This is behind the shed at the back of our yard. Lots of snowy chicken wire!Sunday, February 28, 2010
More Snow Pictures
Here are some more pictures of the snow we got on the Feb. 12 and 13. Kevin took these pictures early Friday morning. As you can tell when you compare these pictures to the ones where we were making the snowman, quite a bit of snow had melted in just a few short hours.
This is behind the shed at the back of our yard. Lots of snowy chicken wire!
This is behind the shed at the back of our yard. Lots of snowy chicken wire!
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
An East Texas Blizzard!
Last Thursday and Friday we got 6 inches of snow! It snowed all day Thursday but it wasn't cold enough and it didn't accumulate very well. But Thursday night/Friday morning the big storm blew in and it was below freezing so it accumulated! It was so pretty! The older boys were so excited about the snow!
Thursday we went to a Valentine Party that our homeschool group hosted at a roller rink. We played in the snow a little that day but not a lot. Friday, I was mean and made Eli do school first before we went outside. I know it was a once and a lifetime opportunity for him to play in that much snow but we had missed so much school that week and the week prior due to illnesses. It took us two weeks to get one week of work done! So around lunch on Friday, we finally got out and built a snowman. By then the snow had started to melt. I had planned on building a HUGE snowman. But I quickly found out how much work building a snowman is. Add to that chasing a 23 month old in the snow from going to the back yard and keeping the dogs away from the 3 month old, and building any size snowman proved to be quite challenge!
Seth had a hard time walking in his rubber boots.
Eli enjoyed throwing snowballs! And yes, you are correct, he doesn't have on gloves. All we had for him were work gloves. He didn't care one little bit though.
Can you see Silas?
Mr. Snowman and the boys!
Thanks to the Valentine party the day before, Mr. Snowman had facial features! As soon as me and the two younger boys went inside, Poodo, our dog started eating the candy. When Eli came in about 5 minutes later, he said that he ate the rest of the candy to keep Poodo from eating it. I looked outside not long after he told me that and saw that Mr. Snowman had been decapitated. The dogs had taken Mr. Snowman's head with the toboggan on to try and find more candy. I guess dogs have a sweet tooth too!
Thursday we went to a Valentine Party that our homeschool group hosted at a roller rink. We played in the snow a little that day but not a lot. Friday, I was mean and made Eli do school first before we went outside. I know it was a once and a lifetime opportunity for him to play in that much snow but we had missed so much school that week and the week prior due to illnesses. It took us two weeks to get one week of work done! So around lunch on Friday, we finally got out and built a snowman. By then the snow had started to melt. I had planned on building a HUGE snowman. But I quickly found out how much work building a snowman is. Add to that chasing a 23 month old in the snow from going to the back yard and keeping the dogs away from the 3 month old, and building any size snowman proved to be quite challenge!
Seth had a hard time walking in his rubber boots.
Eli enjoyed throwing snowballs! And yes, you are correct, he doesn't have on gloves. All we had for him were work gloves. He didn't care one little bit though.
Can you see Silas?
Mr. Snowman and the boys!
Thanks to the Valentine party the day before, Mr. Snowman had facial features! As soon as me and the two younger boys went inside, Poodo, our dog started eating the candy. When Eli came in about 5 minutes later, he said that he ate the rest of the candy to keep Poodo from eating it. I looked outside not long after he told me that and saw that Mr. Snowman had been decapitated. The dogs had taken Mr. Snowman's head with the toboggan on to try and find more candy. I guess dogs have a sweet tooth too!
Friday, January 1, 2010
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Christmas Blessings
Merry Christmas from our bunch to yours!
Things at the Dickey house are finding a new normal! Our sweet addition, Silas, is doing well. The other three boys, including Seth, adore him. Seth pretty much ignores him. He does like to say "Baby" and make kissy faces at him! I am doing well. Things get crazy and hairy for me sometimes with four boys, but what did I expect?
Starting the first of the year, Kevin will once again be doing relief work. He did relief work for three years before joining Hughes Springs Veterinary Hospital. For those that don't know, relief work is when a veterinarian is self employed and works at different clinics in an area when the owner is out of town, wants a day off, etc. We are hoping this will provide us a little more family time.
On a side note, I thought I better explain why Silas is "naked" in this picture. I saw this sweet picture on the internet in black and white of parents holding their newborn with just a diaper on and they are lovingly looking at the baby. I thought, "Wouldn't that be so sweet to get all of us gazing upon our adorable baby?" Then when it came time for our family photo shoot at 9:00 at night after a Bible Fellowship party at church (yes that is the church's tree not ours!), it didn't take long for reality to set in. Taking picture with four boys is workout. We were lucky to get this ONE good picture out of about 20. Silas crying, Luke goofing off, Seth trying to walk away, Eli...well he was about the only one that behaved. The loving, adoring family picture turned out to be "just get a picture and we want do this again for a few years!"
