Puppy Update!

       Here are some of my favorite pictures from our visit to the puppies in Prosser last weekend. It was very hard to pick which one I wanted, because of course I wanted them all! I Hope you enjoy them! Only about 3 more weeks until I get to bring my little Moosey home!

Half Moon Blooms

Cross your fingers that we will have green thumbs because Dusty and I are attempting to plant a sizeable garden. I am a little intimidated by the size and weeding which I know will soon plague us. However, I think over all it will be a lot of fun.

The inspiration for this project all started with a simple summer job. Last summer I worked (and Dusty "volunteered") at a U-pick flower farm just about a mile out of Pullman. It was a great environment and I loved how flexible the owners were with our schedule... if you could even call it that. Here are a few pictures of Sunshine Crafts and U-Pick flowers. This is what we hope our own garden will look like some day, but that might take a while.

If you are in Pullman and want to get some of these gorgeous flowers in your house, this is how it works: Jane has three main ways that she sells her flowers: 1-Prearranged bouquets at local farmers markets. 2- A delivery routes in town. 3- U-pick style cut flowers directly from the field. Here are a few of Janes farmers market bouquets from early last summer.

For this summer Dusty and I will be trying out the two of these three. I don’t expect to make a ton of money this first summer, but if I do it would be okay too. I hope to learn what grows well here and if there is a market for the business in the area. If all goes well we may expand in future years, however this year is “just a test.” Mostly my reason for having the garden is that I was thoroughly spoiled last summer with my own bouquets of fresh cut flowers every week. While buying flowers from Jane is a great deal if you live in Pullman, it is not very economical to drive there every week from Spokane just to get a bucket of blooms. So the gardens primary purpose is to provide my kitchen table with pretty flowers. Hopefully that reason will be important enough when the weeds start sprouting up. So anyway, back to how we are going to test the market. The main way we are planning to sell flowers is to take bouquets to the Montfort School House Farmers Market from 4-7 on Thursdays. Dusty’s grandparents have a tent for their business Paul’s Wood Things and they have said they don’t mind if we share a corner of their booth. It should keep us busy enough for this summer. (Look in this picture to see how bee-z Jane's garden was last year)

I also plan to put up some kind of “Open” sign up to let people know if flowers are available for the picking. I have a feeling this may be sporadic at first, but as I see how regularly things are coming into bloom I may set specific days for people to visit the garden. Eventually if we keep growing the garden, I hope for it to be open any time people want to stop in like Jane’s farm. Quick size comparison, Jane has almost 2 acres of flowers, we have almost 2 tenths of an acre.... we are little. That is why I am not sure how much will be available for public picking this summer. The good news is we should have less weeds to deal with in our garden, I don't want to scare myself away afterall.

Here is where we are at so far: Our soil has been thoroughly fertilized with steer manure, gross I know but it will mean bigger flowers. We have a fence around our garden thanks to the help of our friends Craig and Michelle. The PVC pipe is set up for our soaker hoses and watering system. There are about two and a half 50 ft rows of perennials (“donated” by Sunshine Crafts and Flowers) planted in our garden. Last but certainly not least, Dusty build a cold frame (think mini greenhouse with natural heat) to get our seeds started in. Up next: Weeding, and transplanting… then more weeding.

 Up next: Weeding, and transplanting… and more weeding. You can see Coby really wants to help!

 

Puppies!

My Puppy was born yesterday! I am so excited about this fact I just had to share it with the world. I feel a little bit like a new mother. Minus the pregnancy, morning sickness, weight gain, pain of birth, and....well basically all the difficult parts, ha ha ha. I guess it is not so much like having a baby except for the REALLY happy part. Which is more than enough for me.
I haven't seen the litter of pups yet because they live in the Tri-cities. I am hoping Dusty and I will be able to go visit them very soon though. The litter is a mix of yellow and black lab puppies. I am getting a yellow female in about 8 weeks. If you want one too just let me know and I can help get you in contact with the right guy. If you are looking at the calendar right now, you will notice that date is approximately one day after school is out for the year! Could this have possibly have had any better timing? I think not.
Here are a few pictures but they are not actually any of the puppies I will be picking from. However they are the pups from the same parents, just a litter that was born last fall, not the current puppies. None the less they will look exactly like this and be oh so cute!

