South Dakota

We finished the sod early Monday morning and then on Wednesday, we went to South Dakota. We were planning a shorter trip closer by, but after reviewing the calendar, we realized that this was the biggest stretch of time we had to go do something as a family and so we drove the 4-5 hours it took to get there and camped three nights. We plan on making a couple other camping trips this summer, but they are going to be 1-2 nights and are going to be closer to home.  We wanted to explore closer to home this summer, though we will still drive to Oregon for a week and a half about mid summer. In South Dakota we:

explored Wind Cave and Jewel Cave, 

(fun and exciting cave tours of the fourth and second longest explored caves in the world) 

hiked lots,

saw the Cathedral Spires in Custer State Park,

climbed some rocks,

saw Mount Rushmore,

and learned more about mammoths.

We had a lot of fun and it was a good trip.

Sodding in the Rain

Sodding in the rain, just sodding in the rain. What a glorious feeling. I can't think of how to finish it.  Sorry about the cheesiness. We ordered our sod over a month ago to get 20% off. We kept having to postpone it because we weren't finished with the sprinkler system. We finally finished last week and had the sod delivered Friday afternoon. We hadn't checked the weather report,but it doesn't rain very much here, so we figured we were fine. Dan came home from work around 3:30 and we got to work. The rain started a little after that and it kept going until about noon today (Sunday). We were able to finish the front before the ground got too soggy, but the back was a pain to do. We finished most of it on Saturday, but still have a few more rows to finish tomorrow morning. At least we don't have to worry about the sod drying out! 

Here is the backyard. This morning we had a whole bunch of standing water on it, but the water has sunk in since it stopped raining.

Sorry the pictures aren't great, but I was muddy, wet and tired, but wanted to document this. We still have rock to do, but I think we might do that a little more gradually. We are supposed to be done with our landscaping by June 30th to keep the peace with the Homeowners Association, but I think once we finish with the rock in the front yard, we won't push the backyard so much since it is fenced. We are planning to go camping soon, so we will have other pictures than just our landscaping. I have to document our project though to remember how much work it is so we never do it again.:)

This Week's Progress

This last week we spread the compost piles out and tried to even things out. I planted a bunch of plants and we will see how many live. Most of them are supposed to be xeric once established, but I don't think they are wind tolerant and the wind has been blowing pretty bad this last week. Yesterday we set the borders and started trenching the back yard. We had a friend come over and help for a couple hours which was really nice. The kids and I started moving rock which we received on Friday. We got in front of the house moving down toward the driveway, but it takes a long time. Hopefully we will finish this pile this week so we can get another delivered for the backyard.

Here are some of the trenches. We now have a total of 12 tomato plants. A store here had four packs for 69 cents so we bought a couple of those (early girl and sweet 100), but I don't think they all will survive. We bought 3 bigger tomatoes (2 early girls and a celebrity) that were more expensive and a big 2 and a half quart one (roma) that was on sale for $1. I also bought a four pack of sweet peppers, but they aren't looking so hot. We'll see if they get over the shock of planting. Yesterday I bought four good sized zucchini plants and four butternut squash plants for a shocking (at least to me) amount, next year I'll start my own, but we just had too much going on this year to worry about it. I also bought a couple of little strawberries and hope to find some others to plant with them. I have planted a row of sugar snap peas, green beans, and carrots, but they haven't popped up yet. We dumped a whole bunch of compost into our garden, but now I'm wondering if it was enough. I guess we will see. I'll take a close-up of picture once the seeds have popped to show the progress. Hopefully we'll have some to show:)

A Work in Progress

We have been working on our landscaping. In fact between that and soccer I'm surprised we're able to get anything else done! Here is a picture from a couple of weeks ago. We were stalled by snowstorms, rainstorms and even a tornado (south of town and we live on the north side), so we had to take a break for a little while. Here are pictures I took this afternoon:

This is the back. The lower level is our garden. I planted a couple of tomatoes (with walls of water around them) and some peas and beans. I hope to plant some squash and a couple more tomatoes but I need to get other stuff done first. We borrowed a nice rototiller from a guy Dan works with to rototill where the grass is going to go. We hope we got enough compost mixed in so it will grow good. We are planning on putting in the sprinklers in next weekend and then we will get the rocks delivered the next weekend and then will come the sod. Hopefully the weather cooperated. we are a week behind where we were originally wanting to be, but we've gotten five time as much rain this month so far than what the average usually is for the month!

This is the front yard. I had just put out the plants to get some water and sunshine. I ran out of time yesterday to plant them. Hopefully I can get them tomorrow. If I can remember I'll post pictures next week of our progress. we have planted more trees and I got some lilacs in on the side yard. In the back we planted some aspens on the side, but they aren't in the picture of the backyard. We have shopped around for good deals on trees, but we aren't sure they all will survive. We'll just have to wait and see.

Emma's life

Emma needed her own post for some of the stuff she is doing in school. She is studying Wyoming history this year at school and has gone on a ton of field trips. Her last two have been to Ft Laramie and the territorial prison in Laramie. I let her take the camera to Ft Laramie and here are some of her favorite pictures. 

Dan took a day off from work and let me go with her to the Territorial Prison in Laramie. It was fun to see the cells and how they restored it. they even out all of the kids into a cell and I took a picture. You can see part of Emma's face sticking out, if you look closely.

Emma also learned how to square dance at school for music. They had a performance for families to go to. I had a dentist appointment so Dan took Gabby and Gideon to watch and he took some pictures. Emma is in the white shirt, pink skirt, red bandanna, straw hat, and leather boots. (She wanted me to make sure you knew who was her.)

Holy cake and ice cream Batman, Gideon is 4!

Gideon wanted to have a batman birthday party when he turned four. Between soccer, landscaping and other activities we decided to actually have it during the day on his birthday. Dan took the morning off of work to help prepare for it. Everyone came around 10:30 and stayed until about 1:00. We had about 8 or 9 kids come and it was fun!!

We had a batman pinata, played pin the symbol on the batman, played batman, batman, joker (duck, duck, goose) and let the kids loose on the swingset for a while. I think everyone had a good time. I made batman capes for everyone to take home. Gideon liked it and that's what counts, right?

Gideon enjoyed opening his present at the party as well as the ones he got from us. He got some batman toys from us that I love! They are fisher price and are labeled as being for kids 3-8 which is perfect for him. He likes Ben's toys, but they tend to be do big for him and fall apart too easily. These ones are more durable and perfect for him. Grandma Pam found him a Toy Story duplo train set that he loves as well. He made out like a bandit!

Smart Boy

I wouldn't normally write about something like this, but I have been worried about Gideon's intelligence level. Which is really bad for a Mom to say and I feel horribly guilty about it. His speech is horrible though. He doesn't speak clearly at all. He is in speech therapy and we have a therapist come to our house once a week and he is getting better a little at a time, but I was afraid his IQ might not be as high as the other kids. Well today we were making batman invitations for his birthday party and he looked at the batman symbol and told me we should put a B on it for Batman. I asked him what he said and he told me again. Out of curiosity I asked him how to spell his name and he told me G,I,D. He didn't get any farther, but since I haven't worked with him that much on how to spell his name I was impressed. It made me think how I view different disabilities. I have always thought that I was a pretty open minded person, but here I was judging my own son who I know best in the world and I was limiting him in my own mind. Well now that I know he is very capable, we'll get to work on preparing him for kindergarten a year from the fall. I've been contemplating holding him back a year for his speech, and maybe we still will if it doesn't improve, but now I know he is very capable of doing well in school. It is just a matter of others understanding him.