Workin' on the Dog Yard

Scott taught Clay how to use the cordless drill and they worked hard putting up the wooden part of the fence. Clay operated the drill and Scott gave it some force. They were a good team and finished quickly. Olliver was excited before he knew what they were really up to.

Building Oliver's Dog Run

This little dog will gain 120 pounds and grow a couple of feet taller in the coming months. He cannot live inside forever.
Time to build the dog run. Everyone is getting involved with this big job.
Clay's handling the jackhammer like a pro. It's a bit loud!
Emmie loves the bounciness.
Emmie's on the tractor making sure the auger is lined up to dig the holes.
Scott is letting Clay use the jackhammer all by himself. "Look Clay, no hands!"
Clay is adding water to help Scott mix the cement.

The kids and Oliver take their maiden voyage in the back of the pickup. The kids liked the ride a whole lot more than the dog did. They took the tools down to the shed to put them away. After the ride Emmie helped Oliver out of the truck.
Time to call it a day. The posts were in just before the rain started

Fishy Business

Our neighbors brought us a 10 pound trout from Lake Comanche. They caught this monster fishing right off the shore. It was too big to go in the freezer so we BBQ'd it right away. Clay was trying to be helpful. Scott was showing off his gutting skills. The head and all the organs came out in one giant nasty piece. It was actually pretty good on the BBQ. I'm just glad Scott was here to receive the gift of a giant stinky fish needing to be cleaned.

Date with Dad

Whenever we take the kids to dinner they fight, whine or create a general scene. Scott wanted to take the kids to The Old Spaghetti Factory and I told him to go for it. Even in this loud kid friendly restaurant we've had a ruckus or two. After dinner he called to tell me the kids were absolutely perfect and have never eaten dinner so politely not even at home. So what does this say about me? I must incite the horrible behavior they normally have. What am I going to do about it? I'll let Scott take the kids out often to have dinner without me. Being all alone will be my sacrifice for a happy family. (Evil-LOL)

Woah Dad!

Scott took off down the sled run he had dug out while we watched from below. He was doing fine until he sailed over one of the moguls at the bottom and slammed his head back against the hard packed ice. He laid still at the bottom when he finally came to a halt to catch his breath. Clay watched and said, "Oh, Dad must be dead because he's not moving." I told Clay he better run down and take a picture of dad and make sure he was really dead. Of course Clay wasn't at all worried about his dad being dead. The kids have already informed us Scott will of course be the first to die in our family because he's the oldest (AS FAR AS THEY KNOW!). Death is such a nothing to them right now. They know you go to be with Jesus and you don't come back and that's as far as they think about it. Clay took these pictures and to his surprise Dad wasn't dead after all. Phew, we still had a ride home! Actually we almost didn't have a ride home. Scott went into his, no longer, zippered pocket to retrieve the car keys and they weren't there. After a moment of panic from Scott and an equally long moment of disgust from the rest of us Scott found the keys in his gators cinched down around his boot. The disgust was mostly on my part because this wasn't the first time Scott had nearly lost the keys on a trip out to the middle of no where and probably not the last.

Wagon Ride

We had a pumpkin patch party for Relief Society. Emmie and Clay picked out their big pumpkins to carve. Clay was getting a ride because he had a big blister on his ankle, probably from running through the corn maze. He was nice enough to let Emmie and Madelyn hitch a ride for just the trip to the car to offload the pumpkins. Scott was about done for the day at this point.