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
Starting the first of the year, Kevin will once again be doing relief work. He did relief work for three years before joining Hughes Springs Veterinary Hospital. For those that don't know, relief work is when a veterinarian is self employed and works at different clinics in an area when the owner is out of town, wants a day off, etc. We are hoping this will provide us a little more family time.
On a side note, I thought I better explain why Silas is "naked" in this picture. I saw this sweet picture on the internet in black and white of parents holding their newborn with just a diaper on and they are lovingly looking at the baby. I thought, "Wouldn't that be so sweet to get all of us gazing upon our adorable baby?" Then when it came time for our family photo shoot at 9:00 at night after a Bible Fellowship party at church (yes that is the church's tree not ours!), it didn't take long for reality to set in. Taking picture with four boys is workout. We were lucky to get this ONE good picture out of about 20. Silas crying, Luke goofing off, Seth trying to walk away, Eli...well he was about the only one that behaved. The loving, adoring family picture turned out to be "just get a picture and we want do this again for a few years!"
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
Thursday, October 22, 2009
June Travels: Part 3
I started this post nearly a month ago and as usual, stuff happened. I burned our pictures from the trip that were on Kevin's computer onto a CD. I did this so I could use my dinosaur (also known as my desktop computer) and make the post. One Saturday I sat down to load the pictures and finish the post and see that one of my sweet precious children (and I have an idea as to which one it was) had completely deleted my CD drive off my computer. So I gave up.
Since I have a bad case of heartburn tonight, I thought I would pull Kevin's laptop out and try to catch up on some blogging instead of going to bed. Honestly, I would rather go to bed but I know I wouldn't be able to sleep with this raging heartburn. So with no further ado, Part 3 of our June travels!
Our final trip in June was one we look forward to for the past few summers. For the past three years, we have participated in our church's Family Mission Trips. This year the Family Mission Trip was ministering to the beautiful town and people of Creede, Colorado. This was our family's second trip to Creede. The very first family mission trip that our church sponsored in 2007 was to Creede. Creede is an old mining town with only 400 residents during most of the year. But from May until September it expands to about 3000 due to retirees summering there. Tourism is there big industry now since the mines closed back in the 1980s. Most residents have two or three jobs during the summer to try and make ends met the rest of the year.
I believe we had somewhere in the neighborhood of 140 people from our church go on this mission trip. We had several different projects that people worked on. Some went up on the mountains and cut firewood for the church we work with to give out to those who need it during the bitter cold winter months. I believe with what we took up there on two 18 wheelers and what they cut during the week, the church ended up with over 60 cords of wood. We had a couple of construction crews that worked on individual houses and one that reconstructed a day care facility. There were paint crews. The log cabin school was stained and a National Forrest Service Campsite outhouses and cabins/pavilions were painted. There was a yard crew that did yard work at various places. The children also had several projects that they did during the week. They hosted a free car wash that was a huge success, planted flowers at some the houses that the construction crews worked on, sponsored a 4th of July craft day in the park, and they also washed windows and cleaned the sidewalks. And last but not least, we had a crew of people that worked in the kitchen all week feeding us three meals a day.
I worked with the children's projects and Kevin ended up on the paint crew that painted outhouses at the NFS campgrounds. One day, Kevin took Eli with him to paint. Eli really enjoyed getting to go paint.
Rio Grande River at the campsite Kevin helped paint.
The outhouse painting crew.
The head waters of the Rio Grande!
The sun was too bright for Eli!
Mr. Sid and Eli. Mr.Sid oversaw the campgrounds. Kevin got to witness to him throughout the week.
Luke in Kevin's work clothes acting like a clown! What else is new?!?
Eli FINALLY getting to climb the mountain, as he called it, behind the church. He begged to climb it everyday that we were there.
Kevin helping Luke along. Luke was a little scared.
Kevin, Eli, and Luke at the top of the hill behind the church.
The made it safely down to the bottom!
The view of the falls from the top.
We really had a great week. The two older boys loved it! They loved climbing all the mountains and finding lots of rocks. And they both worked hard. Looking forward to next summer's mission trip!
Since I have a bad case of heartburn tonight, I thought I would pull Kevin's laptop out and try to catch up on some blogging instead of going to bed. Honestly, I would rather go to bed but I know I wouldn't be able to sleep with this raging heartburn. So with no further ado, Part 3 of our June travels!
