We have had a lot of things go on this summer, so much in fact that this blog has been slightly neglected. I ( Jessica) have taken it upon myself to compile a few of the fun things we have been able to do this summer. Because of unfortunate circumstances, most of my Dad's side of the family was in town. We all got together at David and Gina's house for a BBQ. Despite the sad undertone, I think we all had an enjoyable time.

 Derek is a funny boy, he only likes a handful of people ( all family ) and the rest he is terrified of. If they come into his three foot bubble he start crying. Grandpa is one of the lucky ones. Derek just gives him a shy face and giggles. Most of the time that is where he tries to run.... but hey, at least he isn't crying. 

 Aunt Jamie and her family where able to come out. It had been awhile since we had seen them. It was Ellie's mission to get Jake and Derek to like him. it wasn't til the last day he was here when both kids where having fun playing with Uncle Ellie in the backyard.

most of the boys joined in on an impromptu basketball game. Sorry if the pictures are kinda fuzzy, my camera has a hard time with action shots.

Here is Grandpa playing with his Grandkids. They love him and have so much fun exploring and learning with Grandpa.

It was also my Dad's Birthday in July.

He turned 50!

 I had a birthday party over at my house. We had balloons, cake and presents.

It was nice having Angie there.  Grandpa G also came over for the party. Jake was super anxious while Dad opened his gifts. Happy birthday Dad!!

Images for Grandma H.

Here a  few images of Grandma Hawkins and family.  I thought you all would like to see a few images. 

We have many found memories with grandma at the cabin.  It was always more fun when she was with us.  We loved taking walks to look for flowers, fossils, deer, elk, bear etc.  She was a naturalist at heart.

Angie and Grandma at a party. 

Lynne and Grandma having some fun playing games.

Auntie Anne and Grandma at Jessica and Dan's wedding. 

Four beautiful women.  A very proud mother and her three daughters. 

Grandma was a good badminton player. She enjoyed playing games with us.

At Kim and Greg's pool.  Cooling off during one of our family swim parties.

Playing a game downstairs in grandma's basement.  I think it was a family Christmas party.  She is protecting her duck from Heather.

Grandma has a wonderful smile.  She had a way of making me laugh.

We went to Thanksgiving Point with Grandma Dan and Jessica. 

One of Grandma's favorite knarly trees up at the cabin. We stopped for a picture as we went on a walk over to the spring on the west side of the cabin.

Lynne and Grandma chilling together in our basement.

Angie did a report on Rue and we went over and took some pictures with Grandma.  She really loved this bird and Rue loved Grandma.  It was fun to watch them interact.  Ever since I knew grandma she has had an exotic bird. The first bird I can remember was an African Gray..... I cannot remember the name.

Grandma loved the stadium of fire.  She always invited us every year.

We took Grandma to San Diego a few years back.  Kim, Greg and family went with us. We had a wonderful time.  Jamie and Grandma are sitting at a picnic table at Mission Bay.

We wanted to go deep sea fishing and grandma did not miss a beat. She was an adventurous person and I was impressed with her desire to stay involved with her children.  She always made me feel welcome. 

Jamie hanging out as we drive out to the fishing spot. 

One of my favorite images of Grandma. 
We miss her dearly and look forward to the time we can be together again. 

Fall at the Pumpkin Patch

Tradition says we will visit the Vineyard pumpkin patch at least once.  We have fun watching the kids interact with each other and all the fall stuff on display.  The last few years we have gone with the Astins.

I wish the lighting was better but we did get a shot of three of the Astins with the pumpkins.  Next year vineyard should get a hold of me if they want some real big ones on display.  Ha!

They had a big corn maze and the kids ran around with the exploratory freedom that only a child can enjoy. Derek was fearless as he explored the maze. 

I was showing him some of the corn and before I could say don't eat that he stuck it into his mouth and tried to take a bite.  This was not a staged photo as he was looking at the corn he decided to have lunch.

Jacob being the young naturalist that he is, tried to dislodge some seeds.  He found it harder than expected.  Both of the boys are very intreged with nature. I think all kids start off as scientists and as they get older though the process of trying to protect them we turn them off to science.  We use the words gross, dangerous etc.   I am still guilty of doing that.  I guess the trick is to say and do things that keep them safe without creating any anxieties of the natural world.   I hope to get that down with my grandchildren.

I love looking at their squash / gourd trellis.  Both of the boys were trying to jump up and grab anything they could get there hands on.   Jacob has some hops and Derek was working on it. 

This image just made me think OUCH!

Derek is suppose to be in the bottom but he became distracted or Heather was not doing her job.  Ha!

Everybody in the right spot and looking at me as well.  Miracles do happen.  Three nice pumpkins... finally after 173 images.  This was not an easy task. Good job guys.

They also have a few toys for the kids to play on.  Jacob was trying to climb up the slide but find it challenging and accepted some help from a kind mother. It is so nice to see other people help and support children other than their own.  This is what makes a community work.

Jacob running down the slide vocalizing his joy only like children can do.  I think the rest of us (old people) need to learn from these kids.  We needed to find something that gives us the same joy.  That can be watching the kids.... growing a world record beet or just experiencing a wonderful sun set with someone you love or seeing a new species of insect for the first time.

Jacob gets gnarly on the slide.... can you say air time.

Jacob picks out his favorite pumpkin.  Of course we all tried to show him one that we thought was better but being true to himself he had his own opinion and selected this wonderful pumpkin.

