Flake Fun

 It has been a while and we have been busy.  Summer temps arrived with a vengeance so we are working to stay cool.  

We are enjoying the summer reading program activities.  Most recently we spent an hour or so at the park with the Dino Crew meeting and learning about dinosaurs.

Scott had a good birthday and the kids had fun making him a little treasure hunt to help him find his presents.  

We spent a day in Mesa recently visiting Grannie Bailey and swimming at an awesome city pool.  There were several pools but the kiddie pool that we were in was 18 - 24 inches deep and had a water structure as well as 2 water slides.   The kids had a blast.  

As far as the house goes, we are making progress, slowly but surely.   We are scheduled to get our roof trusses on July 28th.  We have been working on getting the front porch area prepped and we are planning to pour the garage pad, front porch, back porch posts and fireplace this coming Friday.  Then walls will start to be built!! 

Rebar in the garage waiting to be poured.

Back filling the front porch trench. 

This is the front porch trench that needed to be filled in. 7-8 feet deep.

Front porch ready to be poured.

Setting the French drains

French drains covered and completed. 

Since we are nearing monsoon season, we purchased a 50'x70' tarp to cover the subfloor.  It took us several hours to get it placed on the house.  The next day it rained and we discovered that it did a decent job keeping the rain out but where rain did get in, it wasn't allowing the wood to dry out so we had to take it off.  Hopefully the true monsoon rains will wait until August to come!

Love you all!

Hyde Happinesses

 Hello all! I am getting so excited to come and see some of you! I’m a little nervous about the flights because Beckham has become an adorable menace, but we will survive😂

I don’t really have a lot to say today but I do love yall. We did hear back from our landlord about our house and until rent to own situation. Basically our rent will stay the same, but we’ll take on utilities and repairs, and 100% of the rent would go toward a down payment. So that was all really good news, until she said she wanted to sell it in 3 years… for $1.2 million. So. That was a little bit of a bummer. We’re going to try to convince her to let us do 5 or 7 years, but we’re not too hopeful about that. But we still have at least 3 years left in this house, so everyone come party with us!! 

I don’t like eating it but I sure like making it

Derby day! Another great underdog story

We have some really great neighbors

Louisville zoo is a blast

A very yummy Mother’s Day

We couldn’t help it so now Stetson is a real cowboy

This is him at any social event. He’s rather odd

Kentucky sunsets >>>>

Nick came to visit!!

A cake for a baptism 

Flake Fun

Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on how you look at it, we didn't get the lovely rain that Utah and Idaho did.  But we did get the sub floor on!!

Now we have a ton of small projects to do while we wait 6 weeks for the roof trusses to be built.  We are getting there!!

We started our summer reading program through the library and we are really enjoying it.  

All of our plants seem to be doing well.  I am hoping for a good monsoon season once the house is dried in.  Hauling water is exhausting but it will be worth it when I see the shade.  

Love you all!! 

Flake Fun

 Building, building, waiting and building some more.  That sums up our life here.

It is definitely easier to remember to put a door opening in before you pour cement than to have to cut it afterwards.

But Scott got it cut out.

Jack hammering out the drainage ditches for the French drains around the basement.

Our little oak trees (and others) are doing well. Several of them are caged up and the cows haven't destroyed the cages so they may survive!!!

7:00AM on Saturday morning

4:00PM on Saturday afternoon.  A brutal day for sure but a good friend helped us out and we are nearly ready for our inspection. 

Hyde Happinesses

 Always so fun to see everyone’s posts. Sure love you guys. 

April has totally flown by! It’s been a good, very full month. Cam is in full swing at work. It’s long and tiring for him, but he really enjoys what he does and is getting excited for the future of the business. He does all the administrative work, so once the kids are asleep, he’s back at it. I’m really glad he likes it! 

The boys keep us busy. Especially Beckham. My word. He’s all over the place. I don’t remember following Stetson all day long. Maybe we just lived in a smaller place and I didn’t have to worry about it. But Beck? If it’s not one thing I can most certainly say it’s another! He gets into everything. Within seconds. Negative seconds. Time moves backward in his favor. Luckily I’m getting used to closing doors and making sure I have everything closed up as good as I can. The garbage can is still my nemesis and beckham’s favorite toy. We’re missing many spoons and forks. But he really is delightful besides making me run all over the place. And Stetson is as good as they come. He’s bossy and truly a third adult in our house. Cam and I are agreed he actually has more patience than both of us combined. He’s absolutely brilliant. We got him a pair of cowboy boots and now I’m hooked. My boys will have boots and cowboy hats and we will have a herd of horses and I’m so stoked. Beckham cannot get enough of Daisy. Well, he can’t get enough of riding her. Every time he’s up close to her face he’s not a fan, but once we put him on her he does not want to get off and throws a royal fit when we take him down. Stetson isn’t quite that attached yet, but he loves giving her carrots and checking to make sure she has plenty of water. 

