Painting at Grandma's

Every few years grandma Ellis needs her garage and sheds and fence painted. And this year was one of those years. She said the last time it was done was eight years ago, the year grandpa died, but it seems like we have done it since then. I am probably wrong though. I always like going over to do it though. It gives me a chance to spend some time with her and my dad. And Uncle Dan is always there and he can be a good time. I usually go alone, but this year we all went. We got there about 10:00 and painted for a few hours. Then we had some grilled hot dogs and pasta salads and beans and whatnot and then painted some more. I think we didn't leave until about 8:00 that night. It took a long time. But it was nice to be there. Cousin Monica and her husband and kids where there, and Brooke and Bob came for a few hours too. Brandon also showed up for a little while but he didn't stay too long. The kids really had a good time painting. We usually don't let them help paint at our house but because this was outside and paint drippings from previous years were already all over the place, I didn't think it would hurt to let them go at it. Luke liked it the most. Here is a picture of Luke, my dad, and I painting grandma's back patio.


Here is a picture of several of the others. Uncle Dan and Zoe are in the background, with Grandma holding Ethnie, and Leisel climbing a ladder.
Lila spent most of her time in the kitchen next to the goodies. As always, grandma had plenty of yummy things to snack on the whole day. That is one thing you can always count on at her house. There will always be plenty of peanut m&ms, coke, cookies, chips and salsa, and plenty of other goodies spread out. I don't know how she keeps her girlish figure. I love being there. It feels safe and comfortable.

Sunday Excursions

Last Sunday was stake conference. I have to be honest and say that we haven't gone to stake conference as a family for a couple of years. Usually I will go and report back anything I found inspiring, or sometimes Molly will go. But we barely make it through the hour long sacrament meeting on Sundays with Luke every week, so two hours is really not even worth trying. We just end up frustrated and very uninspired.

So, we were sitting around Sunday morning contemplating how we were going to negotiate stake conference this time around and things were going downhill fast with the children. They were going crazy. I am not sure why, but they have been super wound up lately and I could tell Molly was about at her tipping point. She had that crazy look in her eye that said she was about to lose it. So I knew I couldn't leave her with the kids and go to church alone. It was about 9:30 and Molly had just put the baby down for a nap and the kids would just not be quiet. So I told them to grab their shoes and get in the car without making another sound. So of course they all started pestering me about where we were going and were getting louder by the second. I knew if the baby woke up there could be blood, so I told them that if they didn't zip it and get in the car, the only place they were going was stake conference. Well, even though they haven't been in awhile, two hours sitting in church must have left an impression on their wee minds because there was a sudden silence like I haven't heard in years. Even Luke, who I can never get to shut up, seemed to sense the great importance of not making a sound. So as quiet as little church mice the kids all got their shoes on and went out to the car. I grabbed our collection of children's movies, the car dvd player, some water, and some bread and a jar of peanut butter and was out the door with a kiss to Molly.

I wasn't sure were we would go. I thought about the zoo or the park. Anywhere to just get them out of the house for a few hours and give Molly some rest. But I am always telling the kids they can't go to the zoo or the park on Sunday so I thought it might not be a good idea to confuse them. So I thought I would just drive and let them watch a couple movies. Wendover seemed like a good destination. I had never been there before and I thought it was about an hour and a half drive which seemed about right. So I headed west. We got out a little ways and I saw a sign that said "Stansbury Island" and thought that sounded like more fun than Wendover. So I turned there. It was a dirt road that took us out past a whole bunch of evaporation ponds. Those are big shallow depressions that they pump water into from the Great Salt Lake and let the water evaporate out of to get salt and other minerals that are left behind. I thought they were really neat. There were several that were all evaporated and there was nothing left but big fields of salt. And there were huge piles of salt that we drove past too. I told the kids what they were and that if they licked the ground it would taste like salt. After driving past a few ponds, I decided to stop at dry one, and since they aren't fenced off or anything, I told the kids to go out and check them out while I made them a sandwich.

I was sitting there making a sandwich when Leisel comes back to the car and she is sucking on this huge chunk of salt she had picked up off the ground. She says, "You are right dad! It tastes just like salt!" So I got out and we ran all over the salty ground. The salt was about an inch thick and the kids took off their shoes and ran all around it for quite awhile until their feet started to hurt. They thought it was a lot like playing in the snow. Until they got it in their eyes.
The pictures aren't the greatest because all I had was my camera phone, but you get the idea.