UPDATE: These are pictures from the current litter born on 4-14. One of these little yellow ones is going to be mine!

HAWAII

Here are some pictures from the all girls trip to Hawaii. I got some great pictures of fish and a turtle with our new underwater camera. On that note, a special thanks to Michelle for a great recommendation of a camera so I could get some awesome pictures while snorkeling!

What a week!

Four days in the Life of Erin's Classroom ...

 This Monday my class celebrated the 100th day of school even though it was really 101. This caused mild confusion and major frustration among my second graders. (Last Friday was the actual 100th day of school but we had scheduled a guest speaker visit in the afternoon.) Once we were all on the same page about why we waited a day to celebrate, it was a great day centered on the number 100. We counted out 100 marshmallows and made towers with toothpicks, graphed the color distribution of M&M's, and searched for 100 paper chicks hidden in our classroom; some of which have yet to be found. In the afternoon we did a timed math test with 100 problems and read for 100 minutes. Our special 100th day activities made for an eventful Monday.

On Tuesday we had a somewhat normal morning. In the afternoon we started making our card holders for the Valentine’s Day party. And that seems like about all the structured teaching I got in this week.

Wednesday morning we had a short visit from some pre-dental health students from WSU. In the afternoon we did some fun activities related to Chinese New Year, including making paper Chinese lanterns. They had a great time making different figures with Tangrams too.  We talked about how the Lunar New Year is different than the January 1st New Year. In a vote, my class thought the longer Chinese tradition with dragons sounded way better than just staying up past bed time to watch a ball drop.

The kids have Friday off while I have a teacher in-service so Thursday was the day of our Valentine's Day party. In the morning to get into the spirit, we read the book Love You Forever by Robert Munsch. Then we talked about families and people we love. Last we wrote letters to people we love. In reading and checking the letters before sending them home, this one stood out to me as really funny. I thought some of you might get a kick out of it. So here it is as written by the student.

Dere Big Brother,
i love you verry much. Even if you kickt and punch me.
Love,
Your Little Brother
P.S. i stol your munny and i cept the chang. and good luk on valentims day!

As you can see my skills as an educator are really coming through in this child's writing conventions! After lunch and music class I was time to start our party! I have some very wonderful parent volunteers that helped me a bunch by organizing a great craft activity and snacks. The class was so cute to watch as they exchanged Valentines. The kids beamed each time one of their classmates came and put a card in their mailbox.

 Over all it was a great party and a good week. I think we worked on a big craft project for four days in a row. It was neat to see the more creative students in their element, cutting and pasting up a storm. However, I am hoping that the next couple weeks are not this busy everyday!

PS. Check back soon for pictures!

Leavenworth Trip

We want to share a few pictures from our trip to Leavenworth from a little over a month ago. We left Pullman right after I got out of school Friday afternoon and had tons of fun. It was a nice way to have a weekend away and relax before the craziness of the holiday season.

The first night we met up with a friend from college, Diana, and listened to some fun live music at restaurant called South. The next day we all had lunch together at the Soup Cellar. Both places had great food and even better company. Dusty and I were glad to catch up with an old friend too.

Saturday night we staked out a spot to watch the lighting festival. We got a great perch under an awning and up a short set of stairs in front of one of the shops. I liked the view because being up a bit higher than the crowds I didn't have people standing all around. Here is a picture of how packed it was in the streets as people were waiting for the lights.

 
There were so many lights on the shops and trees. We had originally been a little disappointed about the cold weather and no snow, but right at the end of Lighting it started to snow! By the time we walked back to the hotel for the night we there was a dusting of white everywhere.  Sunday morning we woke up and got ready to go back home to Pullman. When we went outside to load the truck and found nearly two inches of snow. The weekend was a great way to get into the Christmas spirit.

