Happy Birthday to Kyle!

Aaah!

Awww...

"Woah, Mama!" It's your 16th birthday, Kyle!

June Showers Bring SNAILS!!

Richland finally had a thunderstorm at about 6:00 PM on Saturday, July 21st. The thunder and lightning weren't much, but the wind really gusted and swirled. The rain was fairly intense for about 20 minutes.

At 8:00 some of Kyle's friends went out on the patio. Zach Sant said, "DUDE! Look at all the snails!!" I was worried he would peel the shells off of them (you know Zach). My next thought was, "Step on them and kill them...kill them ALLLLLLLL!" They have been decimating our garden this year, so it was a logical reaction.

I told the kids to go get a bucket and start collecting them. Bruce got in on that action, too. Then he got out the slug and snail bait and did a maneuver that strangely resembled how Vinessa Shaw spread salt around herself in "Hocus Pocus" (look it up!). He even put the bait in the bucket, too.

About an hour later the rain started again. There was no thunderstorm this time, just rain, rain, rain, rain. It was not the usual Richland rain, but hard rain like in Ohio, or someplace else like that (a place with natural vegetation). This rain lasted until about 10:00 PM.

This morning Bruce was excited to see how many snails he had killed with his bait. He could see at least as many as they had put in the bucket the night before. Hopefully this will slow down the crop destruction this summer.

Kyle's Eagle Project

Kyle did the last of his Boy Scout Eagle project on Saturday, June 21st. His project was to make sure that every house in our neighborhood had readable house numbers on the curb. The previous Saturday a crew of boys delivered fliers to every house that needed a new number and told them to make sure their cars were not parked in the areas where the painting would occur. It would be bad if the boy scouts painted curbs AND cars!

First we cut stencils. Four-inch stencils were needed for the project and the packages of these stencils at the store were $8.00 each. We needed about four packages. Do the math...that was TOO expensive (of course if the home improvement stores had been willing to donate anything for this project, it wouldn't have been much of an issue). We did have one package of 3-inch stencils so Bruce and Kyle suggested that we scan them, enlarge the numbers to 4 inches and use them as a template. Allison and Kyle did most of the cutting and the boys finished up the last few right before the painting started.


Four sets of "crews" headed out to paint. The first two crews went to different streets and painted white rectangles on the curbs.





The second two crews followed a short time afterwards and used the stencils to spray black numbers on the white background.

When Kyle initially mapped out his project, about a month ago, there were 90 houses needing new numbers. About two weeks ago some entrepreneurs came through the neighborhood offering to paint house numbers on the curbs. Their prices ranged from $15 to $25, depending on the kind of paint and how fancy people wanted the numbers to be. When Kyle mapped out the neighborhood before the project, there were only 61 houses that still needed numbers. We were able to return quite a bit of paint. Now emergency officials and lost friends can find specific house much more easily!

Yay Kyle!! Thank you to all the scouts who helped, too.

The Pioneers Are Home From the Trek

Kyle and Bruce returned from the pioneer trek this afternoon. Kyle was a trekker and Bruce was the official photographer. He took about 1500 photos.

The Richland Stake Youth Trek was four days long. Beginning Monday, June 16 and ending Wednesday, June 18th they pushed and pulled fully loaded handcarts about 22 miles up and down hills, through sagebrush and along irrigated farmland. The carts arrived in "Zion" on Wednesday evening. Thursday they got to play and rest. Pictured above is Kyle's trek "family." Ma and Pa Hayes took good care of their eight children. All the children had to do more than their share to help their Ma after the angels came and took Pa Hayes on the morning of the third day.

According to Kyle the first part of the first day was TORTURE! According to Bruce, Kyle is understating the difficulty. The first handcart on the trail turned the dirt to powder and every cart behind them sunk into the soil (sand/clay). Everyone had a terrible time getting their carts up the first hill. It took about 2 1/2 hours to go the first 1 1/2 miles with a 600 foot climb. You can see the hill behind Kyle's head in the close-up picture. It's a good thing each of the three companies (nine carts in each company) had their own professional medical staff. They were kept very busy.

Lance Rhoten went on the 2004 trek and this one. He said that in 2004 it was 20% physical and 80% spiritual. This year it was 80% physical and 20% spiritual. The trekkers were so busy overcoming unexpected obstacles and were so spent at the end of each day that there wasn't time for many of the planned experiences. Bruce mentioned that he thinks this trek will be much more spiritual in the long run. Many of the people really suffered. In the future, when those who participated in this trek hear the stories of pioneers and their suffering, they will be able to really understand.

After Bruce and Kyle had their showers we had to flush the waste lines to get all of the mud out of the pipes! The good news was no ticks. Well, I shouldn't speak so soon, we're still combing through Kyle's hair. I think we'll be done by tomorrow.

Clevelanders say the darndest things

I was saving up these real-life quotes from people we've met in Cleveland to put on my blog, but I decided your blog needs some spice, so you are getting them!

"Don't let the wind blow in that baby's face. You don't want him getting the colic... that air will blow right down into his little tummy."

"My boyfriend and I thought it would be really special if we had our first baby together." (The meaning behind this being that it has special meaning if when you have a child together, neither of you already have any babies. No matter how many children you have with how many different people after that, it will always be special because "dude" there was #1.)

Dr: What kind of allergic reaction did you have to (some Rx)?

Patient:"I got all swolled up like a Mongoloid."

"Oregon? What's that?"

Cashier to Mike: "Is she yours?" (pointing to Megan) "That one, too?" (pointing to my then-pregnant belly) "Wow."

Random guy at the door: "You want your walk shoveled?" (as in, will I pay him to shovel the walk)

Me: "No, thanks. We shovel our own."

Random guy at the door: (pauses) "You mind if I come by to keep you company later on?" (as in, can I come back later and sleep with you?)

Me: "No, thanks." (close the door, lock the deadbolt)

"You're from out west, huh? I went out that way one time. Got as far as Nebraska."

Allison added this one:
Said by the lady who cut Kate's hair: "Dang, girl! You be lookin' your age now!"

A point to ponder

I know I already e-mailed this to mom, but I thought the rest of the world should know that, according to Jeff Foxworthy,  the Cornwells are Rednecks. 

I'm a contributor! Hoorah!

Check out the trendy grandma, with her trendy blog! I have learned how to make special personalized backgrounds for the blog pages, so we should work together to come up with something super-duper-alley-ooper-double-looper cute.  

I'm Trying Out the Blogscene

It seems that blogging is much easier than updating a web site (though, I haven't really been updating my web site anyway). Kate has such a cool blog and site. Her web site is what my web site wants to be when it grows up. Since Kate is the guru, she can help me make this blog look good!