A New Chicken Coop

We're finally getting the chicken coop built. Its a good thing too, cause the chickens were getting too big and too smelly for the garage!




Its going to be the coolest coop ever with a huge tinted, picture window on the south side (thanks to the school) and a cool door with a huge window (thanks to Shawn and Lisa).





The chickens love it!

Wil's Birthday

Happy birthday Wil!
He was very sick, but still managed to enjoy his present.








At this point you have to imagine "Kung Fu Panda" playing, loudly.





Now we switch CD's and listen to a very special one that Jamie gave him!



And a big THANK YOU! at the end!

Sorry, no pictures! My eyes are still too blurry from a week of taking Tom to college, Wil starting 7th grade and Mike's birthday.

Oh, and I shouldn't leave out that Wil had to have a tetanus booster! The nurse had to stick him twice cause he jumped and he's covered with bruises from us trying to hold him still. Yuck!

But, that is our week in a nutshell. I just wanted to let you know that we've survived and expect it to get better from here. Or at least we're getting tougher so we can endure better.

Did I mention that I hate back to school time? LOL I should have home schooled long ago and forced my children to stay home locked in the closet!

I love summer!

Lisa wanted to see pictures of my plants and stuff, so I thought I might as well show off a little. The plants have grown alot this summer and are enjoying their setting.







I also included a shot of the rock work I've been doing. Its hard to describe it and have people not just think I've lost my mind. So here's a picture of what I've been talking about. I plan to have a ground cover growing up in between the rocks, but the seeds haven't started to grow yet.
And BTW, that represents A LOT more work than it looks like it does. I deserve some credit here! :)

New School!

I thought you might like to see some pictures of the new school we're trying to buy.

Its really hard to get the whole thing at once and have it look good, so this is as good as this photographer can do. But the clouds look cool, at least!

Gma's say the funniest things

Okay, here we go again.



So, we're sitting in the Dr.'s office and he says,


"Now that you're 89, it time to make a few decisions. If something should happen to you like a stroke or a heart attack, would you want to be put on machines or just wave to the angels on your way out?"

Her response,

"I guess that would depend on how old I got!"

First time for everything

Hey! I mowed the grass for the first time! Yeah!

Okay, I know it doesn't look very good yet, but its coming.
Just imagine a circular drive through that weedy part and you've got it.

Funny Grandma

I have been working on getting Gma and Gpa Wickham to outline their programs for their funerals. I know it sounds weird, but you know I'll have to figure it all out, and they have their own ideas about how it should go... so, I'm trying to get a head start.

Gma gave me the names of 2 songs that she wants sung at her funeral. They are very old and have been VERY hard to find sheet music for since they're both out of print. So, I finally found the song "Trees" online and ordered it. There was only one and it was used but its the only one I've found. So when it arrived in the mail, I called Gma to tell her the good news. "Good news! I found Trees! The bad news is that it doesn't have any words with it." And she said....... "That's ok. I know the words!"

Tom's a muddy kid!

I needed to post this awhile ago, but here ya go!


Out at the "lower ranch" we water the animals by sucking water out of a hole Tom dug with a sump pump attached to a hose. It works very well, actually. It didn't start out that way and it has gone through an interesting evolutionary process to get where it is right now.

At first Chris rigged an auto water pump to a stationary bicycle with a hose down in the hole and another hose coming off the pump. That worked fairly well, but it had some structural problems and the pump tended to get plugged up with the not so clean water. Every so often, the hole would need revising and it would become enlarged in the process. Before long, the "well" was quite an impressive hole in the ground and contained a large amount of water. They had put a piece of plywood over the hole to keep things, and small pigs, and clumsy people out of the water.

That was all great for a time, but as one thing leads to another, this leads me to the story that I was going to tell.


Tom went out to water one afternoon and found that his well had been invaded by a very large sow and her babies. (There's no sheet of plywood in the world that can stand up to a 600 pound thirsty sow.) Chris was also there, and between them (I'm not really sure about the finer points of this part) they managed to cut a step in the side of the well that allowed the sow to scramble her way out of the hole. Unfortunately, there were 3 of her babies drowned at some point in the process. But, considering the situation, I think we got off lucky!

Now, the sow having been rescued, there was the well to consider. As you can imagine, the sow had totally thrashed the hole in her efforts to escape. But Tom, was not discouraged! He climbed right in there and started cleaning it out with his trusty shovel. He made it bigger and better, completely cleaned out and straightened up. He and Chris set the sump pump back up in the bottom of the well with a bucket for protection, and covered it over with big old logs, and plywood. It looks great. It works great too. Now anyone can go out, turn on the switch on the generator, pull one time to start the generator and water pours forth from the hose with great efficiency! Its awesome. (And Tom showered up just fine!)

What a birthday!

