Last week we had some amazing weather. So nice, in fact, that I decided we needed to go on a little bike ride one afternoon. I have never taken my kids on a bike ride before, with or without Nate. In fact, I just barely got a bike at the beginning of the winter, for the first time since high school. I'd never ridden it before. But we'd just had all our bike tubes replaced, I'd finally figured out how to get all the tires back on the bikes and strollers, and I even figured out how to hook our little jogging stroller/bike trailer thing on the back of my bike so I could pull Leah. We just had to do it. I did a couple practice runs with the kids in the stroller through our backyard to make sure it wasn't going to fall off in the middle of a busy intersection, and I was feeling confident. The plan was to have Addison and Bryn switch off riding their bike in front of me while I pulled the other two kids. And so I reminded the kids how to use their brakes, and we were off to ...

Like any good story, this one is about chickens. Several weeks ago, we came home from running errands after dark, and when I went out to check on the chickens I discovered the coop door was closed and two of the chickens were still out in the yard. While Michelle went upstairs to bathe kids, I went out to hunt down the resident poultry. As we've already learned, when it gets dark and the chickens can't make their way back into the coop, they take to the tree right behind the house . This night was no exception - there, way up above my head, a Rhode Island Red and a White Leghorn were roosting on a branch. Being from southern Utah, I tend to think anything below 60 degrees is life-threateningly cold, and I worried that if I left these chickens out they would be popsicles by morning (it actually WAS pretty cold that night). So I went out to the shed, grabbed a garden rake, and came back to coax the chickens down. The White Leghorn latched onto the handle pretty quickly, but a...

For several days in the past few weeks, we've woken up every morning to loud chirping and scratching coming from the general direction of our laundry room. It starts at the crack of dawn and lasts till dark. We investigated by peeking behind the dryer and found two Tide sticks, lots of lint, and the start of a nest. (Click to enlarge if you need to.) Unbelievable. Luckily no eggs yet. Since we moved here we have had a white-trash dryer pipe that juts out about a foot from the house and has no cover on the end. The little bird building a nest in it helped us decide that it was time to move up in the world and put the blasted cover (which we have had sitting on the shelf above the washer for almost 2 years) on. So Nate defied death by standing on step on the ladder that says "DANGER: do not stand on or above this rung or step" and sticking the cover on the pipe. And yet, the next morning, I heard the same old scratching. Loud, persistent, annoying. Threatening to wake the k...

Ah yes, you knew it was coming. After a long night on the bathroom floor and barfing every time the clock struck the hour . . . and 10 minutes after the hour . . . and 20 minutes after the hour . . . ad infinitum, I was persuaded to visit ye olde ER. Don't know if it was the Crohn's or just a stomach bug, but apparently I ripped my esophagus from my manly vomiting, so I couldn't eat or drink anything. Then Dr. #1 said something about possibly having lymphoma, but Dr. #2 seemed to think that was ridiculous. Fire Dr. #1, says I. Going home tomorrow. Feel just fine and should have staged a jailbreak 24 hours ago. Ah well. Bottom 3 hospital experiences (which I realize are laughably minor. I'm counting my blessings): 3 - Shot to the gut to prevent blood clots. No thanks, next time I'll just die of the blood clot. 2 - Clear liquid diets. All menu items have three ingredients: water, high fructose corn syrup, triptomioformaldahydronicus (or some variation on the latter). ...

Well, the surgery is off until the 27th. Nice. Nate is sick as a dog with what appears to be a flare-up of his Crohn's disease - the first, I might add, since January. Seriously, what are the chances? So although I do want to be done being pregnant asap, we are now willing the baby not to come very early, since the surgery will be less than a month before the due date.

Our ward here takes such good care of us. Babysitting, lending a truck, fixing the car, meals when Nate was in the hospital, the list goes on and on. My visiting teachers in particular are amazing. For example, yesterday afternoon, one of them showed up unannounced with her husband around 4:00, and stayed until 7:30 doing numerous repairs on our lawnmower, cutting grass, and weeding. For no reason except that they are amazingly wonderful people and our yard is in serious need of assistance. And if I'm as agile as they are at age 60ish I'll be one happy camper. So with two thirds of our yard looking immaculate thanks to the kindness of their hearts, Nate and I set out to tackle the rest of it this evening. Nate and Addison started at our garden plot shoveling gravel while I ran to Maverick to get some gas for the lawnmower. I came home, filled the two-gallon tank to the brim, and got ready to mow the field of hay to the south of our house. We have a big yard, and by divine inter...