September 26, 2008

Happy Birthday Joshua!

The rush of birthdays has begun. Here is Joshua on his third birthday. It was the longest present opening ever. He wanted to stop and play with each toy after he opened it. It drove the other children nuts. They all wanted to see what were in the packages, and Josh just wanted to enjoy each new toy.


Joshua was nice enough to give me a present for his 3rd birthday we put on some underwear and he has only had a couple of accidents in two weeks. That was the easiest I have ever had it. He is also very accommodating and will let any of the kids take him to the bathroom. Hopefully Isaac is taking good notes!


Here is the clean up after the barn foundations were removed. We learned that the barn had been lined with gravel. The kids and I raked and raked and raked up gravel. We have the blisters to prove it, but I won't bore you with that picture

This is what it looked like after we got the seed spread and scattered 3 yards of compost over it. It was nice to do some hard labor. Michael helped a little in the beginning and Andrew helped me finish it up. It is so nice to have hard working men around!

Here are my babies!

I just love my boys...And they really love each other (at least for pictures;-))
Michael had an unexpected two week vacation, so we have been making the most out of it. He has dutifully chipped away at my 'honey do' list. He managed to get the final gate built and installed. He and Taylor stacked all the wood that we moved from Yuba City, plus some more that we have acquired since we got here. Of course it is for the fireplace that I won't let him burn in until it has a insert installed, and we have now been here three years and still no insert!. We cleaned up and took a load to the dump. I won't bore you will all the details, but I think I am really going to miss him when he returns to work. This has been so nice. On a side note. I could not figure out why I was making so many trips to the grocery store, it is amazing what one more mouth during the day will do to my grocery bill. Who would have thought.

We also tried to do some fun things with the kids while Michael was off. We did have a backyard wienie roast. (My personal favorite!) Michael played board games with the kids. Today we took the whole family geocaching. Not a good idea with 6 kids. It is more of a date night thing. Then we went to take the kids swimming/fishing at Lake Oroville, or maybe Oroville pond might better describe it. I can't even describe how little water there was. But the kids made the most of it. I have not even checked to see if the swim suits will come clean! Ignorance is bliss

Customer service....

So I have a favorite pencil. It is the Ticonderoga. They are one of the more expensive pencils, but I think it is well worth the money. Well, I got lucky and Staples had them $1 a box before school this year. I bought 12 boxes. We have gone through 3 in one month. So I called and complained that the pencils are breaking in the sharpener and the wood is really lousy for some reason. After some investigation I figured out that some were made in Mexico and some in China. The ones that were from China were the bad ones, But the company was willing to replace all 12 boxes...I told them just the 4 made in China boxes would be fine.

I also have a favorite company I like to buy my fruit trees from Stark Brothers. They have a one year guarantee, but unlike Home Depot, it is mail order so I do not have to keep my receipts. So I called them up and they replaced one of my pear trees that did not make it. And the raspberries that were killed while grandpa was teaching Taylor how to use round-up :-(

That got me thinking about the grapes that I bought this last year that did not make it...I purchased them from Gurney's (by the way they have the BEST corn around) So I checked the guarantee on their web site. Theirs was even better, they guaranteed for as long as you lived at the same address. So I called them up and let them know my grapes had not made it this year...I did not include that it was the new puppy's fault, but they did not ask a reason. I also asked if they had a record of some Elderberry trees I bought in 2005. Sure enough they did. After I told them they had died too... they did not bat and eye and shipped me replacements. Of course I would not be surprised if next time I check their website they will have changed their replacement policy(at least for me)... Why does everyone have to suffer for a few bad apples ;-)