Oh Zachy!

Just in time for his five year old birthday pictures (Oct. 27th) Zac does THIS! At least it didn't involve a trip to the ER.

Goats?

At first when my parents told me that 40 plus goats were coming to their house I thought they had gone crazy! But then they explained that the goats were rented and were there to work. My parents live on 5 acres of formerly logged land outside of town. In our area of western Washington this means one thing, BLACKBERRIES. Blackberries are wonderful in pies and jam, BUT they are a highly invasive plant and they will completely take over your land if left unchecked. The goats were there to take care of this. The goats were there for three days and made a decent dent in the blackberries, but there is still more to be done. Perhaps a large blow torch would be more effective in getting rid of blackberries?

Trip to Idaho

A couple weeks ago we loaded up the kiddos in the minivan and made the 10 hour drive to Meridian, ID. The drive was made bearable by the kids watching movies (blessings upon whoever invented portable DVD players) and knowing that we were going to visit our good friends the Kelley's.
While we were there we went to a kids' fall festival. The kids had a grand time playing the carnival games. Kelsey got a hole-in-one at the mini-golf, so what if she picked up the ball and dropped it in the hole...it still counts, right? The highlight of the festival was the ginormous "hamster ball." The boys loved it, Reagan tried it reluctantly, she decided she liked it, but only with her Daddy holding her hand.
Notice the picture of the guys playing football with the kids, Jerry is throwing the football while sitting on a deck chair, seriously, can you get more "old guy" than that?! We had a wonderful time and wish we could of stayed longer and that the distance wasn't so great between Meridian and Centralia.