Camping

In August we went camping with the Lamb cousins right before school started up again.  We usually go on father's day weekend and invite grandpa Ellis to come along but it didn't work out this year.  I think it was raining or something.  Oh, yeah and there was lots of water in the rivers in Salt Lake County so I was on flood watch, going up and down the rivers checking for flooding and damage.  So we missed that chance.  So instead we just went up into the Stansbury mountain range that is just west of us to some campgrounds they have there. The kids put on their worst clothes and shoes and off we went.  It was fun.

We took the fish from the trout farm and cooked them over the campfire for dinner. We also had the customary hotdogs for roasting. And I tried to make bread in the dutch oven but that didn't work out so well.  It got a little hot on the bottom (pics below). For breakfast we just made some scrambled eggs and bacon in the dutch oven over the fire. It all turned out pretty nice.

There was a little creek running right next to the campground and the kids loved that.

There must have been some scary animals around because Lucy (the dog) after snooping around for a few minutes just wanted to get back into the car.  She just sat next to it whining until I let her in.  She wouldn't come out until the next morning, which is very weird for her. But whatever wild things were out there left us alone.  The next morning when Lucy got out of the car she went missing for a couple hours and the kids were pretty worried.  But they finally found her up on the main road that heads up the canyon.  I don't know if she was lost or just exploring but the kids were sure happy to have her back.

Luke loves being outside. He spent most of his time collecting firewood and shooting the bb guns with his cousin Andrew.  It was a nice getaway right before getting back to school. 

 Our campsite

 

Burnt bottom bread

You can see the full damage better in this picture. Surprisingly the kids ate it anyway after ripping the bottom off.

Leisel

Lila (she begged me to take this picture of her by the beautiful waterfall)

Zoe

Luke and Andrew shooting

Leisel whittling 

Luke cutting us some firewood

Fishing with Leisel and Luke

I took Zoe and Lila fishing a couple years ago at the trout farm and I decided it was time to take Leisel.  I wanted to take Luke too but I wasn't sure I could handle him there.  He is not very good at following instructions and I was worried he would end up in the water or with a hook through his lip or something.  But in the end I took both of them.  And it went just fine.  We worked on casting for quite a while without a hook on the line (just sinkers to give it some weight) and then they both got to catch several fish.  They thought it was great. Neither of them like to touch the fish though.  But they like to hook them and reel them in. Here are some pictures.

Real fishing is rarely this successful.  They get bored after 10 minutes without a catch and end up playing in the water, so it is fun to just let them catch them as often as they want.

Piano Practice

chicken coop part deux

I finished the chicken coop and run last month sometime.  Here it is.

This neighborhood cat seemed to think I did a great job and didn't want to leave until Molly chased it away with a squirt bottle.

Having chickens in the yard has made our house seem a little more friendly to the other avian populace as well I think.  We have had a bird house sitting out on our fence for years and they have never once looked at it.  But this year we had two sets of birds lay eggs in it.  It was pretty fun.  Especially when they were little fledglings and learning how to fly.  We got to hold a few of them while they screamed for their mom after falling out of the house.  At first I was worried that they had fallen out of the nest and would be abandoned by the mother, but I read that they were just learning how to fly and that their mother knew exactly where they were and that they would be ok.  I also read it was a myth that the mother would abandon them if we touched them.  So I liked to pick them up and pop them back in the house.  Then they would promptly jump back out again and fall to the ground.  They sure are cute.  Well they got cuter when they had more feathers than they are in this picture.

The chickens have been giving us eggs now for a couple of weeks.  They are small and brown and sometimes speckled with black or white specks (no, the specs are not just poo).  We are getting about two or three eggs a day and should end up getting about three a day on average.  The kids still love the chickens.  Especially Ethnie.  She wants to go out and hold them all the time.  They run from Luke, but hold still and let Ethnie pick them up whenever she wants.  We like them.  Everyone should get some.

