One of the highlights of our summer is planting and caring for a Owen really loves it and gets excited to watch it grow. He loves to water it!


Owen had just found a worm and turned to tell us with excitement!

Austin found the fallen Grapes and loved them!! Then he figured out that there were lots more on the bush!

Yes, he is not only a trashboy and grap-eater, but also a tornado that makes a big mess and keeps moving on to th next thing to destroy!
Nates new fathers day tent in our living room. We had popcorn and watched a movie. Then had a slumber party! We had to test it out to see if we liked it!! :)







Their new pool!
Austin wasn't a big fan, but Owen and Dakota LoVeD it!!

Nate teaching my sister and I to shoot his big guns while she washere to visit!

My sister and I both decided we are not meant to shoot these and that they are scary!! Believe it or not the little one kicks much harder than the big one. And Notice Nate's smile. He is laughing at how stupid we look and how horribnle we are at shooting!!

Does that not look like a bad tough guy!!
Santa rosa state park swimming pool/Lake.

Dumpster diving

So we now have a dumpster diving baby. Austin loves to get in the garbage and dig out stuff, sometimes to play with others to eat. Somedays he pulls out some hidden treasures! Today he found some yogurt still in the cup, you can guess what he did with it. Sometimes he pulls out old broken toys that I was trying to sneak throw away, or annoying toys. Sometimes it is left over candy. Well today his treasure didn't treat him well. He pulled out a can and sliced his finger on it. Poor Boy. I tried to out pressure on his finger to stop bleeding but it didn't want to. I tried to put a bandaid on as tightly as possible without cutting off circulation, but he pulled it off. oh, my little trashboy. He gets into everything, climbs on everything and learns everything the 1st time he sees it. You can imagine how that is with 2 older siblings who, to put it nicely, can be hooligans. I just got called to be in charge of the Christmas program for our Branch. That will be interesting and a new adventure. The movie theater here is for sale so we are trying to buy it for $60,000. We are trying to get a fat down payment on it and doing the math can have it paid off in 5 years. Nate's over time just got cut off so that puts a damper on plans, but we have prayed about it and have confirmation after confirmation that it is good for us to do. So we will see for sure if money works out or not. We know some may call us crazy and sometimes God's Plan looks crazy from the outside, but you still have to faith to follow and not be chicken. You never know until you try and the worst that happens is you fail and by darn get back up and try again. So we love to hear encouragement, but never discouragement. We get enough of that from the world and ourselves. We love you and can't wait to see you all in August!

ENCHILASAGNA

So a lady in our branch made this yummy, well it is called chicken lasagna but, I think it is a mix so I Call it enchilasagna. It takes a little bit of work to make, but the efforts are so worth it!!

ENCHILASAGNA

8 TBS Butter
8 TBS Flour
4 C milk
1 TBS + 1 tsp Garlic salt, divided
3 tsp parsley flakes, divided
salt, pepper, and red flakesor powder to taste
1.5 lbs boneless skinless chicken breast cut into cubes
1 (4.5 oz) can chopped green chiles, not drained
3 TBS dry onion flakes
2 TBS fresh garlic minced (I used 1 TBS garlic powder)
1 tsp onion powder
12-15 lasagna noodles (your preference)
Grated Swiss cheese
Grated Monterey jac Cheese(these are the flavor key)


Preheat Oven to 350. In a 5 qt. saucepan melt butter over medium heat. Add flour blending well. Slowly add milk stirring constantly untill all is added and mixtureis smooth. add 1Tbs garlic salt, 2 tsp. parsley flakes, salt and pepper and red pepper to taste. Simmer the sauce over low heat, stirring occasionally, while cooking chicken as follows.

Put 1 TBS water in a large skillet and add to pan the chicken (I used Tofu), chiles, onion flakes, garlic, onion powder, 1 tsp parsley flakes, 1 tsp. garlic salt. Cook over medium heat until chicken is white throughout, stirring occasionally, Add cooked chicken to pan of sauce and cook over very low heat for about 15 minutes.
Meanwhile cook lasagna noodles according to package directions; drain well

Mix together 4 cups of cheese in a bowl.

Coat bottom of lasagna pan with a little sauce so lasagna doesn'tstick to pan. Add a layer of 3 lasagna noodles to pan and top with about 1/8 of cheese, then 1/4 of the sauce, then another layer of cheese. Continue layering until all ingredients areused, ending with sauce, then cheese.

Cover pan then bake for 1 hour(I did 375 for 40 minutes). uncover pan and let sit for 15 minutes before cutting portions and serving.

This is so good and the tofu Is good for you and tastes really good in this if you wanted to adventure out and try it. If not chicken is great!!!! It is so worth the work. Out kids love it and Nate loves it!! I also doubled the recipe and made one in a disposable pan and froze it!

Tongue Twisted

So today I was telling Owen and his friends how to crack the coconut on the trampoline. I started to say, " You count to 3 and then y..." my tongue twisted as I tried to make an effort to think of the right word and the only word I could get out was "Ya'll." The language is getting to me. OH NO!!! Just for your interest, some other phrases or words they use here are, yes ma'am, no ma'am, Yes sir no sir and so on. Also, Instead of saying I am going to do this really quick or get this quickly, they say I am going to do this right quick. The first person i heard say it was mt neighbor, I thought it was just a funny phrase she used, then I heard most everyone use it as time went on. Some words they use are not so favorable. I don't here swearing too often, but I always here people take the Lords name in vain. that is hard to hear! I will keep updating you on the different language that is used here. One thing I really liked is how all of the kids say yes ma'am and sir and the adults too. It was hard to here at first just cause I felt old and that their normal short yes or no was prolonged. I am lazy when It comes to speech. If I can shorten I will!! lol