Cam and I both had birthdays and they were both very chill and lowkey, just right for me! I made Cam a cheesecake for his birthday and it actually turned out so I was ecstatic about that! And he made me a delicious carrot cake. 

There’s not too much else going on. We ate some of our strawberries the other day! Quite delicious. That’s one fruit that isn’t even close to store bought. The races just finished at Keeneland which means I can finally leave my house whenever I want to and not run into bumper to bumper traffic everywhere I go. We are hoping to nail down our landlord this week to see what her plans are for the house and see if we can arrange a rent to own situation. Also, our landlords brother (the one who lives next door) told us he will probably be selling his house in the next 10-15 years, so someone start saving because he’s got a gorgeous 10 acre lot. Complete with a swimming pool. We’d love to have any one of you as next door neighbors!

Flake Fun

 We have been building the house...that is about it.  But it is coming along. We have run into a small snag in getting power out to the property but I have been put in charge of that project so I will prevail and hopefully get the ball rolling. 

We also got 6 chicks and we are moving them outside this week!  

Oh, and we got lots of trees from Pitkin Nursery so I have been hauling water to try and keep them alive.  I am really getting connected with my inner pioneer, walking to the creek and filling my bucket to water them...all 31 of them.  One day we will have shade!! 

Love you all!

Nilsson News

 Well folks, it has been a minute! I really can't understand how the time flies so rapidly!  Since it was spring break up at BYUI this past week, the weather decided to turn back to winter or rather, be the winter we never had. The temps dropped and we even got snow. I hope that maybe some of the blossoms didn't get completely zapped but that may be wishful thinking.

We were able to go down to Lehi and stayed at Thanksgiving Point. We got the all access pass and did all the things in one day. The dinosaur museum and Jurassic jungle, the butterfly biosphere, the curiosity museum and carousel, and finally the gardens and tulip festival. It was so much fun and we were completely exhausted by the end of it. We met up with the Mannings at some of the museums and that was a blast. The next day we went and hung out with the Belliston gals since their boys were out camping (in the wintery weather). On our way home, we stopped at the Mannings and Lauren and I were able to get some blackberries planted and some weeds destroyed. It was a great little trip even if it was a bit chilly. I don't know why everyone gives us Idahoans such grief about our cold weather because it was the same down in Utah and even over in Kentucky when we were there. The wind blows other places besides Idaho folks!

Addy and I had a fantastic time with the Hydes in their little piece of paradise. It is gorgeous and it made me wonder why the west has to be so ugly? We are trying our darndest to make it beautiful but it's a constant uphill battle! 

We are gearing up to remodel our garage into a living room so that will be great. Lori had a fantastic idea to take the whole Belliston crew and rotate between everyone's homes for a couple weeks here and there and get the projects knocked out. We could start out at the Flakes, and then the Belliston's, the Mannings yard, followed by the Harts and Nilsson's homes. We could do a grand adventure to Texas just for fun and then take a jaunt to the Hyde's to ride their horse. Sounds like a good plan to me! We are looking forward to more consistent lovely days and being outside!

I'm still blown away with the expansiveness of these horse farms! No barbed wire and t-posts here! The Hydes are perfect hosts and we look forward to returning at some point!

We got 17 new chicks and they are always so fun. They have moved out to the chicken coop and that is always a happy graduation from the box in our garage.

How does Addy look as a rebel? This is one of her costumes for her clogging dance, "I Love Rock N' Roll."

We had a pretend Passover meal for Easter and it taught our kids to have patience. It was definitely not a quick one!

Two cute babies so far! Dusty and Violet. And yes, Violet still has super curly hair like in the picture. So cute!

Emerson has completed two guitar builds so far and has started on the third. The lighter one is a bass that he made from a kit. The electric guitar below is completely from scratch. He found the 2x6's in the barn and glued them together and shaped the body, he made his own pickups with copper thread and magnets and laser cut the fret board. I have no idea how he does it!

Fun things at Thanksgiving Point!

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