Cleaning the Barn so we can go play

We had a really busy day on Saturday, so we got up at 7:00, and by 8:30 the whole barn was clean and we were ready to play. The Martin, Monkey and Bee went to Twin Falls with their dad. On Sunday they got to go to the Temple Dedication. They stood outside as President Monson set the cornerstone. They said they were just 10 feet away from him and it was SOOoo cool! They got home Sunday night.

The rest of us went to an estate sale on Saturday. This old man named "Captain Cabella" had died, and his family auctioned all of his stuff. Apparently he had collected stuff from Cabellas for years, including 180 guns, TONS and TONS of hunting and camping gear, books and wildlife pictures. It was pretty fun seeing the cool stuff he had. We couldn't stay the whole time, but we did get a wall tent that we are sharing with Horse and his family, the game of horse shoes - a heavy duty set, a pup tent and The Hunter got me a 7mm so I can go hunting with him. My new rifle is so cool, the stock is beautiful and I can't wait to go shoot it this coming weekend.

We had to hurry home from the auction, stop and buy a wedding gift, and head to one of the guys on Scott's crew wedding. It was entertaining as the groom was drunk... so was the best man. The ceremony was short and sweet, performed by the grooms father... who was sober as far as I could tell. There was dinner and dancing after. Lemur loved the stairs and wanted to spend the whole time going up and down them. He also liked the goody bag and ate all the candy out of them. Once he about pulled the table cloth off the serving table... thank goodness the Zookeeper is fast on her feet and caught him before everything came crashing down... the groom wouldn't' have cared though, would he? :) The food was good and we had fun watching the guys from the Hunters work dance to YMCA complete with the Village People costumes. It was pretty funny. It was a fun wedding, but made me thankful that I was sober at mine and able to remember my wedding day and night the next day. I am also thankful that I get to be with my husband not only "till death do you part" but for ever and ever and ever and ever...

Lemur loves the vacuum. He gets super excited any time anyone gets it out. We have to leave it out for him to play with for a while after we are done using it.

Porcupine mops the laundry room.

School and Pool

Steelhead, Penguin and Porcupine started school on Friday. It was a big change for them moving to a new and much bigger school. The Hunter and I went to back to school night for them on Thursday night and met their teachers. It will be a change, but I think they are looking forward to some of the advantages of living in town. Steelhead is playing Jr. High Football and he is loving it. He said he only got lost once on the first day of school... I think the Jr. High is bigger than K-12 at their old school!

We went to a pool party on Friday night. Our friends have a beautiful back yard and pool and a bunch of us enjoyed it. The critters got a kick out of their sign: Welcome to our Pool: We don't go swimming in your toilet, so please don't pee in our pool.

We had a BBQ, enjoyed chatting with friends, and the critters swam for about 2 hours. They were tired when we got done and went right to bed!

Monkey's first day of school

Monkey just got home from his first day of second grade. He was smiling, so that's a good thing! He said his teacher is "really nice to me."

We've been busy... still

Life seems to be running right by us. I am not sure I'm excited for school to have started. We had such a nice summer. The kids were really helpful around the farm and especially with Lemur while I worked. I was working way too much though, and just cut back last week. I quit at one Vet and am just doing another Vet full time, which is lots less work than I was doing. Anyway, I will have most Thursdays off, as the Vet I transcribe for doesn't work on Wednesday's (I get the previous days work). I am excited to have a little more time to be a Zookeeper and get to some projects around the barn that have been put on hold for a while.


The Hunter and I have been spending a lot of time looking at places to buy. We want to get some property, and of course it has to have a barn big enough for all the critters, and of course, we have a tight budget, so we are having to get creative. We have looked and looked and looked, but nothing has felt "right" yet. We will keep renting this house for a while longer until we find just the right farm. It sure takes a lot of time this barn hunting thing!


The Hunter was gone last week, working out of town. It was a long week without him home. We never eat as good, and we get off schedule when he's not here. We did have fun watching the Olympics and I always let the kids take a bath in our soaker tub in our bathroom when the Hunter is gone, they love that! The Martin was back packing with my brothers in a far off mountain range and we met Horse and picked up the Martin on Thursday night after an afternoon of swimming at our favorite watering hole. The Martin had a great time with Frog, Pa Lizard and Horse. They had some good stories to tell, and the Martin has a cool bow that Horse made him. The Martin was glad to sleep in his own stall!!!