Our final trip in June was one we look forward to for the past few summers. For the past three years, we have participated in our church's Family Mission Trips. This year the Family Mission Trip was ministering to the beautiful town and people of Creede, Colorado. This was our family's second trip to Creede. The very first family mission trip that our church sponsored in 2007 was to Creede. Creede is an old mining town with only 400 residents during most of the year. But from May until September it expands to about 3000 due to retirees summering there. Tourism is there big industry now since the mines closed back in the 1980s. Most residents have two or three jobs during the summer to try and make ends met the rest of the year.
I believe we had somewhere in the neighborhood of 140 people from our church go on this mission trip. We had several different projects that people worked on. Some went up on the mountains and cut firewood for the church we work with to give out to those who need it during the bitter cold winter months. I believe with what we took up there on two 18 wheelers and what they cut during the week, the church ended up with over 60 cords of wood. We had a couple of construction crews that worked on individual houses and one that reconstructed a day care facility. There were paint crews. The log cabin school was stained and a National Forrest Service Campsite outhouses and cabins/pavilions were painted. There was a yard crew that did yard work at various places. The children also had several projects that they did during the week. They hosted a free car wash that was a huge success, planted flowers at some the houses that the construction crews worked on, sponsored a 4th of July craft day in the park, and they also washed windows and cleaned the sidewalks. And last but not least, we had a crew of people that worked in the kitchen all week feeding us three meals a day.
I worked with the children's projects and Kevin ended up on the paint crew that painted outhouses at the NFS campgrounds. One day, Kevin took Eli with him to paint. Eli really enjoyed getting to go paint.
Rio Grande River at the campsite Kevin helped paint.
The outhouse painting crew.
The head waters of the Rio Grande!
The sun was too bright for Eli!
Mr. Sid and Eli. Mr.Sid oversaw the campgrounds. Kevin got to witness to him throughout the week.
Luke in Kevin's work clothes acting like a clown! What else is new?!?
Eli FINALLY getting to climb the mountain, as he called it, behind the church. He begged to climb it everyday that we were there.
Kevin helping Luke along. Luke was a little scared.
Kevin, Eli, and Luke at the top of the hill behind the church.
Spring Creek Pass Continental Divide.
The family at the Spring Creek Falls.
Kevin and Eli decide to climb down the the bottom of the ravine.
The family at the Spring Creek Falls.
Kevin and Eli decide to climb down the the bottom of the ravine.
The made it safely down to the bottom!
The view of the falls from the top.We really had a great week. The two older boys loved it! They loved climbing all the mountains and finding lots of rocks. And they both worked hard. Looking forward to next summer's mission trip!
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
June Travel: Part 2
The weekend of Father's day, found us in hill country of Texas and in the Austin area. Kevin had the honor of being a groomsman in the wedding of John and Elise Mason. We decided to go down on Thursday evening so we could spend Friday doing something fun. We ended up going to the Longhorn Cavern State Park outside of Burnett. It was a really neat cave. The boys seemed to enjoy it.
Waiting for the cave tour to start.
The cave's watch dog. Several Geologists have examined this rock formation and have determined that no tools were used to make this rock formation, thus meaning the rock was formed this way strictly by the river water that formed the cave.
They told us we would see a bear in the cave! If you look closely, you can see that this rock looks like a bear. People are allowed to rub his nose for good luck.
Seth had so much fun in the cave, he passed out!
Friday night and Saturday were spent with wedding festivities. The rehearsal dinner was held in a small community named, Oatmeal! I may never been to New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, or Miami, but I would imagine not many people can say that they have been to Oatmeal, Texas!
The oatmeal can welcoming you to Oatmeal, TX!
Since I was pretty much a single parent of three kids at the wedding, with Kevin being preoccupied with wedding stuff, I did not get to take any pictures of the beautiful wedding or the lovely bride and groom. :(
People bat watching from the ground.
The line of people on the bridge to our left.
To our right facing downtown Austin.
This is the best still photo we got of the bats.
On Father's day we went to McKinney Falls State Park, which is actually inside Austin city limits. You would never know you were only a few miles from downtown Austin. Kevin and the older boys played in the creek while Seth and I relaxed in the shade. Before we left for the day, the boys gave Kevin his father's day present that they picked out. What does a 6 year old and 3 year old want to give their father for Father's day you ask?
GI Joe action figures of course!!! Every dad needs GI Joe toys to play with at work don't they?
Waiting for the cave tour to start.
The cave's watch dog. Several Geologists have examined this rock formation and have determined that no tools were used to make this rock formation, thus meaning the rock was formed this way strictly by the river water that formed the cave.
