Hyram loved chasing the kids around with a squirt bottle
Lots of soupy ice cream by the end! This is Jack, one of our awesome teachers.
Nikki, another of our fabulous teachers, helped run the slip n' slide. She didn't go home very dry.
Hyram kind of got the slide part...we'll work on that.
He pretty much thought this was the best day of his life.
Last Sunday we were able to go visit one of our piano students who was recently diagnosed with Leukemia and take her some gifts. Hyram had a blast playing on their trampoline with her and her siblings.
Meg and Crystal, her piano teacher
We spent a lot of the week weeding, adding bark to our planters, setting up our garden, and planting two apple trees that a friend gave us for free! We're excited to see if we can keep anything alive. In our garden, we just planted sugar snap peas, 6 kinds of pumpkins, and six kinds of squash/gourds. We also planted huge sunflowers. I wonder if those will grow, because I don't think I've ever seen any here in Rexburg. We'll see! I had a garden when I was 14, and it all died within two weeks because I didn't take very good care of it. Luckily, we have a sprinkler system here. That should at least give it a chance of survival!
Hoeing the rows
One of the new apple trees
Bark in the planters
The other apple tree
All planted and ready to grow!
Pumpkins, squashes and gourds
We've never grown peas before! Hopefully our bamboo and twine will do the trick for the vines? To the left of the sticks will be our big sunflowers.
Yesterday, we cleaned out the garage and organized a lot of stuff into the shed. We went out for awhile, and when we got home, David said, "Oh! I forgot we cleaned! I thought we were robbed!"
David played for a wedding a couple Fridays ago, and we decided to do something fun with that money instead of just letting it get lost in our bank account, or letting it go to bills. So we took Hyram and let him get a little trampoline for the backyard. We are hoping it will help him burn up some of his two-year-old tantrum energy. He's had a couple friends over to jump with him, and we've only had one injury so far; Hyram bit the inside of his cheek and got blood all over his shirt.
The other night, we had been working all day long, interviewing and registering new families for lessons, and digging up weeds to get the garden plot ready. We had a booth at a local kids' fair last Saturday and followed up with a handful of families this week. So, at 10:00 PM, we decided to go on a family ice cream run. We ran into Walmart for a minute to pick up a new fixture for our kitchen sink because it sprays us in the face every time we turn it on. We ended up coming home with a new pet fish. We told Hyram he needed to name it, and he said he wanted to call it "Fish." We tried to coach him on how to name something. We suggested things like Bubbles or Jake, Goldie...and he finally said all on his own, "Nemo! He was orange too!" So, now we have a big goldfish named Nemo in a bowl on the island in our kitchen. I think David likes him even more than Hyram.
Our booth at the kids' fair
Hyram surprises me everyday. On Wednesday, I had 8 girls come over for my summer "Babysitters' Club." Four of them are scheduled to come once a week while I am either teaching piano lessons or working on preparing for my class or grading papers. The other 4 are our "backups." They came over for three hours. I had them clean the whole house, learn where everything goes, change Hyram's diaper, play in the backyard with him, make and eat lunch, help me wash the car, and take a walk to the park. I feel slightly guilty that I kind of used them as slave laborers, but I'm really glad I did! I had a beautiful kitchen when they left, and now they'll know what I expect them to do while Hyram is napping. :) By the end of the time, Hyram had memorized all eight of their names. He only knew one of the girls previously. His memory is amazing.
Yay for springtime in Rexburg!