I got sick of shopping for school clothes for the critters last week!!! wow. I really hate shopping. It was nice leaving Lemur home with one of the critters while I took another critter with me. At least we have a dress code, so it's easy to go find the clothes, try them on, pick out several different colors pants and shirts and be done. The shoes are still coming in the mail, but other than that, we got done! Whew! Done until they grow out of them again. Wednesday night I took Bee to the Rodeo. Monkey didn't want to go, so he spent the night with his adopted Grandma and had fun with them playing their X-box. Bee, Lemur and I had a great time and ate way too much Rodeo food. Lemur loved the horses and the tractor that cultivated the arena. Saturday night the Hunter and I went on a date, back to the finals of the rodeo. It was nice to be out together, even though it was super hot. Lemur went with us and he had a great time playing on the bleachers and making friends with the other rodeo fans. He liked the horses and the tractor again. He also liked the Hunters snow cone. Maybe things will slow down a bit now that school has started?

Today Lemur and I were working outside, cleaning out the shed and pulling some weeds. I ran in the barn to get something, and came right back out. Lemur had climbed up the pasture mower and was sitting on it just like this. He looked like he was saying, "how do you drive this thing?" Or, "Come on, lets go!" He loves the pasture mower and the pasture tiller. Every time he is outside he plays with them, either trying to push them, putting rocks on them, pulling on the starter rope or climbing on them.

Removing the "Pink Spot"

This is after I had removed much of the stain. I wish I would have taken a before shot... it was really pink... and I mean PINK! I worked on it some more after this and got it all out... see below.

I feel somewhat like the children in "the Cat in the Hat Comes Back" trying to remove the pink spot from my carpet. I immediately soaked it in cold water and sucked it up with my Rainbow (vacuum). That didn't do much but turn the water light pink. I then tried a vinegar and water solution - that removes stains really well, but I guess it works best when you can set it out in the sun after... couldn't really do that. Then I sprayed my super duper powerful home made spray and wash (1/2 cup Era liquid laundry detergent, 1/2 cup Ammonia and 2 cups water - it's awesome and gets out almost every stain I've tried it on) then scrubbed and blotted and sucked that up... a little more pink water, but still really PINK carpet. SO, I went to the trusty Internet and googled "pink stain on rug" and I got a bunch of hits. Most of them were for this idea:

Pour some liquid dawn in water. Pour the water on the carpet and let it soak. Turn your iron on low, put a white rag over the stain and put the iron on it for a few minutes. The pink sucks right out of the carpet and into the white rag. I was skeptical, but ready to try anything. IT WORKED! I couldn't believe it! It took me several hours to get it all, but it worked. I had to do the areas many, many times, but eventually it all came out. It worked best when I used the steam setting on the iron. I think I used two white t-shirts. The pink went from the juice bottle, to Monkey's belly, to the carpet to the white t-shirt. I soaked the shirts in bleach in my washer... wonder if the washer is pink now? Guess I'll have to go find little cat X, Y and Z!

So, Store that away in your "someday I'll need to know" file just in case you ever have to get a pink stain out of your carpet. I wonder if it works on blue or yellow or green stains?

First day of School

Martin was ready for 7th grade! He got to pick two electives this year, and he chose band (he is going to play the French Horn this year) and P.E. His band teacher is excited to have someone play the French Horn and Martin is "totally excited about it!" He can already make a beautiful sound on it (unlike the first sounds he made on the trumpet!) and he is picking up on the fingerings fast. He said he likes his PE teacher so far too... she is really pretty... hummm... He said his homeroom teacher is really firm but nice, and his math and science teacher is really cool.

Bee was super excited for the first day of fourth grade! She was totally ready to go by 7:00 and had to sit around and wait and wait and wait. After school she said her teacher is really firm, but nice. She was so excited to see her friends again, but will miss her good friend Emma, who is going to be home schooled this year. At least Bee and Emma got to go to Roaring Springs together on Monday before school started. They had a great time and didn't even get very sun burned!

Monkey got sick on Sunday night so he missed the first day of school. He was a little bit sad, but "not too much." He had a high fever all day Monday. I made him some red juice and told him I wanted him to drink all of it... communication blip... Zookeeper meant drink it all over the next few hours, Monkey heard... drink it all now. Well, that upset his belly, and he headed to the bathroom, but didn't quite make it before he... well... let's just say we now have pink carpet right in front of the bathroom.

When I got home from taking my work to the Vet and dropping the other two critters off at school, this is how I found Monkey. He had slept in and was waiting for me on the front steps. He wasn't REAL sad he missed the first day. His fever had broke and he was feeling better. He had fun resting in the barn and playing with Lemur.

