WHERE HAVE I BEEN?

I'm so sorry!  Life has gotten literally crazy around here, and honestly, it's only just beginning!  Here's a rundown of what we've been up to...

1)  Long weekend trip to Minneapolis.  We had a wonderful time visiting my parents and my sister, brother-in-law, and their two precious girls.  We visited IKEA, and the Mall of America.  We stayed at this amazing hotel, and did some much needed catching up together. 

2) Gardening.  It's that time of year again.  We got the main garden planted last week Thursday, including beans, cantaloupe, watermelon, cucumbers and LOTS of pumpkins!  Still to come:  tomatoes, peppers (both of which are just waiting for Memorial Day to come), and anything else I feel like throwing in.  I have a small patch right by the house where I have lettuce, spinach and carrots, and then we tilled up a very large area for corn again this year, which I got planted Saturday morning.  (My rows are NOT straight, but it's in the ground!)  :)  Watering all that takes lots of time as well.

3)  Barn.  Well, we have 3 sides framed on the barn.  I'm starting to call it that, because it's going to "look" like a barn and it's pretty big to just be called a "garage".  It took all day on Saturday.  Evan and one other guy did most of the work, and his wife and I helped out when it came time to lift them up. 

4)  Tree planting.  We planted over 150 trees this spring -- yikes!!

5)  Horses.  We brought "Wrangler" home yesterday.  We board him for our friend, Aaron, who's currently in Iraq.  Wrangler has been "vacationing" (I say that b/c he was absolutely spoiled at the horse barn where he was) in Billings for a while for people to work with him and for some of us to take riding lessons on.  We currently have FIVE horses here, and we need to separate them up a bit due to hormonal issues (not mine!)  Separating them means creating more fences to divide up our pastures, which takes time.

6)  School.  We have 2 weeks left, but it's getting harder and harder to stay focused.  I got up super early this morning  to get my watering done before school, but it still went into our morning routine more than I would like.  We're a-l-m-o-s-t there!

7)  Bible studies.  We are still having them -- the ladies is on Wednesday night, and then we have the group one at the shelter on Thursday nights.

8)  Driving tests.  Well, I let my license expire.... almost a full year ago.  OOPS!  So, tomorrow I have to go to Billings to take the written test and then I have to go back to take a driving test.  I joke about having all my kids in the backseat while I show off my parallel parking skills (or lack there of!) in front of a driving instructor!  Which reminds me, I better study up this afternoon!

9)  Life.  All the normal stuff that all of you face as well, definitely NOT excluding laundry.


10)  Missions Team.  The first one comes on June 8th!!!

11)  Washing LOTS of eggs!

12)  Riding dirtbikes!

(This picture is just to make Tandra laugh...again....)