Well after they got tired of the salt, we got back in the car and kept going on the dirt road. After quite awhile we got to the end of the road and there was a toilet and a big sign that said we were on the tip of Stansbury Island. It turns out Stansbury Island is only an island when the lake is really high, which it hasn't been for 25+ years. To the west was a big bay called Stansbury bay that is also a huge evaporation pond. I don't know what is in that water but it was purple. I told the kids not to touch it. But it was pretty.

There was a trail that left the parking lot and headed along the shore, so we decided to go for a little walk. It was a nice day for hiking. The sun was out but it wasn't too hot. Zoe didn't want to go because she is afraid of pretty much everything and she thought there might be dangerous wildlife. But we went anyway. I told them to stay behind me and stay on the trail because there might be snakes. About five seconds later Zoe screams, "Snake!" and is scrambling back up the trail the way we had come. Of course no one else saw the snake (and I think it was probably just a lizard) but it kept the other kids on the trail. We did see several lizards and a few bunnies, a horny toad, and a fox or coyote den. It was a fun little hike with big boulders that the kids got to climb up and feel like they were standing on top of the world. Here is a picture I borrowed from someone on flikr.

And here is an aerial image from good old google earth.


Well after the hike we got back into the car and headed back towards Tooele. We took a round about way home and didn't get back until about 4:00 or so. By that time Molly was well rested and life was good again. It was a pretty good day. That night as we were getting the kids ready for bed, Lila said, "that was probably the best Sunday we have ever had."

I hope they don't expect every Sunday to be like this. Next week it is back to church.

Dr. Horrible

This is old stuff if you are up on your web surfing, but though I had heard about it awhile ago, I just watched this for the first time last night and really liked it. So if you haven't seen it yet, I am recommending it. It's a great time. Here is the link:

http://www.hulu.com/watch/28343/dr-horribles-sing-along-blog

It's about 45 minutes long or something, or you can watch the three 15 minute segments if you don't have a straight 45 minutes. Well worth the time I'd say.

Various happenings from the last few months

Well ever since I started going back to school I haven't had much time for anything else. I am sure if you asked Molly she would tell you that I am not making that up. In fact the other day I was thinking that even though it had been pretty hard to keep up with school and everything else that at least I had been pretty good helping Molly out with the baby and the kids and other things around the house. But then Molly told me that I was wrong. It seems that I am just very oblivious. I feel pretty bad about that. I console myself in the fact that I was even more sleep deprived than Molly and that my brain probably just wasn't working right. Sorry Molly. I really would have done anything that you very specifically would have asked me to do. I think you know that. You were sweet to think that I was too busy to bother and just suffer in silence. But don't do it again.

Anyway, I have been so busy since January that I haven't done much posting on the blog. I have missed it really. It is nice to kind of review things that have happened and let myself take some time to ponder things. If I don't review in my mind the things that are going on around me they just fly by and I never learn anything from them. And if I write about them that helps the lessons to sink deeper into my brain. So for the next few months until school starts again, hopefully I will give myself a little time for this. Though I do have a lot of projects planned for the summer so I don't know how much time I will have. I have more projects planned than I have money for though so I guess my summer might not be as busy as it seems in my head.

Well, lets get started on the recap of the last few months. I guess I posted that we had a baby. Ethnie Rose Ellis. The final Ellis girl. She sure is a cutie and seems to be growing pretty fast. She has started smiling in the last week or so and that pretty much guarantees that we have to keep her now. Something about that smiling that just sucks her right into your heart. Here are a few pictures of her.



The fun thing about Ethnie is that she just seems so awake and alert all the time. She makes such grown up expressions that it is hard to remember that she is only two months old (yesterday). She really likes Seinfeld too. Or at least I assume that is why she insists on staying up late. She goes to bed about 11:00 every night and then sometimes she will sleep all night and get up between about 5:00 and 6:00. Then she has a hard time getting back to sleep before the kids get up so Molly doesn't get to go back to bed half the time. I am usually getting up just after she has finished eating at about 5:45 to get ready for work and Molly is half asleep in the rocking chair with that look on her face that lets me know she is very tired. She usually goes to sleep pretty well for me though. If Molly can't get her to sleep, I just take her and in 10 minutes or so she'll be snoozing. So I am not much good in the lactation department, but at least I can get her to sleep. We all have our strong points I guess.