Farmly Reunion

We had the first ever Farmly Reunion this year. I guess that means we are getting old? It was super fun being together for 4 days and 3 nights up at a cabin in the mountains. We didn't have anything planned, we just did what ever sounded good at the time. Here are a few pictures of what we did. Some things that I didn't take pictures of: paint ball wars, Lemur tumbling down the stairs X # of times (I lost count), riding the 4 wheeler, going for walks, fishing, Pa Lizard sitting in the little critters pool with the critters, the devotional, singing, critters playing the Wii (did I spell that right?) Vixen throwing a pool pall at Lil' Lizard #1 (giant goose egg, but he was tough!) all the good food, playing lots of board games, laughing our heads off telling stories, Lil' Lizard #3 getting her elbow pulled out of socket and the Liz family running into "town" (an hour away) to the ER, watching a movie, all the snorers in our family - who DID snore the loudest?, the cute, cute babies, target shooting with the bow and .22, the family treasure hunt, playing volleyball, softball and bochy ball (spelled that wrong too, I'm sure) and I'm sure there were lots of things that went on that I didn't see.

The "Magnificent Seven" and Mama and Papa Bear. It's been a long time since all nine of us have been together. Everyone in our family was there except Hunter (he was at his niece's wedding) and Steelhead, Penguin and Porcupine, they were with their mom. It was so nice being together for a few days with nothing to do but have fun. If there is one thing our family knows how to do, it is HAVE FUN! There was a wonderful spirit the whole time we were together. For the most part (minus the pool ball to the head and a few 2-year-old scuffles) everyone got along really well.

This isn't a great picture, but Cheetah was flying through the air so fast on this red neck water slide I couldn't keep up with him. Only a few daring soles went down the water slide, but the ones that did have great stories to tell!

We made homemade ice cream one night. As a kid, we always had a hand crank ice cream maker like this one. When I found this at ShopKo, I was really excited and had to get it. It also has an electric top you can put on if you feel lazy. We made lemon, vanilla and chocolate ice cream, and boy was it good!

We only planned 2 meals a day and they were sure yummy! I figured at other reunions I have been to, it seems like all we do is cook and eat and I am never very hungry because I just got done eating. So this time, we just had 2 meals a day, and everyone brought snacks to share. It worked out really well, no one was hungry, and we didn't spend much time in the kitchen. We ate at 10:00 (brunch) and 5:00 - Linner. I also assigned each sibling a meal, and Mom and Dad just brought all the paper products. It worked out perfect.

FAMILY TREASURE HUNT: I decided to do a family treasure hunt. I had each person send me a "treasure" about themselves: Something they have done or something about them that no one else might know. I collected them, put them in a random order on a paper and handed them out.

Some of the "treasures" were: I eat fish heads. One day I looked in the mirror and said, "See ya later, cutie." I peed on the floor last week. I probably have the largest stuffed animal collection in the family. I got a detention in High School for lighting a can of WD40 on fire in the hallway (funny, papa bear couldn't decide which of his boys did this... :) ) I love dill pickles and an occasional lizard. and on and on.

THEN everyone had to guess which treasure went to which person. After that they had to go around and ask people questions. They could ask one person, then had to ask 3 other people before asking the first person another question. It was a really good "mixer" and got everyone talking to everyone. We all learned something about each other, and I awarded prizes to the most favorite treasures (we voted on them) and to the people who got the most right etc. It was a fun activity.

All the critters had fun in Colts chair, I can't remember what it is called, but it is soft and gooshy and all the kids loved sitting in it. Isn't Colt cute! I love his hair. It sticks up in a curly mane!

One of the fun things the critters did was play with a rope over the edge of the balcony. This time they tied the rope to the log and hung up Martin... and I thought those girls LIKED him! :)

All the critters had fun playing on the hammock up stairs. These three critters were having a blast, so I ran upstairs to take a picture. Then Martin remembered that even though they were cousins, they were still GIRLS, so he had to act like he couldn't touch them. These three critters have been good buddies since they were babies. I'm glad even though they are growing up, they still have fun together.

I love this cute picture of Ma Lizard and Lil' lizard #4.

It was super hot in the afternoons, so we spent lots of time in the river. Some of the Uncles tried their hand at spearing fish. I guess it was spear fishing... they had a bow and arrows, but I never did see them use the bow. Anyway, Cheeta caught two pretty good sized fish. Fox did a lot of fishing and caught a bunch. One afternoon he took Monkey fishing. They were gone a long time and came back with a fish eye on the hook... uk! Papa Bear caught some fish and ate them for breakfast one day... head and all, to the delight of the grandcritters.

There was a real shallow spot along the edge of the river where all the tiny kids played. The mud was really sandy and soft and they had a great time building sand blobs (I didn't see any castles) and wading around in the water.

There was a great log that we could sit on and keep cool. Lemur wasn't as interested in the water as he has been in the past. He had just woke up from a long nap though, maybe he was still sleepy.

We had fun in the pond with the paddle boat. There were tons and tons of tiny frogs swimming around. The critters had fun catching them. Pa Lizard was loaded down this time! If the weight wasn't distributed evenly, it was super hard to steer, making it a bit of a challenge to get close enough to the dock to get everyone off.

While we were cleaning up the cabin Bee entertained the other little critters by playing with them and reading them books. All the little critters love Bee.