Pinewood Derby and Lost Tooth

Underfoot participated in his Cub Pack's Pinewood Derby. He didn't care if he won or not. He just wanted to have fun. And he did. He didn't win.

 The pack held an early weight-in which made our morning very smooth for an 8 am race day. He raced his car 6 times on the 6 lane track, cheered for his friends, and ate muffins and juice at the end.

Hurricane lost his tooth. The tooth started to be loose in November. He didn't want to loose it until my birthday in February. He would push the tooth out of his mouth so it would hang over his lip with his mouth closed. This looked gross.

So finally this last week I told him if he didn't go to bed I would take out his tooth. He didn't go to bed so I pulled the tooth out. He got 25 cents out of the deal.

Lance's sister, Yvette, and 3 of her children came to visit as they drove through on their way home from a trip from Florida.

We were excited to have them visit for 24 hours. We went to both visitor centers for the Saguaro National Park.

All the children worked and received their Junior Ranger badges.

Lance pulled out the International Scout for a drive with Yvette.

Their Grandparents Locey took their grandchildren  in the Scout. When filling the car with fuel, the fuel line broke because the gas line tubing had cracked. Lance lay down on the ground and plugged the line with his finger until he remembered he had a pen in the jockey box of the Scout. After 2 trips to the auto parts store, the fuel filter was replaced with new clamps. We are grateful that the problem occurred at the gas station instead of driving down the road. Lance and Yvette rode together catching up.

We finished pruning our trees as the East Coast got piled with snow.

We got snow too the week before. We put a light on the citrus trees and took pictures.

We've started tracking the number of eggs we get each day following the example at Camp Kirkham. Since January 1, we've collected 93 eggs as of Saturday.

We've added a light to their coop so the ladies are getting 14 hours of light. The egg production went up after they finished molting and got more light. We've even had 1 double yolk egg.

Be Well.

Christmas, New Year's, and Return to Schedule

Christmas - The 3 Kings arrived. The boys were very concerned that the Kings wouldn't show up and had a real difficult time going to sleep. They finally fell asleep around 10:30 pm.

Through out December they had come across some consequences due to their behavior. The month was one of learning for parents as well as children.

Visit to Uncle T-Bone and Auntie M's house - On Christmas Day, we visited and stayed with Uncle T-Bone and Auntie M. Uncle F came from Utah to spend Christmas as did Grandpa and Grandma Locey. We stayed the weekend together. Boys played with cousins, swam in the heated hot tub and not heated pool, and were blessed with remote control cars from the Auntie M's family.

New Year's Eve - During our break we cleaned out closets and the garage. We were invited to our neighbor's for New Year's Eve.

We talked. The boys played games. We came home for a New York midnight.

We celebrated by lighting sparklers in the backyard.

New Year's Bowling - As is tradition, we went bowling, and everyone got a strike.

After bowling, the Earls invited us for a turkey supper.

Pruning - Always in January over winter break, we prune the trees. We have 6 grape vines, a blackberry bramble, and 9 deciduous trees.

Before dark we had prune and chipped 7 of the trees, pulled out old blackberry stalks and burned them, and cut back 80% of the grape vines making 11 wreaths to dry and chipping the rest of the excess. The chickens also got a clean house as well.

Back to School - We went back to school and started off great. No one was late the first week. Yesterday we were late, and today Hurricane stayed home from school with a croupy cough and a cold sore that he didn't want to pop at school. Underfoot called about 45 minutes into school to see if he could come home too.

Día de Los Tres Reyes Magos - The 3 Kings show up in the rest of the world 12 days after Christmas.

We prepared for the Kings, and they came bringing small treats of gum, soda, and cookies.

We had a nice family supper that night with Rosca de Reyes.

 

YSA Activities - YSA stands for Young Single Adults. We've been asked to minister to this group through church. Even though there is a congregation specific to this age group of 18-30 years old, the meeting place is 45 minutes from where we live in one direction. We hosted a supper and watch a devotional by Russel M. and Wendy Nelson. Nineteen YSAs came for supper, a devotional, and food. We hope to build faith and strength for this group.