Well, the good news is that Tom will live. The bad news is that he's not going to be very happy about that for the next couple of weeks. He has Mono! No, it's not West Nile Virus, although at the beginning he did show all the symptoms of that. Then he got worse and we were sure it was strep. He has some lovely white spots on his tonsils! But alas, when he tested negative for strep, they did a blood test for mono and it came back positive. The doctor just called me. What a bummer for your birthday, eh?
When Tom wasn't at church on Sunday Pres./Dr. Christensen asked alot of questions about his symptoms. He warned that mono often masquerades as strep and we should get him tested to make sure. He kinda leaned toward the mono and so did we. Tom was hoping for strep cause a good dose of antibiotics will fix that right up. Whereas, mono just takes time to get over and there's not much to be done for relief. Of course, there's also the teasing rights of others, especially family, when you get the "kissing decease"! So, essentially, there's no relief in sight for Tom on any level!
Also, an interesting side note, Dr. Christensen said that if all the mosquitos in the whole county bit Tom, there wouldn't be enough West Nile virus present to even make him sick. So, that was nice to know. We don't have to worry about that.


So, Happy Birthday to Tom! Poor soul! He is one miserable kid! You can see how swollen his eyes are. He's not just squinting into the camera. The swelling actually started last week and we were puzzled by that cause he said he didn't feel sick or anything. I asked him if he was crying himself to sleep. (He said no) :) But it kept getting worse and then the sore throat started. It took as few days before he actually felt sick, but then.. Oh Baby!! He has been so miserable. I asked the doctor about the swelling and he said it was like a side effect of all the massive congestion in his head. But the good news is that he has one week of it under his belt and he only has about another week to suffer before he can find some relief from his terrible sore throat, fever, aches and headache. What fun! he has requested to not celebrate his birthday until he feels alittle better so he can enjoy it.

Crazy!

I was just sitting here at the computer after faxing a transcript to a school when Mike's letter came in. I thought "Why is he writing on Tuesday?" I seriously had to ask Tom what day it was.
In my defense, it has been a crazy morning. We have 2 boys with birthdays today so we spent the morning conversing with parents and packing them up to send them (boys, not parents) to Provo to the mall. That's what they both wanted to do. Also, Jef took our truck and the horse trailer to go to Provo to pick up a horse that belongs to one of our students whose parents are obsessive and REALLY wanted their little boy to have his horse. Then I went to work with Katie getting a transcript all straightened out to fax to the school that a mom of a past student was meeting with. They were pretty wigged out cause they didn't have it yet but they didn't send me the fax number.... you know how it goes. Anyway, in the middle of that I get a text from Chris saying that they had broken down in Nephi and were in need of rescuing! So I went to work on getting Tom back from the lower ranch with the car and waking Daddy up to tell him the bad news. He was putting a pillow over his head. :) Daddy got on his way and I went back to cleaning, cooking, laundry and packing so I can go stay with John and Chelsea's boys while they go on a "trek" with their ward. Whew! What a morning!
So, other than a whirlwind kind of life at the moment, we're fine. Well, except for Tom who has all the symptoms of West Nile Virus. Its supposed to only last for a few days and goes away by itself though. It just makes him miserable!

Welcome! Elena Lois Forsythe!!!!

What a beautiful girl! The nurse said the delivery was perfect. And Misty looked great!


After delivery Misty was STARVING! She had been craving a Subway sandwich for months but couldn't eat one because of a virus potential? So we brought her one and she ate the WHOLE thing!!! Way to go Misty!!





Corban is still in denial and didn't want anything to do with it all!


Of course Gramma and Gramps had a great time holding Elena for the first time. She is so sweet!




Congratulations Chris and Misty!!!!

I'm on a roll!

This is the last one, I promise... Well, at least for today, not like, EVER!
(Blame Lisa!)





We have also been working hard on the yard. Its such a big project! Daddy and I have been buying flowering shrubs and such on our trips north. We found a great big nursery up there that has every plant ever created I think. We've been getting some really cool plants and hauling them home. The last kid we picked up at the airport had to ride home in a forest. I had plants stacked all over in the back seat with just enough room left for him to sit. We also bought a used lawnmower that works and Tom has been hacking down the weeds that are growing in the absence of a lawn. But, lawn has to come after we get the trees and shrubs and all such in. So in the meantime, he gets to mow the weeds. But its all coming together. We should have it all figured out in a year or two! :)


The idea here is, that in a couple of years the flowering shrubs on the outside will be 8-10 feet tall and wide, the next ones in around 4 feet tall and wide, and the perennials next to the patio will fill in (where you can barely see them now) and form a nice 10-12 inch border of plants around the cement. Stay tuned and see if it actually turns out that way in a few years. Hopefully we will enjoy many pleasant BBQ's on that patio surrounded by beautiful plants and fragrant flowers. You're all invited, of course. But don't wait on the plants, please!

We had a plane crash by our house!

The pilot wasn't hurt so it was just a good thing to go look at. I had actually seen him on his approach to the airport and could see that he was out of control, but I was driving Gma to Walmart and I didn't stop to see where he went or anything. He was dipping and waffling his way toward the runway with way too little airspeed. Apparently in the end he kinda missed the runway altogether and landed nose first in an alfalfa field just beyond the end of the runway. The plane looked pretty funny just sitting there on its nose in the middle of the field. I was glad to hear that the pilot was okay. He was going pretty slow, so he didn't hit too hard.