Nilsson News

This week we celebrated haircuts for all the girls!  We no longer look like shag-muffins!  We went with a pixie cut for Eliza and short a-line for Addy and the regular for me.  It is perfect for this hot summer weather that has decided to move in.
Garrett went on high adventure with the priests and teachers this past Friday and Saturday.  They went on a 53 mile bike ride to the hot springs and back.  All went well until Garrett's bike had a mishap which sent him flying over the handle bars and he landed on his head.  Thankfully he was wearing a helmet because the helmet got cracked and his head did not.  He is achey and sore and has a few scratches and bruises but it could have been a lot worse, so we are counting our blessings.
We got our shutters finally finished  and they are now hanging on our house.  We bought some shrubs and landscape rocks so now we are ready to put our front flower bed back together.
Things are busy but good.  Now for some pictures!

As you can see from the before picture, there used to be juniper shrubs, three burning bush and one huge crabapple stump.  They are now all gone and there are shutters on the windows that we made from salvaged pallets from our wood shed.

This is the first phase of our sunroom demo. It opens things up a ton and has made a huge difference!

Blah garage door and then....Fun garage door!

And lest you think we don't do anything, here is proof that we do a few fun things occasionally.

 At the local dairy getting some yummy raw milk or as the kids say "real cows milk"

 Doing a river run in at Henry's Fork

 Henry's first few words have been very important ones like, "dirt, hammer, ouch, and stuck"

 Beautiful Girls!

Flake Fun

31 July 2016 - Where has the summer gone?  School is starting here in 2 weeks and it is hard to believe!  But it has been a good summer and I'm ready for things to cool down a little bit. 

This week went by quickly.  I spent 3 days in Phoenix at an infectious disease conference which had some interesting parts to it.  The opening speaker was from the CDC and talked about a recent Salmonella outbreak that she had investigated.  It came from bearded dragons!  So, for any of you that are contemplating getting a bearded dragon or other lizard/reptile creature, let's chat before you do!  I might not sway your decision but I can give you some safety tips to think about!  (The CDC -Centers for Disease Control- doesn't recommend that families with children under 5 have those types of animals in the house!)

Our garden is doing really well.  I came home to find a 5 pound zucchini on the counter!  We have given quite a few zucchini's away which has been fun.  Last night we had fresh garden corn on the cob and tonight we are having dutch oven veggies with garden potatoes and broccoli!  Yum!!!

The house is coming along...

Hope you all have a wonderful week!  Can't wait to see you all in a few weeks!

Hart Happenings

So, I'm sure it's the same for everyone, but this summer is going by in a blur! We've had birthdays, surprise visits from family, made some new friends, and worked like crazy! The weather has been very hot and summery. Here are some pics to chronicle our activities during our recent blog absence. 

At Yellowstone for my birthday. 

At the zoo. 

The monarch butterfly we found as a caterpillar on a hike and brought home a watched hatch!

At scout day camp. 

At a friend's birthday. 

Peter's broken pinkie. Doesn't seem to bother him too much. 

Collecting seeds at garden class. 

It's been a great summer so far! We've made some great plans for the Family Gathering and will start sending out official information soon!  It'll be excellent!

A little sad in Happy Hyde Park

We have taken a month hiatus from the blog for a variety of reasons.  Mostly long Sundays and a crazy schedule, but it's time to resume contact with the outside world - or at least the inside world of Bellistons.

Today is a sad day here.  After a month of raising sweet little Donald Duck, he died this morning. Emma has felt for a long time that there was something not quite right with him.  But she took good care of him, feeding him special food and even catching bugs for him, made sure he got out in the sunshine and had water to swim in.  Emma and Dad went to Salt Lake early this morning to be with Grandpa and Christi for a Pioneer/Family History Day. Donald was still alive when they left, but when I went out to go to church, he had died.  I have been very sad all day.  Why is it so hard to see a little lifeless body, even if it's a butterfly, bird, or duck?  It was very sweet for Emma to have Donald to care for, even for a short time.  Lots of life lessons...

I agree with Ruth - the Tabernacle Choir Pioneer Day Concert was incredible.  They had the King's Singers perform with them, and boy were they good!  Very inspiring music.  Be sure to watch it if you can.

When I read about Jenn and Scott, and Ruth and Garrett, and Elise and Alex all doing fix up jobs I feel extremely lazy!  No such thing happening here!  We do have our driveway finished and will probably start driving on it again this week.  But that wasn't really our work.  We did help Lauren and Nick move a few things to their new apartment, but they have a lot of packing and unpacking work left to do.  We just kind of putter around here.  Well, I should say I putter.  Dad works hard outside whenever he is home.  The garden is growing well, especially the weeds.  But we also harvested our garlic and our onions and have enjoyed some very tasty raspberries.  I think we have beans coming on - maybe two, like Scott.  It should be a fairly productive harvest in the end, and then I will work at cooking and preserving it all!

