Three Sisters Update

The beans are still taking over, even though I let the corn get a good head start. It makes me wonder if the Indians really did this. Or there's a trick to it that I don't know the secret. Granted only one of the corn stalks is being pulled over, but I think the same will happen as soon as the other beans get up and leaf out as much as on this particular stalk. What do you think everyone? Is this Three Sisters thing a "real" thing? How do you get the corn to stay up with out propping it.

A trip to the Cosmetologist

Claire and I spent the day with Kelly on Thursday. We had hair treatments, had our hair conditioned and styled and in the mean time we also had manicures and we finished up with pedicures. Was so much fun.




Thanks Kelly!

I knew I'd seen something like it...

Remember way back when - say Halloween of 2008 - and Evan dressed up like this *thing* and I tried to figure out what it was it reminded me of, I was sure there was some sort of something that I'd seen. Well - last night while watching PBS- a picture of something flashed across the screen and I announced "That's it!"


At last I can rest.

Eric's 22!

It's Eric's birthday today - July 9th. He's 22. Wow.
Please tell me - how did we get from here...

...to here?
From stretching out in a crib...[he was known as Squiggly Wiggly at this time in his life and held the name until he was in 5th grade when he informed me he'd prefer not to be called Squig or Squiggly or Squiggly Wiggly anymore]

...to stretching out on top of a mountain.
From eating sand...[that's Steven in the playpen back there]

...to eating...this.

From playing on the floor...

...to playing in the ocean.
From desperately wanting to play with his daddy's calculator...[it was his 1st birthday, and out of all the various objects that represented different occupations Eric crawled straight for his dad's calculator - we predicted he'd be into Math - possibly a CPA ;-) and yeah - that's Amy back there]
...to studying Engineering at BYU.
From staring up at balloons...

...to staring off to his future.

We love you Eric! We hope all of your dreams come true!!![his first Halloween costume - he dressed up like his dad]

Fun in the Sun 7/2-7/5

We've had a very fun week. The Busaths were here for Steven's homecoming talk and they stayed with us for a few days. AND - the college boys came home for the holiday weekend! So - we headed to the beach and the lake.
Friday we went to Seacliff. It was a beautiful day.








It's Mary under there. She's keeping out of the sun. Warming up too.

The college boys arrived home Friday late afternoon.
Saturday we went to Calero. Mary and Camille are with us but stayed covered up out of the sun. Greg did a lot of driving but so did Eric. It was so nice for Greg to be able to take a rest from driving.
There was some tubing.
There was jet skiing.


There was wake-boarding.
Steven got up like he's been doing it every day for the past two years. Like riding a bike I guess.
Eric getting some air.
Andrea made a great effort to get up.
Noelle

Evan and Claire taking a rest on the jet skis.
Greg gave the teens a chance to drive.



4th of July was relaxing - not very festive because we didn't really do any Independence Day things besides watching "A Capital Celebration" on PBS and the kids getting on the roof to watch fireworks around the nearby neighborhoods. But - we did have a fabulous dinner and some Hardesters had artichokes for the first time - specially prepared by Mary.
Monday morning the Busaths had to hit the road back home. The boys had the day to hang out with us so we headed back out to the lake. Kelly and neighbor Brian joined us this time.
Ready for fun!
The real picture...We're waiting our turn to get on the lake. We didn't have a reservation so we had to get in the line up. Calero allows only a certain amount of water craft on the lake each day. There's a certain amount of reserved spots and then a certain amount of first come type spots and if you miss both of those you have to wait until someone gets off the lake before you can launch.
Greg in the line up with the jet skis. He got in no trouble with the boat, he brought it over earlier.
After about 30 minutes waiting we get the chance to go on.
Boating essentials - Sunscreen and...
Cheez Wiz (really it's Easy Cheese - whatever)
So nice to have Eric take a turn to drive again.
Do you think he's going to land this?
Nope.
Claire's up.

Takes just a second to get use to the water.
Kelly popped right up.



Eric doing a grab.
Another teen gets a chance at the wheel - neighbor Brian.
It's great to be 16.

This picture is for Jan.