Memorial Day in Boelus

We've spent the last few days in Boelus at Mike's parents' farm, and have been relaxing and enjoying every moment. I've read two books, eaten amazing food, gone out on a date with my husband, and beaten everyone at Scrabble. Leah has been out finding and feeding the cows on several occasions with Grandpa and Uncle Steve, and she's gotten to ride in the tractor and on the 4-wheeler, which is a big hit. She's played with their two adorable dogs Salt and Pepper, who follow her everywhere. We're headed home in the morning, but we have enjoyed ourselves while we've been here.

The highlight of our weekend, however, was spending yesterday afternoon fishing at a little fishin' hole a few miles down the gravel road from the farm. The weather was perfect and Mike, Leah, and I spent about 2 hours just sitting out by the water and throwing our poles in time after time. While we weren't successful catching any fish, we had a great time, and Leah discovered something even more fun to occupy herself. Enjoy the video of our afternoon!

Ah Spring!

70 degrees. Light breeze. No bugs. Birds singing. Flowers blooming.

Thus led to lunch on the deck. Perfection.

What a party!

As I write, Leah is on the front steps of our house playing with her Barbies. I was sitting out there with her watching her play...these are precious moments. She was busy getting her dolls ready for their party, and then they were off to the party! "But Leah," I said, "your Barbies don't have any pants on!"

"Duh," was her reply, "It's a no-pants party. Silly Mommy!"

I'm hoping that this is one party that I'm not invited to!

Meet Mr. Eggplant

No, not the purple kind that you eat (well, that some people eat...for the record, you won't find any eggplant in my garden!).

The real Mr. Eggplant was made by Leah this afternoon. We started with an empty egg shell, a little bit of potting soil, and some grass seed. Leah drew a face on the egg, and we planted the grass seed in the potting soil, which we had put in the egg. Now, our fingers are crossed that Mr. Eggplant grows some hair! Leah has already checked it out about five times since we made it 10 minutes ago, and she is very disappointed that there is no hair yet. Perhaps it's time for Rogaine!

Mr. Eggplant, waiting for his hair to grow:

Getting my rear in gear...

Thanks to some kind and loving friends and family I decided that getting an entry up and running was long overdue. I think it's the most gorgeous morning of the year (Yeah!!! We can officially say winter is gone, although western Nebraska just had a blizzard last week.) so I imagine that we will not be staying indoors much today. We started working in earnest in our gardens this weekend, and I have to be a good gardener and get out there to water. I don't know if my thumb has turned green yet, but there seems at least to be a greenish tinge to it. Mike is building a composte bin as we have been casually composting for awhile now and finally are going to get serious about it. He's been reading about good things to add to the compost to really get it into great soil, and some things are surprising (like newspaper!). I'm pretty good with all of it, but he read that one of the best things is urine. That is where I draw the line. Just the thought of having my tomato plants covered in urine...seriously.

But anyway, I don't know when I became the kind of person who wrote a whole paragraph on her garden, but I'm afraid it is happening.

In other events, Mike and I went to our neighborhood wine tasting again this weekend, and again we had a lot of fun. The theme was wines with labels of famous people, so we brought Fess Parker's Frontier Red. Don't know who Fess Parker is? Does "Davy....Davy Crockett....King of the wild frontier" ring any bells? We really enjoyed the gathering once again and each time conversation is easier and more fun.

And, we woke up bright and early Sunday morning to go and worship in our new sanctuary at church. We are now completely handicapped accessible, and we have room to welcome visitors and visit with each other afterwards. If you check out the link, the new part is at the back of the old church. I couldn't find any pictures of it inside, but it is beautiful and warm, and we are so thankful that God has provided for our little church in this amazing way. Our service yesterday was amazing, and we were able to all gather together for a meal in our old sanctuary, which was kind of cool.

One last thing (maybe if I posted more often, I wouldn't have to go on and on like this!)...many of you have asked me about our friendly neigbhorhood dog. Well, one night this winter we finally had had enough, so Mike called the cops. I felt ridiculous doing it, but at midnight it was our only option. We haven't had to deal with it once since then, so apparently that was effective enough. And more importantly, I'm not feeling like such a crazy person anymore with thoughts of pet-napping dancing around in my mind.

Alright...off to enjoy a gorgeous day. Happy Cinco de Mayo!