SABRA AND TROY ARE GETTIN HITCHED!

So the very first Watkins/Lavold grandchild is getting married. I remember looking at ultrasound pictures of Sabra and Brad when they were in my sisters tummy!!! I babysat them ALL THE TIME until they left for Utah. And here she is all grown up and getting married, yikes! Well we are excited for them and wish them well in their marriage. I hear the date is December 13th and it is somewhere in Cache Valley, UT. Keep me posted on the details Sabra. Did you know your ring looks like mine???

Strawberries and all kinds of summer fun!

Having a backyard that is not entirely covered with trees is a good thing when you enjoy gardening. Its nice to be able to do that again. This year we have planted tomatoes, cucumbers, peas, red onion, red potato, broccoli, peppers, carrots, watermelon, beans, and green onion. We also have a fairly large raspberry bush that we are looking forward to sampling. It is so fun to watch it all thrive. We are doing the composting thing which is going ok, but since I'm not a patient person I get frustrated at times.

Water lilies in our pond.

Trampolines are so much fun. Especially in the summer. The kids have been having a great time turning the sprinklers on and jumping on the tramp.


We have all kinds of birds living in our yard. Several times a day you can see them bathing in the pond. We even have 2 nests that we enjoy. The one with the blue eggs is next to our garage and only about 4 feet off the ground. We like to tease the mommy bird a bit. If we walk by and stand any where near her nest she flies out and lands on the grass and starts squawking at us. The one in the petunias is actually in a hanging basket over my front porch. I have been just reaching up to water but the other day I brought it down to give it a good watering and surprise! I thought it was odd that there were 2 different kinds of eggs in there.


We enjoyed a trip to Cuff Family Farms to pick strawberries! It was hot and sweaty but we had a good time with our friends the Summers and Ariana's friend Sienna. One of the benefits of picking your own is that you get to eat all you want while you are picking. There is nothing like a very ripe, warm, juicy strawberry right off the vine. In the evening we made about 18 cups of freezer jam, froze a ton of berries, and had some on vanilla ice cream for dessert. We decided this will be a Watkins family tradition...at least while we live in Appleton.

Ariana's New Glasses

As you can now see Ariana got her glasses. She is shy about wearing them but hopefully she'll come around. We think they are pretty cute on her.

Pond repair was our goal for the Saturday and we got it done, the waterfall is now functioning and we installed a few new underwater lights. Its looking good. Now if we can just get our deck sanded and re-painted, along with the porch railing in front, we will be in good shape.

We had a great Fathers Day. Our friends the Summers had us over for dinner. They have the most amazing garden and we enjoyed fresh herbs in the potatoes, gravy, herbed butter, and the roast chicken which they also raised. It was great to visit with them and see all of our children playing my kids favorite game together- Apples to Apples. Good times for all!

Alayna will be getting her drivers permit AKA "temps" tomorrow and to say she is excited would be an understatement.

Doug and Dakota go to Encampment Thursday through Saturday this week, we are going to miss them and hope the weather cooperates. Then Sunday is our 17th anniversary. My how time flies!

School's Out!!!!

Well it is the end of yet another school year. We celebrated today by going to see the new Narnia movie. It was a good movie...just a bit long, especially for the 3 8-year-olds I had with me. Thanks for coming with us Allie, Sienna, and Forrest!

It has now hit 80 degrees here, and stormy so it is HUMID. I guess we will be pulling out those water toys as soon as the thunderstorms go away.

We had quite a week with our cat meowie getting sick, computer dying, and guess what? Ariana gets to wear glasses now! She picked out some way cool HS musical red glasses to wear when doing classwork and reading. We should have them in about a week and I'll be sure to post a picture then.

The most exciting news of the week though is this...............MY BROTHER JASON IS GETTING MARRIED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Can I tell you how excited I am??? The big day is March 14th and it has been a long time coming! I love you Jason :-) The lucky girl's name is Danielle, she is a school teacher over on the west side of Phoenix. We are so glad and excited to have her as part of our family. Congrats to Jason and Danielle!!!!!!!!!!