Let's see, what else has happened? I took the four oldest to the zoo one day to give Molly a break. Here is a pic.
The kids love to go to the zoo, so we have a membership there and can go anytime. But it seems like lately even though they beg to go there, once we get there, they just want to go to the little park that there. Oh well, as long as they have fun right?

There was also Easter. We colored eggs. That is never as fun as it seems like it should be. For some reason the kids just end up fighting with each other about how many eggs they get to color or which ones are theirs or who is hogging which color. But I still insist on doing it every year. I must be crazy.
When it came time to get out the Easter baskets, I couldn't find them. So I used pots and mixing bowls. I don't know where those baskets ended up. I thought for sure one of the kids would complain, but no one even said a thing about it. This is the only picture that I took on Easter.

Then there was my birthday. I think Molly covered that one on her blog. It was nice. I got a pocket knife among other things. Here is Luke coveting it. Its so funny how the girls see it and have a look for a minute or two but then don't think about it again. But Luke just could not stop trying to get his hands on it. Boys and girls really are different creatures.

We had a pinewood derby in Elders quorum. Well, it was kind of like a pinewood derby anyway. We used a pinewood derby track but had no rules except that it had to fit on the track. I thought the best way to have a fast car would just be to make it heavy. It seemed like the heaviest cars always won. But I knew that if I made it too heavy that those little pinewood derby wheels would generate too much friction and it would slow it down. So I knew I would have to have wheels with bearings if it were going to weigh much. In the end I went to the DI and bought some used rollerblades and pulled the wheels off of those. They are kind of wide though so I tried cutting them in half. That didn't work very well, so I had to find something heavy and skinny that I could put between the wheels. I decided on a 3/4" steel pipe filled with BB's. I used a putty weld to attach the wheels to the pipe (using some threaded rod for the axles). Then I borrowed a steel paper weight from a co-worker (thanks Grover) and taped that to the top. A standard pinewood derby car is limited to 5 ounces. My car weighed almost 6 pounds. It was fast! But unfortunately not fast enough. Only two other people showed up to race. One had a standard regulation pinewood derby car and the other had a block of wood with a cordless dremel with a computer fan blade on the front that acted as a propellor. Well the propellor car was just a hair faster than mine. It won me by about half and inch each time. Good job Dusty. But next year I am sure I will win.


Leisel walked into the kitchen one day singing and wearing some fancy getup. I had to take a picture. She looked like a little french girl. Or at least how I imagine a little french girl might look.

Lila had a birthday, which was also covered on Molly's blog. I gave her a horn for her bike that she has been begging for for at least two years. Of course when she opened it she rolled her eyes and acted like I was being silly for getting that for her.

Molly covered Luke's birthday too. I guess most of you already saw the picture of his present. Those little battery powered ride on jeeps and tractors are just so much fun, how could I pass it up. The girls all got to enjoy the princess jeep (during the short bursts when it was working) so I figured it was only fair to let him have a chance too since the jeep died for the last time. I sure hope this tractor works better than that princess jeep did. I was always having to fix that thing.

Last weekend was the fathers and sons campout for church. It was a campout/service project and I didn't know that I would be much help for the service part with Luke in tow. So I decided to take Zoe along to help. She was a great helper. There was a little pond where we went so of course all the kids pretty much just hovered around that the whole time. Luke loved it. He would go get a handful of rocks (which was about three rocks in his small hands) from the parking lot and then go throw them in and go back for more rocks. Over and over and over. He also did a lot of "fishing" which consisted of waving a stick around in the water.






Well that about sums it up. Oh yeah, except the fence stuff I brought home on saturday. I am building a fence this year. There is now a big pile of cedar fence panels sitting in my garage where my car usually sits. So after I get the room in the basement finished, I will start on the fence. I am excited to get it built though. Seems like a lot of fun. Everytime I go in the garage and see that pile of lumber I just get excited. Hope it is as fun when I am doing it as I think it will be.

Cinco de Mayo

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Ethnie has landed

Here are a few pics of the new baby. She and Molly are doing great.
She weighed 7 lb 11 oz and was 20" long. Born at 7:52 a.m. March 18, 2009.

Happy St. Patty's Day

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