Combine these 5 things.

A trip to Nebraska
A motorcycle
A Dodge Dynasty
A 16 yr old boy who wants to bring his motorcycle
His dad, who doesn't know the phrase "it can't be done"

Yep, they took apart the motorcycle and put it IN THE CAR~!  MY husband is amazing!  He can do anything he sets his mind to..... and he is teaching my son the same.   I'm glad.  

The proud conquerors!

 

 

So are you tired of animal blogs?

Any guesses as to what sort of critters my husband brought home the other day?  

I got a call from him and he asked me to have the boys get a box for a ...."pet".   I'm wondering what he is bringing home this time.   So I asked what size box??  12x12 at least.   Oh good!  A small something. 

Yes they are birds.  Can you guess what kind?  

Aren't they cute!  Tim saw the momma get hit by a car so he stopped and gathered up three of them.   They are tiny!  Less than half the size of my fist. 

First thing I did was call Colorado Farm Girl  and she set me up with some feed that she gives her baby chickens.  We are also giving them bugs.  I hope we can raise them succesfully.  (another way of saying I hope they don't die)  Although one doesn't look too good this morning.

I love baby animals, and I like the experience of taking care of things, but I'm a little tired of dying wild things. 

Remember I said my oldest went to Nebraska for a month?  He LOVED it.   Here is a link to the ranch where he worked.  Goose Creek Adventures     He didn't do anything with the hunting aspect, just helped out on the ranch went to some brandings and such.  Everyone told me how impressed they were with him.  (That's my boy!) 

He came home with a painted turtle and a box turtle. 

More critters.  The painted turtle is in the outside tank with the 4 goldfish and 1  sunfish.  

The box turtle stays in his room. He's actually kinda cute in a turtleish sort of way.  More personality..... if a turtle can have personality.   I can't get the picture to download for some reason.  (I'm having trouble with photobucket)

1991 Dodge Dynasty is his other critter!   His first car. (Can you believe I didn't get a picture of the car yet?)  He got it at an auction for $250.00  Yep you read it right $250.00.  Insurance is going to cost him quadruple the cost of the car itself!   It is a bit loud, needs muffler work.  His friend thinks it sounds pretty cool.  It ran good for a while but now is cutting out on him occasionally. That's what you get for 250 bucks.  He is trying to get it fixed. But the mechanic we finally talked to doesn't even know what might be wrong.  So there is a silly little prayer request for ya.  My son would sure like to figure out the problem.  (I know, I know. No prayer is silly or little.  But in the whole scheme of things, this is pretty low-priority)

Adam loved the ranch life so much that he is planning on going back to help during haying season.  Which will be from the beginning of July until ???  Maybe TWO months.  I can't believe how fast he is growing.   I think he'd stay if I let him.

A few weeks ago, my boys brought home some baby wild bunnies.   Finally some CUTE critters.   (btw I had a really cool close up picture of the bunny. For some reason it won't post Aarrrg)

While my husband was down working on our property he accidentally dug up a den.  He couldn't believe it when these little baby bunnies started rolling out from in between the teeth of the backhoe bucket.   A few got buried so Tim jumped off and managed to dig them out.  Poor bunnies!  They collected 5 and brought them home.  The next day we went down to ride the motorbikes in the same area and found another.  We gave away all but two. ColoradoFarmGirl's son Danny is an animal lover (wouldn't surprise me a bit if he grows up to be a biologist or something) so he took two. 

Unfortunately they all died!  Even the ones we gave away.   Of the two we kept, the first one died right away. I wasn't really surprised.  The other was doing great.  We had it about a week and it seemed to be eating and drinking well, hopping around and seemed content.  It started acting sick one morning.   Garrett  was holding it and it actually died in his hands.  He was prettty upset. While holding back tears he said that at least we know not to mess with baby bunnies any more.   We talked about how wild bunies are pretty fragile and even if they are raised in a natural evironment they often don't survive.  That is why bunnies have so many babies.  Since we dug up thier den we did our best to give them a chance. 

I don't think it helped.

The Castle is coming along and we now have the zipline up.  My husband rigged up a pulley thingy and they flew away.   Of course after the first ride or two, just hanging wasn't enough.  They started doing tricks, pulling thier legs up so they were upside down, jumping off backwards.

They ALL want mom to do it.  But every time I get up there I am afraid!!  I am not usually so wimpy but for some reason I am for this.    I can't make myself jump. 

 It sure looks like fun.

  If my 10 yr old can do it..... surely I  can.... right?  

OK ladies convince me that it would be a good thing to do.   My boys would think I was sooo cool.  And my husband would get a really great looking grin on his face and be so proud of me. 

This was our house last Sunday after church.   We invited another HS family with a bunch of boys to our house to have an airsoft / paintball 'war'.   Plus a few other friends came as well.  Here is about half of the whole gang. 

The guys had a blast!  You'll notice one sweet girl in the bunch.  This girl is the only one of ..... lets see there are my 4 boys plus the B's 4 boys plus they brought two extra boys... plus the two dad's.... plus her brother plus.....  well, lets just say she was way outnumbered!   But they all agreed that she held her own.  In fact when they were picking teams she was one of the first to get picked.  And no it's NOT because she was a pretty girl.   She's a very good shot. 

And I had to include this picture even though it has nothing to do with paintball.   My sweet littlest is sooo proud of his new bike!  

It is only the middle of March.  I keep telling myself that.  It is not unusual for Colorado to get early April snow showers.   But It sure feels like spring. 

The boys (C and G) started thier yearly critter parade here.    Crawdads!!  Yuck.  The boys were making mazes with legos and putting the poor crawdads through it.  "teaching" them how to find thier way out.     Crawdads now are crawling around in the bottom of our goldfish tank.   LOL  Ahh I love boys. 

Skiing is almost over for this year.  We may get one or two more days in.  This was Bretts first year on skiis.  My other boys did not start skiing until they were older.   I never thought I'd be bringing a 3 yr old skiing.  Our friend who is an avid skier convinced me that he would do fine.   And he did!    John also is an excellent ski teacher and volunteered to teach Brett.  They had a blast. 

The bigger boys all tried snowboarding this year too.  The verdict was mixed as to whether they like skiing or snowboarding better. 

Personally I already know how to ski.   I'm old enough to not need to learn something new.  I decided why sit on my rear all day trying to learn how to snowboard, when I can be skiing?

I sometimes wonder why it is so fun to slide down a hill on two pieces of board strapped to your feet ........  All I know is....... IT IS! 

What my 3 yr old learned yesterday.

It is not nearly as much fun to slide down the stairs in a laundry basket as you think it will be. 

Yes it is possible to stay in the basket during a complete summersault. 

Even if you sit on a pillow in the basket.  Your head will still make contact with the floor. 

Yes he did this all on his own. The other boys were nowhere near.  I couldn't even blame them for instigating the experiment.

We watched Star Wars last night.  Need I say more?

Once again my 3yo came up with a classic saying.  

"uh oh mommy, my bottom growled"

Grace for Gayle also posted a hilarious thing her 3 yo said regarding his successful trip to the potty.  Go and check it out.  I literally laughed out loud.