This is Logan standing in front of the middle school on his last day of school. Next year he will be in high school - WOW!

The sunset was so pretty over the mountains last night. I wish I'd gotten a shot in a different place, but you can still see the sun setting behind the tops of the Blue Ridge Mountains in the distance.

Princess and Chicken Little are friends - they like to hang out together, so I guess that makes them friends. Princess is fast becoming a pet. She follows Adrian around so faithfully and eats out of his hand.

There are several that look like this. Adrian says their feathers are really soft. The smallest one we are naming Chicklet - that's the name Ian likes.

This is our little auracana chicken. I think we are going to call her Fancy chicken. That was the name Elise liked, Fancy.

We have been calling this rooster weathervane because he looks like the roosters on the weathervanes on top of barnes. Very traditional. Now that I'm looking at the picture again, this may not be Weathervane. This may be the big rooster. I guess I need to go out to the chicken coop and look again! =)

This is one of the new roosters. We think he's really pretty. We may call him cracker jack. Not sure what is going to "stick" yet.

Sometimes when I look at Pilot Mountain, I wonder what it must have looked like to the early settlers who traveled on foot and used the mountain as a guide. There are so many places you can see it from that it must have helped them navigate using its location as a landmark.

I made these through our somewhat dirty windshield coming home from stake meetings in Winston on Sunday night.

I loved all these pictures of Pilot Mountain and couldn't decide which one to post...so you get them all!

Pilot Mountain at sunset.

Adam and Logan playing basketball in the yard.

Adam getting some rim.

Our cat, Ralph.

A red lily in the front our of house.

Elise wanted to see more pictures of Papa's chickens, so here they are!

In this picture, you can see one of the new roosters and part of the new auracana chicken.

High Grass

Logan tackling some high grass in our yard recently. 

Adam after an academic awards presentation at the high school.

Here are some of Adrian's new chickens.

Have a drink?!

A cold blast!

What a nice family group!

Grandma Delia and Merry Grace on her blessing day.

Kristen, Ethan, Adam and Logan

Kristen, Cory, Elise, Ian, and Merry Grace

Elise and Ian in front of the flowers at their house.

The dog brothers - Milo and Eight Ball.

Ethan showing some of his art work.

Adam getting ready for the prom.

Bag Worms

I just had to mention that the bag worms are out in what appears to be full force now. It brings back memories.... It seems like only yesterday that one of the kids (Logan?) did an act in the talent show with the little creatures!

Lately, though, Logan and Adrian have been taking a limb from a tree that has the bag with worms inside and putting it into the chicken pen as a treat for the chickens.

Another Survey!

I don't even know why I'm doing this, but Kristen e-mailed this to me and well, here I go with it! ;)

1. When you looked at yourself in the mirror today, what was the first thing you thought? Probably something like, "You sure look tired!" I was up later than usual last night.
2. When is the next time you will kiss someone? When Adrian comes home from work.

Okay, well, I suddenly feel like Cory. I'm tired of answering questions after the first two! :0 It was a cute survery, though, and I enjoyed reading Kristen's answers, but now I've lost interest in answering them myself!

Is my toilet a magnet?

Okay, okay...I know some of you think this is going to be just another bathroom story, but there's more to it. I'm beginning to wonder if there is some type of magnetism drawing things into the toilet! Just now I was talking on the phone and got my eyebrow tweezers out of the drawer beneath the bathroom sink. Granted I was multi-tasking, but I was using a headset and did have both hands free, when, all of a sudden, the tweezors JUMP out of my hand and I immediately know they're headed for the toilet! In an instant I'm thinking, "Oh, please don't fall in the toilet!" but I know that's where they're going! I look over and think, "If I just do this quickly I won't have to think about it and I'll just get it over with." So, I plunged my hand in and started fishing around the toilet paper...no it had not been flushed yet, but it was only a few pieces of toilet paper, and no tweezors. I figured it had slid down farther so down I went with my arm, scouring the bottom of the bowl and viola! I really liked those tweezors, but more than that I was afriad they'd stop up something and I could end up with a worse mess! So now you have it...my bathroom extravaganza! Oh, and the point to that was this...why is it when you drop something in the bathroom that it always wants to fall into the toilet?! What is this force that pulls things into that deep dark hole? And does this happen to other people...

Our circle drive in the springtime.

The Grass is Always...

I got some kind of little hand-out when I was at Wal-Mart about "When to Mow Your Grass" and I'm thinking, "So, why wouldn't you know when it was time to mow your grass without referring to this little set of instructions from Wal-Mart?" The flyer had guidelines for different types of grass - about how high it should be when mowed, things like that. Hmmmm...so here's my list of how to know when your grass needs mowing...

It's time to mow your grass if...

You can only see the top of Eight Ball's head as he runs through the yard.

