a roast

We had our first roast this entire summer this past week. That is quite ridiculous for us! We usually have a few in the spring, do some dutch oven cooking in the summer, and roast like crazy all of September! Oh well, we will just have to have a few more soon. The pictures are in reverse chronological order because I don't want to change them, sorry!

The Jones family, Proctor family, and a few of the Rowser family joined us for our evening of hot dogs and marshmallows. Thank you friends for a good time!



Me and the little man, excuse the dirty face, he had a great night!

My three sweet ones around the fire pit.

Matt missed most of the company, but there was still a great fire going for him to cook his dogs.

Me and Kendal, not sure what is up with her choice of expression and hand placement. Maybe she is showing us how many marshmallows she ate!

Kendal and Lydia have become such cute little friends.

Thanks Amanda for the peanut m&ms - you knew I was in need!

Debbie working on her dogs. I think she cooked Kendal's for her too! Check out the stack of firewood Matt got a few weeks ago. Yeah! I think we need about 3 times that much for the winter. We plan on getting busy and heading to the hills for some more.

The kids played great together and had a great time.

Amanda and Jen amid the children and food. It was such a wonderfully perfect weather evening.

We enjoyed the evening so much; we need to do more getting together with good people.

beginnings of the violin

Kelsey had her first violin lesson yesterday. She enjoyed it, so I hope this is the start of something good.

When I was pregnant with her, my dad bought her this violin. We didn't know if we were getting a boy or a girl, and my dad said whatever it was going to be, he wanted to hear fiddle music played when he was an old man. So I have kept this violin in the back of my closet for 9 years or so. When Kelsey turned 8 years old, I took this 1/2 size violin in to get it checked out and restrung. They said it was amazing and in pristine condition. That tickled me pink! All summer I have been looking for a violin teacher that wouldn't break me, and I found one a month or so ago.

So here we go! Hopefully my dad will enjoy some good music soon!

Tori's civil war Facebook pictures

My sister Tori came up to Heber City for our civil war event and took pictures for us. She did a fantastic job and is busy playing with over 500 pictures she is putting on a cd for members of our group to purchase for $10. What a steal! Anyway, she has uploaded a handful onto facebook, but I wanted to show them here also. They are so beautiful!

Mr. Bowman took this one of my little man. It is so cute, I must include it also!

Friday School Days at Heber Valley Civil War Weekend

Just a few pictures I took from our school day Friday. We had 400 homeschool, charter school, and a few local 4th grader kids in the morning. In the afternoon we had all the juniors at the local high school that take US History come too. It was a fabulous day. Everyone did their jobs and manned their stations well, thanks UTCWA members!

One station was medical by Union medic Westbroek and Confederate doctor Bowman.

Amanda and Caleb had everyone singing Goober Peas.

Amanda, MaryAnn, and I did a little blib on civilians, including lady's fashion, what kids wore (they loved Emmitt in a dress!), and music.

Kris, Jake, Austin, Spike, and the Wegner boys' station was military drilling and firearms.

The school kids learned about drilling with our 'new recruit' demonstration, and a few even joined in as new recruits.

Emmitt has a silly little grin, he was such a good boy all weekend.

Jamin and Doug taught about uniforms - both Union and Confederate.

Dee is telling one interested young one about stacking arms.

Thank goodness my dad and mom came up for the weekend. Emmitt LOVED being with his grandpa and grandma, and I needed their help badly!

The cavalry unit did a really great demonstration for the high school juniors. I was very impressed, and so were they. The artillery also did a demonstration, but I missed taking pictures of them.

That about sums up our school day on Friday. I think it was a fabulous success. I will post more pictures from Saturday, when I get some more from my sis, but for now, here is Kelsey.

Kelsey spent most of Saturday afternoon in the shade with my neighbors, the Proctors, carding and spinning wool. She quite enjoys activities like that, she amazes me. They say she even got a nice rhythm down with the spinning wheel, she is learning so much.

