Blogging again

I have decided to try to blog about something at least once a week.  But blogging that often will probably mean that my posts will be more boring overall.  If I add a new blog post just to do it even though I don't have anything interesting going on, who is going to want to see that?  Well, it doesn't matter.  I am going to do it anyway.  Maybe.  If I can stick to it.

So what should the subject of my post be about today?  Well, a month or so ago Molly and I were laying in bed at about 6:00 in the morning and my alarm had just gone off and I was considering getting out of bed, when there was this scratching noise that sounded like it was coming from the walls.  I asked Molly if she could hear it or if I was just imagining it and she said it sounded like mice running around in the walls.  Well that is what I thought it sounded like too, but I did not want to hear that she thought the same thing. So I just kept listening and that is the only thing I could think of that would make that sound.  But it didn't make sense, because the walls are full of insulation and I didn't think that those little mice could be making such a racket on such soft stuff.  Well for a week or so, it was the same thing every morning and I just wasn't sure what I was going to do to get mice out of the walls.  I didn't know where to put traps or poison that would even get to them because they were in the walls.  So I was thinking I was going to have to start ripping into the walls.

But then I started noticing a lot of bird activity on that corner of my house and it got me wondering if I had accused the wrong guy.  So I decided to look a little closer and sure enough, it wasn't mice at all.  It was some birds building a nest inside the dryer vent duct.  They had propped open the louvers with some sticks so they could get in and out and that duct was stuffed full of dry grass and twigs and stuff.  So I reached in and pulled it all out.  And those birds got mad.  They were squawking at me like crazy.  But they didn't have eggs or anything yet so I didn't feel too bad about it.  Well, I figured that was that, but then next day they were back at it, replacing all the stuff I had pulled out of there, only this time much further back into the duct so that I couldn't reach in and pull it out.  I had to get a 20' piece of small pipe and reach all the way in there and pull it all out again the next day.  Then I put a metal screen over the covering so they couldn't get back in.  I felt a little bad about it, because the poor things just wanted somewhere safe to start a family, but I didn't want my house catching on fire.  So I had to evict them.  I thought I had a picture of the nest sticking out of the dryer vent but I can't find it. Oh well.  Just picture in your mind a white plastic dryer vent with three louvers that flap open when the dryer turns on, and now add a bunch of sticks and grass poking out.  See, that was almost as good as a picture.  But now that metal screen I put on keeps filling in with lint and I have to keep cleaning it off.  So that is a pain.  But at least I don't have birds living in there making me crazy every morning with their hustle and bustle.

Let's see what else is going on?  Well, I guess I haven't posted about anything that has happened for almost a year, so I could probably go on and on about a lot of things.  There were all the holidays and birthdays for example.  I bought myself a hammock for my birthday that I hung in the corner of my fence between two posts and I really like laying out there.  The kids like it more, but I take it down when I am not using it so they can't ruin it.  And I bought myself a scary video game that I thought would be fun.  It is Resident Evil 4 for the Wii.  I haven't gotten very far but I guess you just go around killing zombies.  Like I said, I thought it would be fun, but I am just not very good at it because you have to do a lot of hand fighting and stabbing and there are always people trying to cut me with axes and chainsaws and stuff, and I just can't handle it.  I thought it might be fun to having a shooting game, but this one is too up close and personal and a lot less shooting than I hoped for.  So I think I am going to have to get rid of it.  It just makes me tense worrying about whether someone is going to jump out and swing an ax at me.

So I turned 35 this year.  That seemed a lot older 10 years ago than it does now.  35 was pretty far off not that long ago.  But you know, everyone my age is 35 so it isn't so bad ;).  Zoe is turning 12 this month, which I think makes me feel older than knowing that I am 35.  Actually, I don't mind being 35 and having a 12 year old.  What I don't like is just how fast time seems to be going.  I swear I was just 25 a year or two ago.  Somehow I hit a wormhole that is moving me forward through time and space at an increasing speed.  If I keep going at this same rate, I will be dead by next week.  I guess I better make the most of the coming week.  It is so easy to get complacent and not do anything fun or different though.  I could probably come home from work and sit in my easy chair and surf the internet on my laptop until bedtime every day and then look back in twenty years and say, wow, I haven't done anything.  So I will try not to do that.  Most days.

Ethnie turned 4 in March, Lila turned 10 in April, Luke turned 6 in May.  No, wait.  Ethnie turned 3 in March not 4.  Let me see if I can find some pictures.  Ah yes, here we go:

Here she is looking at some chalk that one of the kids gave her for a present.

She loves the movie Tangled and was happy to get a Rapunzel costume and wig.

And Molly made here a beautiful Rapunzel barbie birthday cake.

I thought the cake turned out great. Molly did a great job with the fondant dress.

And here are some pics from my birthday.  Here I am looking at the hammock.  The kids were pretty excited.

And here is Ethnie testing out the hammock to see if it worked.

Lila had a movie birthday party with her friends.  Molly made all sorts of cute movie things and the kids got to get candy and popcorn and soda from the concession stand before watching the show.  They thought it was pretty fun.

Those cupcakes have white and yellow mini marshmallows on them that have been twisted a bit to make them look like popcorn.  Molly made little food carrier for the kids to hold their goodies in.  We drilled holes in the lids of those water bottles that they could stick straws in so that it would be harder for them to spill their soda on the carpet.

Here are the girls at the party.  I don't know their names.  Well maybe I can get them.  Starting at the top left is Lila, Mary, Bella, Zoe.  Then on the front row is Megan, friend A, Alex, and Leisel.  Ok, so I got most of them.  I can picture the parents of friend A but can't think of her name.

And then we get to Luke.  Luke got to spend his birthday at Disneyland this year.  He didn't think it was that great to have a birthday there because none of his friends could be there.  Look at this tough guy!

Now look at the tough guy riding splash mountain.  The look on his face cracks me up.  Afterword he said he wasn't scared, but I think he might have been a little nervous.

Here is a good birthday picture of him.  What a guy he is.

He got a pin on his shirt that said it was his birthday and the whole day, the workers at Disneyland were yelling, "Happy birthday Luke" every time the walked past.  And he would politely respond, "Thank you."  It was fun.

Well that is all for now.  Maybe if Molly doesn't get to it, I will post a little more on how much fun we had on our trip to Disneyland.  My mom came with us and that made it nice in a lot of ways.  So more on that next time.

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.