Lightning

Monday, June 15, 2015

DH was able to get a few lightning strikes on her camera. Unfortunately he had some trees in the way.

Jazz Band Festival

Wednesday, April 15, 2015

Luke's school started up a jazz band for the second semester. They meet 2 days a week before school. Luke has been playing tenor saxophone and has been enjoying himself. He is the only tenor sax and has had a few solos. They have a small group but they have a lot of fun and performed well before a judge at this festival.

It was a crazy day with driving kids around and we had a decent sized spring snow storm as well!

View from out back deck.

View from our front porch.

Popcorn trees

Thursday, April 2, 2015

There are flowering pears in our neighbor's yard along our back fence line. This is what they looked like in the spring:

Evening shot with the moon in the background.

Fun outside!

Thursday, March 7

We had a long, cold winter and it was nice to take the girls out finally to play outside when the weather warmed up a little.  It took MJ a few minutes to get warmed up and feeling comfortable on the trampoline again.  They started out with taking turns jumping while the other person laid down in the middle of the trampoline and got bounced around.  The girls loved it as you can tell from their faces.  It's fun to hear these two giggling together.  They then took turns sliding down the slide.

Kay thinks it's fun to go down the slide sideways.

Rain, rain & more rain!

That has been our weather for the last week and we're supposed to get even more! Last week we finally had some nice sunny weather so we could go out and work in the garden. Then on Saturday we had some storms go through, Sunday and Monday were nice and then it has rained everyday since! The kids and I were able to work in some compost and fertilizer into the garden soil on Monday and we planted some strawberry and tomato plants. I love the rain, but right now it is really putting a crimp in my gardening! It would be nice to be able to have another sunny day so I can plant some seeds in our nice soil now and not let the weeds enjoy it all!

And it's been a little too chilly! I had to turn the furnace back on - it's the middle of May! The temperature got down in the 30s on Tuesday and we even had a few snowflakes fall!

Enjoying the weather!

Saturday, April 16, 2011
Spring always teases us here in Utah. We'll have a couple of warm, sunny days and then a cold front will come through with some snow or rain. Here are some pictures of MJ trying out the swing for the first time on one of our warm days. (Both of the straps have broken on the swing and we can't find the buckle to one of them. I was able to buy some new webbing material to at least fix one of the straps so that MJ can use it.)

April snow

We had a couple of days last week that were in the 60s and one day in the low 70s! Then this is the scene we woke up to Sunday morning - about 6-7 inches of wet, heavy snow:

Spring fever!

The weather is starting to turn nice and this morning while I was taking the trash cans out to the curb I noticed this:

and this:poking out amongst all the dead leaves and plants from the winter time! I have bulbs coming up all over the place and I didn't even notice until today!

It's almost June and we have snow?!?

Well, yesterday we had a very late in the season snowstorm. It was raining a good portion of the night again and when I got up to get the kids up for school in the morning it was still raining lightly. I sat down at the computer to check my email and then happened to glance out the window again and it was SNOWING this time - big, wet snowflakes. We probably ended up getting about an inch of snow and Kay had some fun running around in it after running some errands that morning. It did end up getting fairly warm later in the afternoon, and by the end of the week twe are supposed to be getting close to 80 degrees. I have definitely been enjoying the cooler spring and I'm not looking forward to the hot temperatures!

What a difference a few days can make!

Tuesday afternoon:


This morning:
We have a couple of inches of snow in the yard - a very wet, heavy snow.Our blossom tree out front - it actually looks like it's blooming with all of the snow on it! Hopefully it will get a chance to actually bloom in the next couple of days...

And the verdict is still out on whether my strawberry plants will survive or not...

Spring snow - day 2!

On Thursday morning it continued to snow so the kids went out to play after lunch. It actually wasn't too cold so the kids put on their snow pants and boots and gloves and then just wore a jacket on top of that. The sun was super bright! It was a really wet, heavy snow which was perfect for making snowmen. Here are some pictures:

Teamwork!
Blondie and Kitty worked with one of the neighbor girls to make their snowman. They ended up making a short, fat one because they weren't strong enough to lift up the snowball they had made for the middle section. It was pretty cute watching them use their imagination to come up with their design!

Spring snow

It seems that every year after I write a post about my spring flowers, we get a snow storm a few days later. And this year was no different. Baby K had a ton of fun running around in the snow after we got home from Kitty's ballet class this morning:

Spring is here!

We have had some absolutely beautiful weather lately and I finally took some time to get some yard work done. This week I was able to trim some of the bushes out front, including my rose bush that grows HUGE each year. I think it looks very nice now, especially with the crocuses that are blooming and the other bulbs that are coming up.Yesterday I was also able to start getting the garden ready for planting. I was able to turn over about a third of the soil and get some of the nasty weed roots from last year pulled. Hopefully I can get a jump start on the weeds this year and not have the never ending battle that we struggle with each year.

This is one of my favorite spring bulbs. It's called Chionodoxa. I think I planted these the first year we were in this house and I haven't had to do anything with them since then. I have white, pink and purplish blue varieties.
The kids have been having fun getting out and playing in the yard and on their bikes and scooters. Baby K had a lot of fun out in the garden with me. She had fun playing in the dirt and liked holding the ladybugs that I found. Baby K also has a fascination with watching honeybees. We have had a lot already in the front yard flying from flower to flower and Baby K loves watching them and occasionally tries to touch one... Hopefully she won't keep that up! And hopefully she won't have to discover why that is not a good idea!

Tulips

On Sunday I had the girls go out front and cut some tulips from our yard to put in a vase for the kitchen table. Aren't they pretty?

Spring bulbs

I love springtime when I get to see all of my bulbs come up in the yard and all of the pretty colors! Here are a couple of shots of some of my tulips & daffodils:I'm not sure how I've ended up with all pink tulips in front of the porch - there used to be pink and yellow ones...And notice how green the lawn is because of all the rain/snow we have been getting this spring so far! We are enjoying the green while it lasts because soon we will be into the really hot months where you have to water the lawn like crazy to keep it green...

Under there somewhere...

Surprisingly it was cold enough for the snow to stick around for a second day...

More snow, AAAHHH!!

After a beautiful week of spring weather, we woke up to more snow this morning!! It was so nice last week that I planted some flowers in my flower beds out front and the kids and I washed and waxed my husband's new car on Friday. The kids were wearing shorts to school and Baby K was loving being outside! We had perfect soccer weather for M&M's soccer practice last Wednesday and the younger kids enjoyed playing on the playground during her practice. We have been living without the furnace for that last week or so but had to turn it back on this morning because we got below freezing last night. :(

Spring, where have you gone?!?

Spring... just kidding!

Well, apparently mother nature is not quite ready for us to have spring here in Utah yet. Yesterday, after a huge wind storm that lasted a good portion of the day, the temperatures dropped drastically and we had some snow come through. We always seem to get a few more doses of winter after my crocuses bloom before spring is finally here to stay.

This is how the yard looked this morning:
And these are my crocuses that were blooming yesterday: