I like welding, welding is fun...

I have a little spade that I use in the garden. It's a metal shovel tip with a wooden handle. Lately, the wood handle is breaking off because it has always been outside. I told Merril I need a new handle built for it. He had a piece of leftover pipe and said I could have it and weld it to the spade tip. He offered to weld it for me but I've always been intrigued by the welder and wanted to give it a go. The whole idea of passing electric current through metal and getting it so hot that it melts and fuses together. Very fun. Plus it throws pretty sparks. :)

(Welding helmets are important, we don't want burned retinas.)

And here's my new garden shovel. It'll take a million years for that handle to corrode off.

My bountiful basket ran dry this week...

So I've been participating in a produce co-op for a couple of months called Bountiful Baskets www.bountifulbaskets.org. It's been great for us because we get a lot of fruits and veggies for at least half of what I normally pay at the stores. Pick-up times are not negotiable, I don't get to choose the produce, and the website is a little wonky at times. That being said, I'm overwhelmingly satisfied with the amount of produce for $16.50. I can deal with the rest.

So fast forward to this week: The two volunteer gals who run the thing decided to take a week off for scheduled website maintenance and just because. I understand that. I see the need. If I were volunteering all those hours so a bunch of strangers could get a good deal, I'd be tired too. But ohmigoodness I went to the Wally World and got a package of blueberries and some grapes and spent $5! I felt so ripped off because I've really gotten used to paying $16.50 and getting an amazing amount of food. Amazing! So take the week off girls, but I need you next week!

Playing make believe...

Jack and Juliet love to play in the basement. It's generally a mess and there's cool stuff down there to get into. Today, they found a box of winter gear and a whole expedition was spawned. I'm not quite sure what it was all about but I know they were trekking long distances in the game.

Apparently Jack needed a walking stick to make it but Juliet was able to do it without shoes. This evolved from an earlier game where Jack was a farmer, thus the overalls. :)

Only a week and a half until school is out!

I don't know about you, but I'm looking forward to the summer. Some of you may say, "What am I going to do with all my kids when they're out of school?" Personally, I'm focusing on the mornings where I won't have to drag myself out of bed in order to drag Maxine out of bed. I can tell she's done for the year. I'm looking forward to a few months without so many schedules. More time hanging out and less time screaming, "Get your shoes on RIGHT NOW, or we're going to miss the bus!!" True, we'll have to come up with more activities to keep the kids occupied, but......I.......seriously.........can't........wait!

Moabites...

Every time we go to Moab, I wonder if natives call themselves Moabites. (Ruth, Moabite daughters-in-law, etc.) Anyhoo, we went camping in Moab with some friends. I had the best time! I think some other people did too.

We got there late Thursday night and had a hard time finding a spot to camp. So we camped at an overflow spot and then changed to a nice camp spot the next morning. We decided to go on a trail in the Scout. Merril and I built this shade top to keep the kids out of the sun. That PVC would not hold up in a roll, believe me.

Since the Scout has run beautifully for a year, it decided to act up while we were in Moab. Urg. Darryl and Shauna towed us on a couple of occasions!! You guys are the best! (Seriously, if you guys don't ever want to camp with such needy friends again, we'll understand.)

The kids had a great time playing in the dirt. Juliet rarely had a pair of shoes on. She also stood a little too close to the fire on a windy morning and singed the back of her hair.

We went hiking to Landscape Arch and had a few meltdowns on the way back to the truck. They seem happy in the picture.

And of course we had to try Potato Salad Hill. The Scout kept dying because of the incline. It was battling a fuel system problem.

Jack and Will, Shauna's son, fell asleep in the back of the Darryl's Jeep at one point.

Then one night a bunch of friends came to visit around the campfire and burn smores. Good times. I've never seen so many flaming marshmallows and kids whipping hot, poker sticks. I think we all kept our eyes.

Maxine made me a Mother's Day gift at school. We brought it so I could open it on Mother's Day. Merril surprised me with an egg slicer as a gift. Yeah!! Some of you might be thinking, "Egg slicer? What's up with that??" First of all, I LOVE to make egg salad sandwiches!! A few months ago, Jack bent and pulled all the wires on my old egg slicer. I haven't purchased a new one since. Merril saw me making egg salad a couple of days before we left for Moab and knew it was the perfect gift! He's REALLY good at thinking of gifts that I really want!

We went to church the next day and came home. I feel bad for the people we sat next to in church. I'm sure we stunk like campfire smoke.

I LOVE CAMPING!!

I keep waiting for Spring to warm up...

Brrrr...Why is it so cold today?? It's May!! The sun was shining for a moment and I snapped some of my flowers in the front yard.

Learning something new every day...

I'm often surprised at how long I've been doing something incorrectly.

I realized today that I've been misspelling the number 40. It's not fourty like I thought, but forty (no U after the O.)

Just to make sure. I spelled twenty, thirty, fifty, sixty, seventy, eighty, ninety, and one hundred into spell checker as well. :) I'm bound and determined to correctly spell 40 from now on.