Alaska Memories

Dusty and I noticed that we didn't add pictures from our Alaska trip in our pictures from last summer. I would guess this is because I was thinking of all the warm memories from our summers past. So now as it is snowing again in Pullman, I have come to the fact that winter is here to stay. Here are some photos that look a bit like winter time but they are actually from our cruise to Alaska last June.

We had some time to kill while we were waiting for the ship to leave port in Seattle. The first thing we did once we were on board was go and find somewhere to eat. Then we went made our way on a little self-guided tour around the ship while we waited for our stateroom to be ready. Then after we set sail, we got to settle into our room. We went back on deck to watch as the pretty Seattle skyline faded away. Can you guess what we did next? You got it, back to the dining hall for more food. So what if it was just shy of four hours from our last meal, we were just trying to get into the cruise spirit!

  

Our second day, (the first full day) on the ship was spent at sea. It was nice because we had lots of time to wander around and get to know the layout of the boat. We found one of our favorite places on this day. On one of the top floors they have a big lounge area with odd shaped, peacock blue couches and floor to ceiling windows. It was a neat place to just sit and watch the world go by. We did just that quite often, despite the fierce competition for a couch.

Monday evening we went to an early dinner and then a dance show in the theater. When we came out of the theater we were surprised to see an amazing sunset. It was quite a shock because we had assumed it would be dark out already. What I had forgotten to consider was that our ship was traveling north. Every day we moved north we gained a few minutes on our total daylight hours. Our trip was the middle of June so I was used to long summer evenings but Alaska took it to a whole new level. It was so strange to wake up early to see bright daylight, and stay up late but still make it to bed before the sky was totally black. Just think of how much you could get done outside in an Alaska summer! We are dressed up because it was formal night.

The next day, Tuesday, we made it into Juneau. It was a very neat town. While we were there we wandered through the shops. We hadn’t planned an “excursion” in Juneau. However we came across a tram that looked like fun. It went straight up the side of Mt. Roberts. From the top there was a little walk to a viewing platform. We almost didn’t take the short ½ mile hike because the trail was so muddy. I was very glad we did though! From the platform we could see the town and our ship docked down below. It was absolutely gorgeous. Here are a couple pictures of us at the top and our photo tip of day: look around to find the person with the nicest camera then ask them to take a picture with yours. Chances are it will turn out pretty good. As you can see it worked well for us on this day.

Wednesday, we stopped at Skagway. Literally, our boat dock was practically on the main street of town. When we stood on the deck in the front of the boat, you could actually see people walking in and out of the shops. I felt like I was watching an ant farm. You can see in some of the pictures here it is really close. We had signed up for a great excursion in Skagway on White Pass Rail Way. The train ride was awesome. It took us up the same path as the miners took in the gold rush. Except they did the treacherous trip without a train. Parts of the original path were still visible from the train. Dusty and I couldn’t believe how rough the land looked. I couldn’t imagine walking a short distance on the uneven terrain, not to mention the trek it would be from the town of Skagway to miles beyond the Canadian border. It was very interesting to see a bit of history first hand.

Our next stop, on Thursday, was Glacier Bay. When we first got into the area we had a few park rangers join our boat. They made regular announcements over the intercom system about our gorgeous surroundings. There were more glaciers than I could count but the main glacier we stopped at was so blue and the air was so cold. The rangers also told us there was a chance we could see sea lions lounging on the ice. We did see a couple swimming in the water but they never stayed on the surface long enough to catch a picture. The ice fields, while still moving, made it much easier to get a picture.

