be smooth and there will be no trace of all those holes. We went to Veldstra's to clean clams and with all the hands it went fairly quickly. We had to wait for a few rain squalls to pass but the sun came out in between. Stacey thought maybe it was cheeper to buy clams at the store after spending all day working on clams. But who really goes claming to save money? It is just a hard way of having fun!

Swimming lessons

We started the month of July with the second week of swimming lessons. The kids had great instructors this year and really made a big jump in their abilities. Jayce practiced diving and is getting much better at the different stokes and kicks.
Emerald moved up a group and is doing very well learning all the strokes and just having fun in the water. She used to try and swim without getting her neck wet.
Alectra and Alexis moved between two different groups depending on where there was room. They have no fear of the water and love to pop under and swim around. They can just touch the bottom of the pool and get their noses out of the water. The instructor had to keep an close eye on them so they didn't get over their heads.We got to swim with some of our friends, Katelyn and Bethany Engebretsen, and eat lunch together. What a fun two weeks!

Emerald's Turn

Alexis, Alectra and I collected these seashells the first time we went clamming this year, at Sadie Cove. We play with them and put water in them to give our toy animals baths.
We use these pink and red shells as jewels. We hide the little ones inside two bigger ones, like treasure in a treasure chest except it's seashells in a seashell chest.

We use the snail shells as steps for the toy animals to get into the bathtub shells.I'll tell you about my day. We went swimming today for swimming lessons. We have some friends taking lessons with us. They have a baby brother who has to take medicine that makes his lips and tongue purple. We came home, ate lunch and then went to the Ranch. We rode 4-wheelers, read a book and played with Alectra and Alexis, while Mom and Dad taped off the house for the guy to do the texturing on the walls. Mom and Dad got the primer sprayed last night. I got to drive the bobcat for the first time today. It was bumpy but FUN!