Morning Walks continued 2

Here's the last of the pics from my walk this morning. There's a shot that includes our house from afar, our neighbors flowerbeds, which I love, a deer (I almost always see five or six on my walks each morning), and a multi-colored cow family. The sunrise was beautiful. It's great to be outside before the world gets too busy.

Morning Walks continued

This tree in the shape of a rainbow is my favorite in all of Emery County. I love it.

Have any favorites of the morning walk pics? Let me know. I'd love to hear your opinions!

Morning Walks

I finally got with it this week and decided to overcome my laziness. I've started getting up at 5:45 each morning to walk for an hour before Jared has to be to work at 7:00. I walk out into the country, the most quiet and dog-free zone in town.

I've discovered some great opportunities for photography along the way. This morning I decided to take along my camera and capture a few scenes from my journeys. Since I've been walking since Monday, the following pictures I am counting for each day of the week thus far... he, he, he. More to come in the next post.

Swimming lessons

Kimball and Koria started swimming lessons on Monday. They are doing great, but still have a lot of learn. I have to say, they are doing much better than I ever did. Here are some pictures that I have taken this week during their lessons.

This girl? Well, apparently she's 5. I talked to her mother. She wasn't happy -- you be the judge as to which one. I sympathize with the kid. That would have been me as a 5-year-old in swimming lessons too. It's no wonder I'm a terrible swimmer.

Their lessons started on Monday and will run through Friday of next week. With that, T-ball games, a doctor's appointment for Layne, more yard work, and life as the Black family knows it, we're having a great week.

Friday and Saturday

The weekend was taken up by more yard work. We already had the landscaping tarp, the pins, the rocks, and an offer from a friend of Jared's on the school board for free perrenial starts, so we decided to create another planting bed out in front of our house. It took some work, but it came together well. We hope that all the flower starts will bloom and look great next year.

Remember the Idaho Locust tree that began to bloom at the start of last week? Well, it's in full bloom now. Looks great. The top three pics are just more views of our yard and some of the flowers in the planting beds. It's been worth all of the work.

Thursday, June 9th?

On a side note, Layne had three therapists over on Thursday for a visit, and the one who represents the school for the blind brought us this amazing kindergarten reading library that the School for the Deaf and Blind was just going to get rid of. Koria and Kimball read all of the book that day, and I worked with them to separate all of the magnetic letters to spell out sentences on magnetic boards that also came with the set. It will be a great learning resource this summer. They are doing great with their reading and comprehension skills.

Busy week. Is it ever any different? In between all of this, we've been doing more yard work. I'll include some more shots from around the yard a bit later, but these pictures are mostly from Thursday night's game. I did get around to doing Kor's hair, thank goodness. Luke and Layne were not about to sit it out in the car, so about two minutes into the game, I braved taking them out to sit on the sidelines. Luke just walked around, clapping whenever anybody else did. Layne was having a great time pulling up grass and trying to eat it. Nothing like a little extra fiber in the diet to make a Thursday night great! I made chocolate chip cookies for the team earlier in the day for a treat afterward. The kids got some great hits and did a wonderful job. It's great to have an atmosphere that's not about competition, but all about teaching the kids and having a fun time.

More Zoorassic Park

Here's a few more from Wednesday. I love the ones of K&K getting sprayed by the dinosaurs!

Hoogle Zoo

Wednesday morning when we woke up, Jared randomly turned to me and said, "Do you want to take the kids to the zoo today?" Why not, right? We scored some great discount tickets and ended up only having to pay for he and I, so the cost was cheap, the weather just right. There was a special exhibit going on called "Zoorassic Park." Anamatronic dinosaurs are set up all throughout the zoo, some of which spray out water on the kids. Koria was scared to death of the T-Rex. I had a hard time getting her to stand in front of it for a picture!

Anyway, here's a few pictures from our outing. It was a great way to spend to day together as a family, and all but Layne had a great time. (She's another story ...)

More Tuesday night T-ball

The dogpile as all of the boys fight for the ball ...

Kor on 2nd, Kimb running to 3rd.

Jared pitches the ball to each of the kids until they get a hit and if it is too hard for the kids to get a hit that way, they set up the T for them to use. Most of the kids were all able to get a hit though. Jared's learned where each of them likes to swing and tries to pitch the ball to them there.

T-ball Continued

Here's just an example of what it's like to watch Kimball as he stands on second base.

No need to say more.