Kid-tested and Mother-approved?

Thomas and I broke the house in (gratefully nothing in the house was broken) with a visit from my sister and her three boys under the age of five!  It was a wild week, a full-immersion into our life of fun, occasional power outages, mud, sun, Fire Station, a visit to the neighbor's chickens (that provided our morning eggs) and even a trip to the lake and the river.

I tried to prepare for their arrival with a trip to Costco and a trip to the library.  The first evening was pretty low-key, and our second day together was a great day for exploring around the property and making tia bread.  There were numerous trips to the pond to see the frogs, that somehow heard us coming, so we mostly saw the splash they made jumping away from us.

The second day ended with quite a surprise - a power outage from 6 - 7:30 pm.  The rice finished cooking on the wood stove, but the tia bread didn't really get to bake long enough.  After a dinner of tuna sandwiches and coloring by lantern/candle light, the boys were grateful that when the lights came back on in time for bed time.

These boys love to read, and I found some winners.

Wednesday we visited the lake and the fire station.  Thomas took the boys for a ride, and I dressed them up in hats and bunker gear.  Maybe I can get pictures from my sister, as my camera battery chose a bad time to die on me.

These boys wandered around with grocery bags picking up all sorts of treasures: 

rocks, pistachio shells, dead crawdads, sticks, and shells.

Admittedly, their mom and tia picked up a few rocks, too.

Baby Isaac enjoyed the lake...the only one to bear his toes and walk in, though the others got a little wet in the pursuit of their treasures.

So poetic - a pair of men waxing romantic under a tree about all sorts of life's ponderances.

Our last day all together we went to the river for a picnic.  The boys just love being out in nature.
  

I'd made the boys some capes, though I hadn't finished them all.  During nap time, I was able to finish the rest.

super hero or villain - either way he didn't feel like napping, so....

he helped his tia sew.

It was sad to see this wild bunch go, though I am glad they got out before the rain and snow the next morning.  I moped around for the weekend, which is pretty normal for me after company leaves, though with the weather being snowy, it made for a perfect restful movie-marathon by the wood stove.

A parting gift - watering the grass before hitting the road!

Sucked into the vortex...

March was a busy month - thus the lack of posts.

I started the month on trial - a murder trial.  I was in the jury until deliberation, at which point I was set free as an alternate.  He was guilty, so the jury's decision was which charge to go with.  I don't envy my new friends who handed over that verdict.

I lucked out on a trip to Denver to see the girls in Denver.  It was silly to have packed the snowshoes, as we had a lovely hike in the sunshine.  It was great to spend time with my old roomies.

Hooray for reunions!!

Then the month was subsumed with funerals, Holy Week, Easter, some extra hours in the office at church, picking up the administration/bookkeeping of our local water association, irrigating, dropping the car off in Pueblo for recall work, preparing the yard for a deck and garden, and then some.

The deck actually was a nice spot for breakfast twice this week, though it was covered in snow this morning.

It is about 16'x9', so a nice spot to hang out.  The cats think it is terrific to watch TV (Thomas or Tori Vigil).

I built the planter box behind it, though it filled with snow sooner than I could fill it with dirt.  Next: filling it with plants - I seeded tomatoes and peppers!

April was off to a similar start, including a meeting in Albuquerque, a trip to get the car, to Pueblo, to Confirmation, and all around preparations for a visit from my sister and her family!  A week off of work to play with my nephews was definitely in order after the hectic March, but I am still playing catch up!

IT'S GONE!!!

More than one thing is gone, but the biggest news - the trailer has driven away to its new home!!!  There is a big hole in the yard where it used to sit - the grass and firewood and alley of gravel that used to lead up to the doorway are all that remain.

 can't really see the empty spot under the snow we woke to this morning,

but it's there!

Thomas gets major kudos for helping with the transition, as I was working.  I understand the Penguin the cat almost stowed away in the loose insulation beneath it, but jumped out before it got more than thirty feet.  And then an axle malfunctioned, and they almost went off the road.  Thank goodness it made it to its new home in one piece!

Aiding in its departure, Pop has been working hard on clearing the fence.  The Highway Dept will be installing a barbed wire fence - easier to maintain than our old wooden jack fence.  So he unscrewed all the boards, and we just loaded all the wood up and hauled it to our gate, where it will find new life as a jack fence inside the property.  (It also meant the trailer didn't have to navigate the narrow gate and road onto the highway.)