You can hide Easter Eggs out in the open in the yard and they're just as hard to find as the ones under flower pots or up in the trees.

All your yard trash the dogs brought in is hidden from view by the tall green blades.

Now, don't get me wrong, here, I'm certainly not complaining about the high grass in the yard. If it were that important, I'd go get the lawn mower and get to it! And there are lots of fingers that could be pointed elsewhere, I mean there is plenty of work to do inside and out! I just thought it was interesting that there was such a publication for something that seemed so obvious to me - you mow the grass when you're afraid you'll loose small children in your yard if you don't!

Easter Egg Hunt

The boys had fun hunting for Easter Eggs around the yard. Somewhere along the way, in recent years, we started putting change in the eggs - and maybe a dollar or two in the "golden egg". This created a new level of excitement for our older egg hunters! 

Sunset against the Blue Ridge Mountains

I love to look at the mountains from our house - and so pretty at sunset! 

Spring Flowers

I like these pretty spring flowers in our yard.

Butterfly

I think it's really neat to see a tree with lots of blossoms and butterflies. We used to have a tree between our house and Grandma Hiatt's that I called the "Butterfly Tree" because it always had so many butterflies around it in the summer time. The hummingbirds liked it, too. It was a very unusual tree that I think Grandma got either in another state (Florida ?) or on the mountain - not sure, but it seemed there was some special story about where it came from. It had pink flowers and blue berries. As a child I would crush the blue berries to make "ink". Another thing I remember was that the leaves had a distinctive smell, really sweet. The tree in the photo is not that tree, but seeing the butteflies on it made me think of Grandma's Butterfly Tree. 

Spot

This is Spot out in the yard in the high grass. She and Eight Ball like to run, chase, and bite on each other as they play together. 

Things That Make Me Happy

I got this idea from a friend's blog - listing things that make me happy. I felt like I needed to think about things that make me happy, especially today. We've been working in the basement this morning, trying to clean up and throw out and it is always a little traumatic for me, just because the task in and of itself is daunting, to say the least. I don't know where all this stuff comes from! It's like the laundry hamper - it must multiply and replinish itself when we're not looking. Anyway, so that's the first thing - it's just a BIG jog. The other thing is that some things are hard to get rid of...you know...it's seen better days, but oh, remember when so and so played with that, and it brings back memories and I have a hard time parting with it - even though I realize that there is probably no REAL reason to save it. Ahhh, sentimentality - I think I have too much of it! So, with all the basement stuff and then worrying about the boys (Adam and Logan are away on a three-day camping trip and I just worry about them), and worrying about the usual stuff (and I won't even get into that!), I need a few mintues to think of some good stuff!

So here are some things that make me happy - in no particular order:

Friday nights
Being with my family
Listening to my scripture tapes
Having a clean house
Having someone cook for me or eating out
Reading
Soccer games where the boys are playing
When someone in my family does something kind for me
Making someone else happy
Back, foot, head rubs
All the good things Adrian does for our family
Snow
Being at home
Getting caught up with laundry
Seeing my children happy
Knowing my family loves me
The twinkle in Ian's eye
Being Mama/Mom/Grammy and BaBa
Watching Elise love on Merry Grace
Seeing my family live the gospel
Watching the kids play at the creek
Cookouts in the back yard
Flowers
Logan playing with Eight Ball
Watching the chickens
Listening to Kristen play the piano
Seeing the cool things Kristen makes
Seeing Ethan's drawings and other art items
Hearing about what Ethan is doing in Utah
Talking with my children in person or on the phone or skype or however
Adam helping me with computer stuff and telling me about cool things
Watching Adam and Logan each Sunday fulfilling their priesthood duties
Watching the kids get awards/recognition
Having conversations with Logan about the animals
Seeing my children help each other
Being a part of my children's successes
Taking pictures
Playing with my pictures and movies on the computer
Looking at house plans
All the fun family times together
Watching movies, playing games
Having the whole family sitting together at church
FHE
A good heritage
Knowing the the kids love each other and like each other
Being hopeful
There are more things, but I guess that's enough for now.

Ian playing in the sand at Riverside Park.

Logan in the yard with most of the dogs. Adam playing basketball in the background, "nakey" as Ian says.

Adam getting ready to leave for the Priest Laurel Prom at the stake center.

Adrian got a couple of Wake Forest shirts for his birthday. GO WAKE!

Adam on stage during National Honor Society induction. He was inducted last year and helped with the tapping of new members this year.

Adam holding Merry Grace.

It was a nice Saturday afternoon and we took a little time to go down to the creek between sessions of conference. Adam and Logan had a good water fight!

Adam and Logan had fun at the creek with Elise and Ian. Kristen, Merry Grace, Adrian, and I stayed on the bank!