Thomas and Victoria came Friday and watched fireworks with us for the Hyde Park pioneer celebration and Emma was in the parade yesterday and served watermelon slices at the celebration at the park.  She has 2 more parades tomorrow.  It's fun for her to be a princess :)

We are trying to get things arranged for our trip to Alaska.  There is a lot to do before we go. Mostly I'd like to get the 6 babies who are due, to come before we leave!  Not sure that's going to happen, but we are hoping it does.  Dad is going to Cedar City a couple of days before we leave and will be flying from Cedar to Salt Lake, arriving just minutes before we have to take off for Vancouver.  Keep your fingers crossed that the timing all works out!  We will be gone from August 5 to August 18.  If you want to come and keep Emma company and take care of Chester and the other animals, you are more than welcome!

Dad will be creating a new ward next Sunday.  They will have to meet in another church building, which will be strange, but necessary.  There's just not enough room for 9 wards to meet in one building on one Sunday.  It is always an adventure in the YSA stake!

Flake Fun

24 July 2016 - We are on the same page with the Nilsson's when it comes to remodels and real work!  This was a very productive weekend for us.  We finished the stairs, drilled the holes needed for plumbing, scrapped down the kitchen and living room floors (we're now ready for self leveler-ing) ripped out the carpet in the hall and bedrooms, hauled 0.7 tons (literally) of trash to the dump and purchased the backer board for the floor in the mudroom.  We were too tired to take pictures (and the camera was at the Farr house) so we hope to have pictures next week!

Our garden is doing well.  We have gotten 5 fairly large zucchini's which is just perfect.  We have had a couple to share and not an overabundance for ourselves.  Our garlic was also harvested, although we didn't have a 50 foot row!  (Ruth, you should have your kids set up a garlic stand like the Hart's set up a rhubarb stand!)   Our corn looks like it might be prime for picking in the next little bit and Scott got 2 green beans this morning! 

A cute little liquidation shop opened in Taylor a couple of months ago and we dropped by on Saturday.  There is a shed dubbed the Man Cave with all of the tools and then a little log cabin with all of the domestic wares.  Quite good prices on good quality stuff.  (if anyone is in need of a certain tool or supply before the gathering, let us know and we'll keep our eyes open!)

That's about all that we have to report for this week.  Work was normal.  Oh, Mom...there are 21 acres for sale in Shumway...just sayin'....

Nilsson News

Happy Pioneer Day! First, I have to rave about the incredible Tabernacle Choir Pioneer Concert that we watched last night.  Their concerts are always worth watching, but this one they took up a few notches.  It was phenomenal!!!!  If you haven't watched it yet, you must do so!
Projects have been going on at the Nilsson farmstead.  Yesterday, Garrett decided to clean up the wood shed and transform it into the tool shed.  For those of you who haven't seen this wood shed, let me paint a picture.  It is S.C.A.R.Y!!!  I don't feel like I'm scared of very many things, but this place would definitely make the list.  Spiderwebs hung everywhere, sticks, straw and all sorts of debris were trapped in every nook and cranny, along with some not so fortunate birds.  I told Garrett he should take a "before" picture of this project but he said he would rather choose not to remember what it looked like.  After working at it for about 14 hours, Garrett has given it a major transformation!
Earlier this week, the kids helped me to harvest our 50 foot row of garlic.  The majority of the heads were the size of my fist!  So, if you are in need of any garlic please let us be your supplier.  It would be great to save and plant in the fall as well.  Another project was giving our garage door a facelift and ripping out all the junipers and burning bush that was in our front bed.  We are doing a lot of demo work and our neighbor asked me yesterday if we were planning on replacing anything.  We will get there, but demo work is free and replacement usually isn't.
Addy and Emerson enjoyed a week of tending the neighbor's horse, cat and yard.  It is always fun and exciting when it isn't your own to take care of.  Eliza has found several little people her age to play with and she is looking forward to having her hair cut.  Henry is rarely seen around here without some kind of tool in hand.  Shovel, hoe, hammer, or rake, he loves them all and knows how to use them.  He is starting to say a lot of words these days which is hard to believe.
Life is going well.  Today in gospel principles we were talking about the value of work and making sure to teach it to our children.  Garrett said that since we have moved here, he is finally learning how to work - really work.  So, if you think that the family gathering is going to be a nice vacation, think again!  You will be coming to the Nilsson home so be prepared to do some work!

Manning Musings

Well I have the prize for worst blogger ever! I think about it every week and every week I fail to write on the blog. But I have enjoyed reading everybody's posts.
So nothing to report that you don't already know. We had a baby, Nick graduated and will be student teaching in Preston this school year.
Wesley is the cutest baby on the planet! He has some very funny things he is particular about. One of them is that he prefers it when people walk with him and if you sit down he will start to move his body and then kick just like he would try to get a horse moving. Very cute but tiring sometimes!
We are on the lookout for homes. Not to buy and rent out to other people like many of you are doing, but one for ourselves to rent. No luck yet.
Funny story of the week: Nick has told some of you about his ability to mix his words up which he does on a weekly basis. Last week he told me that it takes a lot of "uppy bodder" strength to hold Wesley. He makes me laugh! 
Looking forward to the family gathering!