MIA

I have been missing in action. Sorry folks. We had our Heber Valley Civil War and Living History Weekend the past few days. It was fabulous. With all the work that Amanda I and put into it, I just kept thinking "Enjoy every second Rachel, every second" and I did. EVERY SINGLE SECOND!
School Days turned out great. Hopefully those 800 kids learned something, I sure did. Saturday, our public day, turned out fun. We had a bunch of reenactors come that I had never met before and were not part of our organization - but soon will be! The quilt show turned out fun. Kelsey's quilt won Judges Choice! I told her she is getting too big for her britches because I have never won a Judges Choice ribbon! She also spent the day with some of our civilians and learned to card wool and turn it into something wonderful. She actually used a spinning wheel and spun her own yarn from raw wool. That girl! Thanks Debbie, Kami, and Amy!
The live shoot went great. I have been collecting donations for months now for all the shoot prizes. The dance was a blast. Oh my goodness, if only we danced like that now! What fun!

My sister Tori took this picture during the skirmish. You would never know the battle was fought at a park with a playground and pavilion in the background! The smoke from the cannon sure helped! She took around 500 pictures. She will be posting more, as will I, as soon as I find my camera! I seem to have misplaced it somewhere between the battle and the ball. Dang it!

My parents came up to take care of my children for the weekend. I don't know what I would have done without them! My poor children would have been very neglected without them! Also thanks to Tori and Jared for coming up, supporting us, and taking pictures for us! Thanks Utah Civil War Association friends! And JONES - thanks for such a fabulous time! We do great work!

Now that the laundry is caught up, I have had some good nights rest, and my toilets are clean again, I will be checking in more often - I have alot to report!

ribbons!

The ribbons for our Civil War Weekend Quilt Show came yesterday. BLUE and GRAY. I love them, she did such a great job! The best part is, everyone that entered will probably get one!

hip hip hooray

I took Kendal to Primary Children's Medical Center today for a neurological checkup. Her neurologist just retired last month, so we got to meet a new doctor. I have been hoping and praying that the new doctor was not so conservative and that he would think we could start Kendal on a slow taper off of her seizure medicine. Well, PRAYERS ANSWERED!!
I get to begin her taper tomorrow morning. She will get 3/4 of her normal morning dose and then a normal evening dose - we do that for 2 weeks and then decrease the evening dose to 3/4 and so on and so forth. That means in 4 months she should be tapered down to nothing - unless her seizures come back. (She has been seizure free for 3 years and 2 months.)
Anyway, it is great news at our house. Her meds have some yucky side effects and it will be interesting to see my REAL 5 year old daughter since she has been on these meds since she was 20 months old. I imagine she will still be a spitfire, but hopefully one that is really her and not the medicine!

My little Kendal headed off this morning for her first day of Kindergarten. Not only Kindergarten, but ALL DAY Kindergarten. I have been so worried about her ever since we found out last week that she was 'invited' to attend all day Kindergarten. Worried about her sitting at a desk and not pulling her neighbor's ear, worried about her remembering to go to the bathroom, worried about her carrying her lunch tray and actually eating her lunch, worried about her coming in from recess and not throwing a fit because she wants to play longer, worried about her getting so tired in the afternoon that she wants to just lay on the floor, etc, etc.

We all walked to school together this morning and I took Kendal right to her new classroom, helped her hang up her coat and backpack, find her seat and that is when the tears came for me. I didn't want her to see me cry because then she would cry, so I gave her a quick kiss as she sat down at her seat to play with play dough. I got to the door without tripping over anything because I couldn't see with the tears in my eyes. Emmitt and I walked home slowly and he kept looking up at me from his stroller and saying "mama" in the sweetest voice. It made me cry more! They are so sweet and innocent and they grow up so fast!

I have been thinking about her all day. I am so tempted to go spy on the playground or go check on her at lunch, but I am holding myself here with chores - laundry, cleaning, dishes, bla bla bla. I think I will probably be crying when I go pick her up! I will miss her today so much.

On a happier note, Kelsey went through my civil war reproduction fabric last night and chose these to make a civil war quilt for the quilt show in two weeks. It is being held in conjunction with our Heber Valley Civil War and Living History Weekend. What 8 year old asks if she can make a quilt and enter it into a civil war quilt show? She is wonderful.

gas

I love summer gas bills and paying month by month instead of an 'equal pay' system. This bill makes it all worth it!