Don't turn your head because this little guy we go off exploring at any chance.  I think he over turned every little squash he could until it was time to go buy our stuff. 

Thanks you guys for spending an afternoon with us. Until next year !

A Little of This and That

 

This summer Mom, Rachel and I had a little chicken carving in-service.  Mom is the expert at carving up a bird.  Thanks Mom!  It is so much cheaper just to by the bird and cut it up.When ever we had wild game, fish etc. Mom would be there to help us prepare the catch.

 After cutting up the bird we fried up the bird.  I love grandma's fried chicken.  As a kid it seemed as though we had fried chicken once a week.

We took Grandpa fishing at Utah Lake.  The bite was slow but I think he enjoyed himself. 

Casting to the other side of the channel in hopes to catch a big walleye or white bass.  Grandpa has caught so many fish from the Lindon boat harbor.  He consistently caught the biggest walleye and catfish.

 

The days catch....

Four species....

 Grandpa instructs Richie on the proper techniques to assemble a honey bee super.  Supers are the boxes the bees store their honey..... tasty.  Grandpa put many of these boxes together for me.  He has assembled hundreds of frames to go in the boxes.

 One of my first chances to hold Oliver.  What a wonderful little man. 

 We had a big water fight in the backyard this summer.  Derek participated but went and collected some Jacob-berries and tucked them away in his shirt.   Nice belly Derek!

 Richie and Jimmy moved some honey supers.  Our hives did not survive this year.  It was very disappointing but they did make lots of honey.  We still have many frames to extract.  We will be getting some new packages (bees with a queen) this spring.

 Grandpa, Lynne and I went on the pumpkin tour this year. We drove up to Brigham City and had breakfast at a local growers home.  Grandpa was very impressed with his setup and was excited for this gentlemen and his giant pumpkin. 

 We drove south a ways and saw another growers setup.  The pumpkin tour was a great time with Grandpa.  Grandpa was sick during the actual pumpkin weigh off and was not able to come see. We were excited he got to come on the tour. 

 After visiting all the growers Grandpa, Lynne and I had a late lunch at Hee Haw farms.  We took a walk together out into the sunflower fields.  He loved to explore.  We just walked around the farm... in fact we got lost for a little while looking at all the plants, insects and animals. 

 Jimmy an Rachel grew a very big pumpkin this year.  A beautiful white pumpkin.

 The pumpkin got a little hole that started it to rot. We decided to pick and weigh it. 

 Grandpa wanted a trim and Heather and Rachel got the cutters out and trimmed it up nice.  We all had a good time helping grandma and grandpa.

 One of the plants grandpa took care of was the sunflowers right out the front door.  He would fill gallon buckets with diluted fertilizer daily. 

 Grandpa had a great time tending the gourds.  Grandma was very interested in seeing how big the grouds would get.  Grandma talked about how big they would get, I am sure she had a chance to see them from above. 

 When I got home from school grandpa would hop out of bed and say.... get the tape measure, lets see how much the gourds grew. 

 He had a good eye on their growth...... he would look at the gourd....and say about 2 inches.  We always had to estimate before measuring. 

 Jacob enjoyed watching looking at the sunflowers.

 The beginning of one of the biggest we grew this year.

Developing seeds.... I think this variety was called Sunzilla

 My "Mickey Mouse" sunflower...do you see it. 

 Grandpa checking the garden.  Despite his limitations he was an integral part of our gardening team.  I desperately miss our conversations about the garden.

 One of Granpa's big beets.  I still have this beet.  We are going to collect it's seeds and breed it with some plants we are getting from Europe. Grandma helped grandpa water and moved the hose around the yard to make it easier for him to water both the front and back of the yard. 

 We decided to grow a few pumpkins and sunflowers on the side of the house. 

 On July 4th we had a flag in the yard the it was blowing behind one of my sunflowers. 

 Here is my gourd trellis.   The top of the trellis is 10 feet from the ground below.  The vines started to grow into the apple tree on the right and the peach tree on the left.

 Jacob, Derek and Jessica came to the pumpkin weigh off this fall (Sept. 27th).  Jacob is saying something to the pumpkin.  Only the pumpkin knows what words of wisdom he shared. 

 The family checking out  the biggest pumpkins in the state of Utah.

 Here is the Utah State champion..... 1600 pounds. 

 Derek and Jacob enjoying the day.

 Here are our three big pumpkins of the year. The middle one is my Washington, Richie grew the white one on the left and Jimmy grew the orange on the right.  It was nice to have David and his family come and share experience. 

 Two of these gourds are mine along with the beets. You have to attach the gourds to a 2x4 or they can break very easily. 

 I am officially weighing my pumpkins... ok no wise cracks.

 We officially made it on the board but as the day went on there were pumpkins that easily dwarf our big summer fruits.

 I took third place in the state for long gourds.  Next year with some of grandpa's ideas we will come up with a new personal best.  He had some awesome ideas that I do not dare share on the internet. 

 This is another shot of the Utah state record pumpkin.  Check out the size of the stem. Jim or Lynne took this picture for me.  I was mesmerized by this big beautiful fruit. 

 We got some bunnies this summer.  The boys enjoyed petting the little creatures.  Our female bunnies just had their babies a few weeks ago.  I will post a few images of the little guys.

Take care you all.  I will be posting more often.