"You don't say much, do you kid?"

*ahem* Sorry for the silence. But you're probably used to that by now, huh? I'll give a quick sum up of the last month.

1. Us three girls are doing Camp Nanowrimo! Put together, by the end of the month we will have written 4o,ooo words of three extremely different stories. Risa is writing a super cool sci-fi, Mari a really touching historical fiction about a boy who rode one of the Orphan Trains (heard of those?) and I am writing a fantasy, like everyone else =P.

2. School...is not ending. It's very sad.

3. We are working very hard for our chickens (something got into the coop and gobbled up all our layers, but we have ten little things who are close to laying age. We will protect you, chicks!) and we've been building fence segments like crazy. Soon we will have a nice new fenced yard. Yay!

4. Our papa (grandpa) is, in case you were unaware, a part time missionary to China and left today for a four month stay. We will miss him, and prayers are appreciated. He will be teaching English (secretly the Bible as well) at a college, preaching at some registered churches, getting some theology books spread in Chinese and ministering to the underground church. Yes, prayers are greatly appreciated.
This brings me to the joke bit. Our papa has always been the King of Corny jokes. Those silly puns and play on words that make you literally say, "Ha. Ha. Ha." while you roll your eyes. And some of that has rubbed of on Mom and Mari as well. This was their conversation a couple nights ago at dinner:

Mom: Just be careful over there [China] Dad, they have that bird flu going around.
Papa: Well, I hear it's tweetable.
Mari: But you'll definitely be feeling under the feather.
Papa: The worst part is the bill the doctors send you afterwards.
Mari: Well, you know they're all a bunch of quacks.
Mom: It may leave you a shell of a man.
Papa: Alright, enough yolks!
Mom: Then stop egging me on.

 
It actually continued with a couple more puns that I can't remember after this. We love having him over for dinner ^.^.

How's April been for you all? Sorry for the lack of pictures! Some of those, and the answers to last months game will be posted soon. Really.
Sam

Hey, Buddy, wanna pick some snowberries?

After a very cold first half of Jan, but with only slight sprinklings of snow that didn't stick, we got a very warm last half. It nearly got up to 80* one day, so yes, I mean warm. But this morning?

SNOW! Woo-hoo!

Last time we had snow, Jack wasn't a big fan, but this year he really enjoyed it.

The moon was still out at 9:00am

Momo taking a picture of the mountains

Snow ice cream! Yum!

The kids loved it

Sam
P.S. We're going to try and only put movie quotes as our post titles from now on. Anyone know what this one is from? =]

Chichins and Roosoos

Even though he says, "No." he means, "Yes!"

And it's true. All the sudden we have ten of them. Six chickens and four roosoos--um, I mean roosters. I know, way to many roosters.

Isn't she so funny looking?

So far that ^ is the only one we have good pics of.

"She's right behind me, isn't she?"

A little bit of sun during a rain streak.

The chickens came much sooner than we expected, in fact we didn't have much time to expect them at all. A neighboor called saying he wanted to get rid of his chickens and could he bring them by right now? So here we are working on the chicken coop.

He wanted to help.

Letting in some sunlight.

Caught you on camera, Risa! Ha!

So there you have it. Soon to come: a post with more chick-pics and their names as well as pictures from Momo's time out of town.

-Sam

The desert wild and creatures therein

I was going to title this post, "the desert wild and creations therein", only my mom (and maybe some of you?) would argue that most of these critters came after "the Fall".  ;-] You discern...

We'll begin with what is probably the most tame (though to some, most terrifying) of the list:

A garden snake. Dead and therefore perfect for a photo shoot ;-] We've found quite a few of these, as well as some red racers and rattle snakes.

Next we have what we were told is probably a desert crab spider.

I actually think he/she looks kind of nice.

A pest-exterminator friend told us this was a solpugid. Strange looking.

Below in one of two centipede's we've found inside the house. The dollar bill is meant to show the length.

I tried to convince mom they were harmless after she asked if they were poisonous (the answer was yes) by saying, "But only one person has ever died from a bite." Ooops. Wrong words. "But that was a small child so they were extra vulnerable." Made things worse. At that point, I stuck my perverbial foot in my mouth and walked away. (I hope you all don't start worrying about centipedes now, the incident happened on some island where they probably grew to be a lot bigger than the American version...)

Don't know what this is, haven't even looked it up, just liked the yellow color.

And last but certainly not least on the danger factor is...

A scorpion. In the bedroom. But he was almost dead and looked very lonely, so I'm sure we won't be seeing any more.

(His belly had white spots...neat)

Thus concludes today's post. Now are you glad that YOU don't live in the desert (or maybe you do)? SquiRe, Momo and I are the only ones who think finding all these creatures is interesting!
Next time we post about animals (should be not too far away) they'll be much more lovable. Don't worry.

Sam

Life has been busy

It really has. And school has been never-ending. But we've managed to have some fun despite all the homework by being outside. The weather has been wonderful this week. I mean, perfect. Mid-seventies.

 So nice in fact, that Momo decided to take a nap outside one day. And that was the day the kids decided to have, erm, "fun" in the sandbox...she didn't look so peaceful after she woke up...

Jack has been crawling everwhere and he is getting close to talking...I'm trying to teach him my name but he's a slow learner.

 The kids had lots of fun when cousin M (far left) brought over some bubbles.

So there they are, all with their usual expressions. Goldilocks: "sweet", Jack: Suspicious, and SquiRe: Silly.

So that's life for us. Couldn't ask for more, right?

Sam

Laundry day!

Rain

God surprised us a few days ago with some light rain. I meant to post about it that day but...well, you know how that goes.

It ended about ten minutes later and quickly dried up. The weather soon became just as hot as it had been (in the 100's), but it certainly was nice while it lasted.

Here are some other pictures I took that week.

Have a nice Monday--and I hope you had a wonderful Independence Day!

☻SAM

Done!

 Dad is done with the floor. 

Not only are we done with mom and dad's floor but we are done with the back yard. (We have been since last year but forgot to post about it.) And since it is Spring I thought I would post a few pictures of our yard now.

Also . . . since I'm posting I might as well show these.

Yes, there were two baby birds born in our backyard! I actually got to see the mother bird feed her two babies yesterday. It was so neat.

♥ Baby Girl

with a little help from ~Momo