Hair today, gone tomorrow

I usually cut my own hair.  It is cheap and easy to do when you have clippers and wear a simple hair-do like I do.  So I cut my hair on Sunday and Luke was helping me and when I was finished I thought he would think it was funny if I took some of the cut off hair and made a mustache.  He thought it was hilarious.  Then I had the ingenious idea to put some of the hair cut off of the unwanted parts of my head and put it on the parts of my head were it is more needed.  Just for old times sake, you know, to remind myself of how handsome I used to be with a full luxurious head of hair that waved in the wind like a field of wheat on a sunny day.  So I stuck it on top.  Luckily it was a hot humid day and the cut hair stuck to my head like flies on a fly trap.  With the extra I made up the mustache again, but it wouldn't stay put very well.  But I remembered seeing an old Calvin and Hobbes cartoon where he cut his hair and taped it to his face.  So I went for the tape.  And this is what I got.

You can kind of see the tape on my upper lip because the hair still had a hard time staying on a vertical surface even with tape.  But all the kids were laughing and having a great time putting hair on their faces too so it didn't really matter.  Here is Luke with his large eyebrows.

Aw yeah, good times at the Ellis house.

Camping

I went camping with Luke for the annual father's and son's campout.  It was pretty fun.  We hiked all over the mountain finding sticks and rocks (not for a fire, just because Luke thought they were neat).  Then we roasted some 'mallows and hit the sack.  We didn't put up a tent.  I just threw a mattress in the back of the suburban, so we laid in there watching Tangled on my ipod until Luke fell asleep.  Not very traditional I guess, but it was comfy and warm.  He looks kind of bored in this picture, but he loved it.  I let him play with the fire as much as he wanted (with some guidance) and let him carry around my pocket knife and whittle sticks.  He loved it.

New Truck

My car died.  It turns out that when they say you should change your timing belt at a certain interval (every 60,000 miles in my case) they say that for a reason.  I changed mine at 60k miles but that was 75,000 miles ago.  I had put off doing it again thinking that I might try to do it myself this summer.  But the summer didn't get here soon enough I guess.  The timing belt broke, my engine's pistons shot up into the valves, which shot out all over the place, and so the valves and pistons were pretty busted up.  The car just stopped.  I got a couple of quotes to repair the motor and they were both about $2400.  But the transmission has been shifting pretty hard for years and something in the exhaust system kept causing the check engine light to come on.  So I decided not to get a new engine.

Instead I bought a new truck.

 A new to me truck anyway.  There is nothing else new about it.  It is a 1984 Toyota pickup and it is pretty beat up looking.  But it starts easily and it drives nice.  It has over 184,000 miles on it, but I think I can get a few more out of it.  Molly doesn't seem to be very impressed with it.  She knew I was looking for something cheap, but I think she wanted me to get something a little nicer.  But it was only $600 so I figured even if it lasted a half year or so, it was worth it.  And it might last longer than that.  I am done with school now so I only have to drive a couple miles to catch my vanpool everyday.  So at five miles a day, it should last pretty well I hope.  And the kids love it.  Luke likes to stand in the bed and shoot baskets.  The kids want to name it Mater because it is pretty rusty on the back and I guess it reminded them of Mater from Cars.  And they said Mater used to be blue.  So I told them they could call it whatever they wanted.  I am happy to have something that drives and I have always wanted a little truck like this.

Graduation

I have officially graduated.  They gave me a diploma cover and everything.

Walking away from my last final I felt great until the thought occurred to me that I wouldn't be back.  Then I felt a bit sad.  I will miss school.  I just like learning new things.  It does feel good to be done though.  I can now watch all those movies on my netflix queue that I never got to.  And who knows what else.

I should thank Molly for going through it with me.  Thanks Molly.  You are the best.

My mom came up all the way from St. George and my dad came down from Brigham City.  So that was nice of them.  They are great parents.