They told us we would see a bear in the cave! If you look closely, you can see that this rock looks like a bear. People are allowed to rub his nose for good luck.
Seth had so much fun in the cave, he passed out!Friday night and Saturday were spent with wedding festivities. The rehearsal dinner was held in a small community named, Oatmeal! I may never been to New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, or Miami, but I would imagine not many people can say that they have been to Oatmeal, Texas!
The oatmeal can welcoming you to Oatmeal, TX!Saturday night after the wedding, we drove to Austin to spend the night. We got there in time to check out the bats at the Central Ave. bridge. An estimated one and a half million mexican free-tail bats make their home under the Congress Ave. bridge. Every night between mid-March through early November the bats emerge from under the bridge and literally blanket the sky. I really thought there would be only a handful of people on the bridge to watch the bats come out for the night. But I was wrong. As you see from the pictures, it is a quite popular attraction in Austin.
People bat watching from the ground.
The line of people on the bridge to our left.
To our right facing downtown Austin.
This is the best still photo we got of the bats.Just to give you an idea of just of how many bats there were, here is a video of some of the bats flying out from under the bridge.
On Father's day we went to McKinney Falls State Park, which is actually inside Austin city limits. You would never know you were only a few miles from downtown Austin. Kevin and the older boys played in the creek while Seth and I relaxed in the shade. Before we left for the day, the boys gave Kevin his father's day present that they picked out. What does a 6 year old and 3 year old want to give their father for Father's day you ask?
GI Joe action figures of course!!! Every dad needs GI Joe toys to play with at work don't they?It was really fun weekend. The boys still talk about the bats and the cave.
June Travels: Part 1
June was a whirlwind of a month for us so I thought I would divided it up into small portions. Instead of one huge post. (Thanks Ashley for the idea!!!)
It started out with VBS June 7-10. Our theme this year was Studio Go Game Show. It was a fun week for the kids and the volunteers. I was co-director of VBS this year. I believe that there were two or three children who accepted Christ as their Savior during VBS! That made all the running around, hounding, I mean, calling people worth it!
Bible School was Sunday through Wednesday. That Friday after VBS was over, we went to Ashley and Chuck's for the weekend. It was the weekend of the Texas Blueberry Festival in Nacogdoches, where they live. We woke up early Saturday morning, to stand in line for 45 minutes in the Texas heat, to eat some yummy blueberry pancakes for breakfast. They give you three pancakes on a Styrofoam plate and the pancakes are as big as the plate itself! We bought four plates. The lady thought we were crazy but out of all four plates that we bought, there was only a few bites left over. We have some pancake eating fools at our house! We also got to enjoy some refreshing and yummy blueberry lemonade inside one the banks downtown. And we took in the Cowboy Max show at another bank downtown. We tried to find all the indoor stuff we could because it was super hot that day. Eli got to be Cowboy Max's deputy during the show! If you want to see pictures from the weekend, check out my sister, Ashley's blog. She actually took pictures and I didn't! I am not even sure if I took a camera at all!
We enjoyed our weekend at the Flurrys. This was our first time to spend the weekend with them. I am sure it want be the last. Eli will make sure we attend the Blueberry festival again since he is a HUGE fan of blueberries!
It started out with VBS June 7-10. Our theme this year was Studio Go Game Show. It was a fun week for the kids and the volunteers. I was co-director of VBS this year. I believe that there were two or three children who accepted Christ as their Savior during VBS! That made all the running around, hounding, I mean, calling people worth it!
Bible School was Sunday through Wednesday. That Friday after VBS was over, we went to Ashley and Chuck's for the weekend. It was the weekend of the Texas Blueberry Festival in Nacogdoches, where they live. We woke up early Saturday morning, to stand in line for 45 minutes in the Texas heat, to eat some yummy blueberry pancakes for breakfast. They give you three pancakes on a Styrofoam plate and the pancakes are as big as the plate itself! We bought four plates. The lady thought we were crazy but out of all four plates that we bought, there was only a few bites left over. We have some pancake eating fools at our house! We also got to enjoy some refreshing and yummy blueberry lemonade inside one the banks downtown. And we took in the Cowboy Max show at another bank downtown. We tried to find all the indoor stuff we could because it was super hot that day. Eli got to be Cowboy Max's deputy during the show! If you want to see pictures from the weekend, check out my sister, Ashley's blog. She actually took pictures and I didn't! I am not even sure if I took a camera at all!
We enjoyed our weekend at the Flurrys. This was our first time to spend the weekend with them. I am sure it want be the last. Eli will make sure we attend the Blueberry festival again since he is a HUGE fan of blueberries!
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