Flake Fun

17 July 2016 - This week....Nothing really stands out so it must have been a fairly normal week for us.  The weather is still hot...  The garden is still growing...  We still go to work every day...

We did find a HUGE zucchini in our garden and we are trying to decide what to do with it!  It was one of those that suddenly appears over night.  I still haven't quite figured out how there can be nothing there one day and a huge vegetable the next!  There are quite a few small one that should be ready soon. 

We spent the weekend at the house...shocker, I know.  But we have some pictures so show for it! 

This is our new hammer drill.  It has helped a lot with demo projects but it weighs quite a bit and is exhausting to use!

There is still more plumbing to do but it is started! 

There are 3 more stairs at the top that need to be finished but we need a little more wood before we can finish them. 

It doesn't look like much progress but we are happy that things are getting done.  We only have a couple more BIG projects and then we can start on the little ones. Hopefully it will be done and rented by the time we head up for the family gathering! 

Funny Primary Story:  We were talking about the temples built by the pioneers and I mentioned that the Kirtland temple was burned.  I asked why the kids thought that was.  A very profound 5 year old raised his hand. When I called on him he replied, "Because there was a fire." 

Flake Fun

10 July 2016 - It has been an exhausting but productive weekend.  We spent most of the last 2 days at the Lovelake house and things appear to be progressing; not as fast as we would like, but progressing nonetheless. We have started construction on the staircase in the basement, running a waterline in the kitchen for the fridge, and scraping glue off of the floor from the linoleum tiles.  We were planning to upload some pictures today but we left the camera at the house! 

The town softball tournament has begun and Scott played a game on Thursday.  Despite having only 9 players, we won!  They were all pretty tired by the end of the game though.  Hopefully we can get more people to come to the next game!

The weather has been really hot with no rain which is strange for July.   Hopefully we'll see some rain this week to cool things down. 

Our garden is doing really well.  The corn is starting to tassel and we have some zucchinis that have started to grow. The garlic is almost ready to harvest and the potatoes and tomatoes are getting big.

We were sorry to miss the Manning's baby blessing but hope that all went well there.  Hope to see some pictures soon!  Hope you all have a great week!

Springville Belliston Stuff

This past week was a lot of fun for the Belliston clan.  We took the week and went up to Bear Lake and got to stop at Grandma Chester's for a couple nights as well.  We got acquainted with Donald the duck and the kids loved gathering eggs.  We went swimming every day and took a hike up to Bloomington Lake.  The kids loved hiking and want to do a lot more of it.  I think we will bring the baby back packs next time.  

We stopped by Hyde Park on the way home and picked up a fun birthday present for the twins.  I heard there was a lot of sacrifice that went into getting it there so we are really appreciative!  They have played with it every day and it has kept the neighborhood kids very entertained as well. We also saw a moose on the side of the road on our way!

Lori has started a new hobby!  She decided she wanted to learn Chinese, so she picked up some CD's at the library and has been diligently going through them every day.  It's been really good for me to brush up on my Chinese as well.  All the kids are picking up on it including the twins which is really fun.   She wants to do Cantonese for a year and then start on Mandarin.                                                                                                                                                         

Grace helped Lori with another song she sang for the youtube channel.  You can hear that here.           

Not a lot of new news here.  We are just enjoying the summer and spending more time together.           Everybody is loving taking care of the garden and Lori has been thrilled that she has been able to use her compost that has been rotting next to our house the past few months.                                            

 We saw Lauren and baby Wesley while we were in Hyde Park, and she mentioned that they will be    moving to Idaho in the near future.  It makes me wonder...                                                                     

                                                                                                                                                         

Flake Fun

3 July 2016 - Happy Independence Day everyone!  Hope you all had/have a great celebration day/weekend!   We can't believe that it is already July! 

This week was a long one with abnormal things going on at work but we have recovered from all of that and are enjoying the weekend.  Yesterday we worked quite a bit on our Lovelake house.  It doesn't look like it is coming together but hopefully that will change after we spend more time there tomorrow.  Our goal is to make some good progress on the basement stairs.  But before we can do that we have to build a wall to enclose the stairs.  But before we do that we have to set some anchors in the concrete and run some wires for a switch at the bottom of the stairs.  I am discovering (again) how remodels are never quite as simple as "replace the basement stairs."

It rained quite steadily this weekend which was nice.  It cooled things down quite a bit and made our garden and flowers happy.

Funny primary story of the day:

Noah is a sunbeam who sometimes has a hard time coming to primary (just for the first few minutes) so I bent down to say hi and welcome the little visitor next to him.  The following conversation was the result:

Noah: I was crying in my bed.
Me:  Oh?  Why were you crying?
Noah: Because my Mom didn't let me have everything that I wanted.

There was no resentment or frustration.  Just a simple statement of fact.  Kids crack me up!