Alturas Lake

Youtube had this great feature where they let me upload videos directly from my google photos ... and then they got rid of that feature. I am not about to download all my google videos onto my computer and then upload them onto youtube to link here - nope - so for now I'll have to give up my videos on my blog. Blogger got an update as well and now my picture upload in the opposite direction I select them, and the landscape pictures don't show correctly on the feed unless you click on them...weird... so that is all rather annoying for me!

I saw bunk beds for sale on our Lost River Valley Classifieds page and decided to buy them! We sold the queen with it's frame a few days later. I thought about painting them white for about two seconds and ditched that idea straightaway. 

This week was the Butte County Fair. We enjoyed going to look at all the animals and I was tempted to buy some egg-laying hens. But I better wait until next year. We went to the rodeo one night which we all surprisingly liked, and then Justin took the kids to a Kid Rodeo. I did a diaper shower for my friend Jasie that night so I missed out, but Justin said our kids were really nervous when it came their turn. Something about running around a goat or something...whatever it was, he said it was a flop for our kids and didn't stay long. 

Mom let me use her pressure cooker to get a couple bottles of green beans. I've definitely enjoyed growing my garden more than eating it. I ripped out parts of my garden this week: spinach, lettuce, peas, and green beans. I left all the remains on the garden per Mom's advice to feed the soil. I have turnips, summer squash, zucchini, spaghetti squash, pumpkin, tomatoes, carrots, onions, red and russett potatoes, and - of course - corn left. I'm loving my grocery bill since we've been eating zucchini for dinner all month.

On Friday Justin asked me, "What do you want to do tomorrow?" to which I thought for a second and replied, "Go to Redfish!" We decided to go to Alturus which is slightly closer and not SO crowded. We got there at noon to a full parking lot, so Justin dropped Emmett and me off to get a spot on the beach while he found a parking spot with a sleeping Logan. We stayed for three hours and really enjoyed it! The weather was in the high 80's and there was no wind - the water was awesome (especially after jumping in the ocean a few weeks ago!). We had a great day with our little family. 

visiting at Granny's and Emmett decided to take pictures of everyone

say "seaweed!" - from his favorite show Octonauts

throwing the lettuce everywhere

Mom brought me some Iris to line my garden edge for next year. She showed me how to tell where the flower will come from next year and how to plant them - her experience is a wealth of knowledge. I feel really lucky to get to take advantage of her gardening brain.

When ripping out the lettuce we found a couple of furry caterpillars, so we have a couple caterpillar pets the kids are excited to watch turn into pupas and then butterflies. Emmett learned about pupas from a "Pete the Cat" book from the library so he's all about it.

We planted chard and kale but never saw any signs of it...then I went to ripping out my lettuce and found some chard! Some rather fully-grown chard at that.

I threw it in my protein shake - my favorite way to get my greens in.

getting ready for the baby shower

I needed a nap so Emmett read on my legs while I laid down.

fuzzy caterpillar found on the sidewalk out front

rodeo time!

This is Emmett's go-to pose for "smile boys!" when taking pictures

the diaper cake I made for Jasie

canning with Mom

Lake time!

reading a dinosaur bedtime book with my dinosaur shirt and Emmett's dinosaur pjs

I loved this week's reading for Come, Follow Me. I sing the song "Our Mother's Knew" to Emmett at bedtime every night and reading those verses in the scriptures made me emotional. Those sons were little! The artists need to redo the pictures we are familiar with because I'm convinced they were no older than 13 or 14 ...maybe 15 at the most! Portraying them with these huge muscles looking like they could play college football takes away from the miracle that every single one of them were spared. I just love their story so much. Justin helped the kids make warrior necklaces for how we can be like the strippling warriors.