Chickens and Chicken Coop

We thought it might be fun to have some chickens.  And we like eggs.  So we got some little chicks a month or two ago.  They are called Buff Orpingtons. They are pretty cute.  We bought some for us and some for Jenifer (Molly's sister) who was going out of town and couldn't keep them herself for a few weeks.  So for a few weeks we had a dozen or so.  But only four of them are ours.  We kept them in the living room for a few weeks in a big plastic tote and the kids loved to sit and watch them and get them out and play with them.  Especially Ethnie, who calls them the little babies.  Here is a picture of her laying next to them and just watching them.

After a few weeks they started kinda stinking up the house, so we tried putting them in the laundry room for a while but that got pretty stinky too.  So then they moved out to the garage and my car moved out to the driveway.  A few times in the last month or two it has been warm enough to take them outside.  The chicks seemed to enjoy that and so did the kids.

Well, they couldn't stay in a plastic box in the garage forever so I was slowly trying to build them a coop.  Molly had been looking at different coops online for about a year and she decided the one she liked the best was this one.  So I bought the plans (which was hard for me to do, but I was so busy with school that I wasn't sure I would have time to make my own, so thought it would be best this time) and started working on it.  There was one Saturday about a month ago that was not snowy or rainy so I got the legs and the floor put on it that day.  Since then, I have just been going out for an hour or two anytime it is not raining or snowing and working on it a bit.  But it has been raining or snowing almost every day all month, so not much got done.  Then yesterday it was clear and I got a whole day to work on it.  I almost finished it.  Here it is so far.

We put the chickens in it last night because it is finished enough to live in.  I still need to add the trim and paint and what-not but it is getting close.  And I have to build the chicken run.  The chicks are about 8 weeks old now I think and they will start laying eggs at about 20 weeks.  We eat about 18 eggs a week, which is about what these four chicks will give us (18-20).  So that will save us about $2.00 a week.  The materials for the coop cost about $400 so, not including feed, it should take us about four years to save any money.  So I guess this is not about saving money, it is mostly just for fun.  So far it has been fun, but I will have to get back to you on that after the novelty has worn off.

Snowboarding With Zoe

A week or so ago I took off some work and took Zoe snowboarding. She has been wanting to go for a couple years and I told her that when she was ten I would take her.  So I did.  We went up to a small resort up Ogden Canyon called Wolf Mountain.  They had a good deal on a lesson and lift ticket.  So she took a lesson and I boarded alone for an hour.  During her lesson, the instructor was just having her walk up the hill a little and showing her how to strap in and out of her bindings and then coming down the hill 20 feet or so.  At the end of the lesson, she was supposed to go up the lift with the instructor and come all the way down the hill (the bunny hill).  But she refused. She wouldn't get on the lift.  So the instructor gave up trying to get her to go up and handed her off to me.  She told me she wasn't going to get on the lift.  She was afraid she would fall off from up high in the air.  So we went to the lodge and had a piece of pizza and just sat there for a little bit. After awhile, she felt rested again and I told her about the safety bars that you can put down on the lifts to keep you safe.  She wasn't exactly convinced, but I told her in the nicest way possible that if she ever wanted to go again, she was going to have to get on a lift.  So she relented.  And it was fine.  Getting off the lift with a snowboard is not very easy, especially for beginners.  But I just held onto her tight and kinda held her up until we were out of the way of the lift and it worked out fine.  The first time down the hill took us about an hour, but then we went again and again and again and again.  And by the end of the day, she was doing really well.  Much better than I thought she would.  I mostly just held her hands and went down backwards on my toe edge while she went down forward on her heel edge.  By the end she was going back and forth across the hill with some comfort on her heel edge. Next time maybe she will be ready to try out her toe edge.  Here are some pics.

Zoe and I on the lift.

Taking a break.

Coming down at the end of the day.

It was a great day.  Zoe said it was one of her best days ever.