Crazy, I Know!

Our cousins in Idaho have been exposed to the Chicken Pox.

They should be "breaking out" this week.

Guess where we are going...

To Idaho!

To get the chicken pox!!

We believe the best vaccination for immunity - is to get them.

That is our goal for this week.

AND to have lots of fun while doing so.

Brian and Caleb will be staying home to hold the fort down.

I will be traveling with the other 7.

(It's my 3 younger that have not had the pox yet.)

Elated to be "Elite"

We wore our purple!

We had a huge crowd of Wildcats

We cheered!

We hollered!

We screamed!

We chanted!

We lost!

(boo hoo)

Our guys played hard.

We are proud of our guys for making it to the Top 8.

It was a great game and lots of fun to be there.

(However, a win would have made it more fun ~ of course)

Bleeding Purple

I will bet you did not know that Brian and I have "purple" running through us.

As a matter of fact, so does Brian's sister and her husband, my two brothers, my sister and her husband, many cousins, my mom and dad and my grandpa.

Wow! That's a lot of family folk with purple blood.

Go Kansas State!

Yep! We are all graduates of Kansas State University in Manhattan, Kansas (the little apple).

In case you missed the festivities of March Madness (college basketball) last night, let me fill you in:

K-State beat Xavier. In double OT!!

Welcome to the Elite Eight!!

Oh, and did I mention that the game was in Salt Lake?

And so is Saturday's Elite Eight game!!

My dad got 12 tickets and the men (my dad, uncle, brothers, nephews, husband, sons) of the family attended last nights game.

They will be there again on Saturday!

Go Wildcats!!

Quick and Easy! (ha)

Remember last fall when Caleb went with his Papa (my dad) to South Dakota for some MAJOR pheasant hunting?

Well, our freezer (and my dad's) are full of pheasant. We have been loving it.

So many yummy ways to prepare and eat it!!

It was one of those days. A day when we had lots going on. The children were busy helping Brian, taking lessons, here and there. Not a lot of order just lots to get done.

All to say, they were all going to be arriving home right at dinner time and they were going to be hungry.

Each month we rotate "service for the family" (aka: chores). One of the services is to be my kitchen assistant. My assistant was gone.

I was on my own for dinner prep.

I thought I would make something quick and easy.

Pheasant Noodle Soup - with Homemade noodles.

Yep. Homemade!

I use to make homemade noodles.

Haven't done that for a very long time.

Now, I remember why - 

I could not get the egg and flour to roll out!! At all!

I was dripping with sweat and tears.

There was nothing easy (or quick) about it.

It was harder than doing a P90X workout.

This is what I ended up with. Each strip is like 20 inches thick. (argh)

But, I wasn't going to let a little flour and egg get the best of me.

So, I let it dry.

Dropped it in the pot with the pheasant and broth.

Served it and...

... to my surprise, it was a HUGE hit!! 

Everyone ranted and raved about it all through dinner. 

They loved the 20 inch thick noodles. :-)

It was worth all the tears.

Note to self: Next time do it with my assistant and let them roll it out.

Wordless Wednesday!

(kinda)

Pokey...

Rides the 4-wheeler

Takes a nap with the cat.

:)

Expo Time!!

After spending the morning at the State Capitol, we decided to visit the Sportsmen's Expo while we were in Salt Lake.

We made it a family affair.

Oh FUN!!

We watched many demonstrations of all the super-duper hunting/camping stuff

We watched the Dock Dogs jump from the dock and into the water to retrieve.

The children got to fish and even caught a couple.

Played some fun games and learned things about animals and their habitat.

We sat on 6-wheelers and 4-wheelers, looked at boats and campers, got to see baby bear cubs and huge animal mounts (deer, elk, buffalo, bear, cougar, zebra, lion etc).

We all had a great time and were completely exhausted when we finally arrived.

On Capitol Hill

Sits a Bill.
(for you older folks - doesn't that take you back to Saturday morning cartoons?)

Anyway, back to the post.
This week we went to our State Capitol with other home-schoolers.

Doing the tour...

The House Chambers

The Governors Gold Room

This is where he meets with "important" people. 

Inside the walls are steel plates and the windows are bullet proof.

Everything in the room has gold in or on it.

Hmmm... tax dollars at work. :-)

The Rotunda

(middle of the capitol with tall ceilings, murals, and marble walls and floors.)

We all had a fun "school" day at the Capitol.

We Were the Recipients of...

10 tickets to watch the Utah Jazz play Minnesota T-Wolves at the Energy Solutions Arena.

We are big Jazz fans and could not pass up the generous offer

 for our entire family to attend one of their home games.

(For those who may not know -The Jazz are an NBA basketball team)

Sitting in front of the Energy Solutions Arena:

Home of the Utah Jazz!

The arena. Go Jazz!

The view from our seats. Kinda makes you dizzy, huh?

The Jazz Fans

Bonus: The Jazz won!!

FYI: The guy on the jumbo-tron is Kyle Korver. He is a Christian. 

The tickets were from him in a round-about way - - 

A friend-of-a-friend of a friend type thing. 

So, thanks Kyle!

We had a blast.

Wordless Wednesday!

Sunkissed

And Dead-dog Tired!

Caleb has been hunting and hiking ALOT with them.

They love it! and they come home exhausted.

Not even a chicken tempted them to stir.

The Golden Egg

Well, it's not exactly golden but it is HUGE!

You see, spring is way too much fun for me. I love all of the new life that arrives in the spring.

One year, we had puppies, kittens, chicks, kids (baby goats) and turkeys. I was in farm-life heaven.

Back to my golden huge egg story;

Last year we decided to try "our hand" at ducks.

We researched how to care for them and the variety of breeds.

We decided on the Fawn Runners.

We really wanted 2 females and one of each would be ok but we for sure did NOT want two males. We wanted eggs!! When picking them out, there was no way of telling which was which. 

Yipee!

As they got bigger we knew Abbi had picked one of each.

We now have fertilized duck eggs.

(the 3rd duck in the pic is one Caleb rescued at our lake. We raised her from a baby and she stayed around until fall. Then she flew south and really tried to talk the others in going with her. No luck. It will be interesting to see if she comes back - b/c that is their nature to do so.)

The big white one is our "golden" duck egg. She has been laying one every day.

OH! I just Love spring!!