On Friday we went to our favorite place in Alaska, Ketchikan. We went on an awesome excursion; it was on a crab fishing boat. Although it meant we had just a little time to run around town it was totally worth the time and money. I would highly recommend it to anyone taking a cruise. The now retired, crab fishing boat that we were on was called the Aleutian Ballad. It was briefly seen on the TV show Deadliest Catch. Our guides were so amazing. They made our tour really feel like we were on the Bering Sea, minus the gigantic waves and freezing ocean spray. They made it feel real with their stories of adventure from years on the ocean.On our tour we got to see a humpback whale, three types of crabs, an enormous octopus and bald EAGLES! There were so many eagles. We were told that there were somewhere between 35 and 50 eagles swooping around our boat. Our guides provided fish for the little kids to throw off the edge of the boat. Between the eagles’ competitive natures and the kids’ short tosses we had birds flying right over to our boat. It was the coolest thing we have ever seen! I can’t even begin to describe how great it was, so take a look below and see for yourself! Oh yeah, and we got to sit in the captain’s chair.

 

The last day of our trip we stopped at Victoria, British Columbia. It was a warm sunny day as we sailed south. Dusty took advantage of the nice weather and tried the climbing wall onboard our cruise ship. It was really fun to watch him. Dusty did so well on the medium difficulty wall that the cruise staff manning the climbing wall “made” Dusty climb again on the most difficult. The worker, with his strong Caribbean accent, encouraged Dusty all the way up the second wall “Go Spider Man, go!” It was seriously funny. I almost didn’t get a good picture of Dusty ringing the bell because I was laughing.


Once we got docked in Victoria, Dusty and I took a pedal cab tour. It was a nice pace to see a lot of the town but not so fast that you would miss things like if you drove around in a car. Since it was just the two of us we got to pick what we wanted to see, which made it very personal. When our tour was over we walked around downtown and visited a local street fair on the pier. There must have been some sort of special demonstration going on earlier in the day because there were old fashion pirate boats docked in the harbor. Just before dark we headed back to our cruise boat and got to look at the well known Empress Hotel and the capitol building with their lights on. Both looked beautiful all lit up.





As we boarded our ship for the last time, I couldn’t believe our cruise was almost over. The cruise was so luxurious and relaxing but if, no, when we go back to Alaska I think I would like to fly in and to have more time to explore. We had a great time, and are sure we want to go back someday!




 
 
 

Thanksgiving Business

This is Dusty's first blog, so go easy on him, please.


Hello, so it's been awhile since we started this blog, and I haven't made a post yet, so here it goes. We've been really busy the past few weeks and have much to share with you. Look for another post by my beautiful wife later in the week.

I was lucky enough to be able to get the whole week of Thanksgiving off from school and research, except for giving a short presentation Monday morning. It worked out really well because I had a big project to get done back home on the farm.

My high school 4-H project cow herd has gotten a little out of hand over the years and has grown from 7 head to 20 cow-calf pairs, a bull, and 8 steers, that's 49 animals all together. As anyone who has dealt with cows knows, their destructive capacity is unrivaled except by a bulldozer. Lately the cows have been taking their aggression out on my feeders, which means I needed to build another feeder for winter.

Tuesday Erin and I picked up steel in town then Dad and I started construction. With all the other activities around Thanksgiving we had to be quick at building the feeder. We made pretty good progress by Wednesday night we had the frame together and painted. Then Erin and I went out to dinner with friends and played games.
Thanksgiving day was a great day of good smells, good tastes, and good times. Erin cooked a great turkey and some awesome pies, and we had both of our families over to the farm for dinner. It was really great to get everybody together.
Friday was back to the feeder and we got all the wood in the feeder and attached it to the barn.

Said and done the feeder has 24 head stalls, is 16' x 5', and weighs in at 1,400lbs. The outside frame is made of 2"x3"x1/4" angle iron. The head dividers are made of 2"x2"x1/4" angle iron. Hopefully it will keep the bulldoze... I mean bovines, at bay for awhile.

Saturday night we went out to dinner with Erin's family to celebrate Kim's birthday at Prospector's. It is always fun to have dinner with my new sisters.Then on Sunday, Erin and I helped my grandparents decorate their house for Christmas. Christmas is my grandma Lois' favorite time of the year and it is always great to see her light up when we decorate for the holidays. Once the tree was trimmed and the stockings hung it was back to Pullman to decorate our own house, but I'll save that for Erin.

Overall it was a very productive break filled with lots of time with friends and family, and for that I am Thankful.