Bee helper

My cousins high school son has taken an interest in my bees and has been helping me out some. It's nice to be able to teach/learn with someone!

 

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Uncle Mark came to visit

With his girl Amanda a couple weeks ago. Just an overnight visit, but we got some lake time, Buffalo Wild Wings, fishing, and motor boating in. It was great seeing them again!

 

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A new sibling

Cayle has been struggling a bit having a new sibling around. He's very in tune with his emotions for a 4 yr old! He told me last night that he's afraid we are not going to have time for him anymore, and that's why he wasn't listening to us. :-( So I made it a point to make sure we get some time together. Today we rode bikes to the park and played follow the leader on the playground. It's so easy to get wrapped up in just taking care of Kyler and Natalie, but important to remember Cayle and Lindy need time too.

Lindy's dolls have been getting a lot of attention and she's been very possessive with them. Last night I caught her making beds for them. I think she's practicing for Kyler.

Both kids absolutely adore Kyler and love having her around!

 

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Baby #3

Kyler Ann born at 754 am June 26th, 2014. 6 lbs 14 oz. 20.5" long.

 

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Recognize this visitor?

And here we thought our right-before-baby-arrives visitors had all come and gone...wrong! Got to have lunch with this guy and his wife last Friday as they traveled through to Ohio. We had a lot of fun caching up :)

Countdown is on

Trying to get the last few things done before the baby arrives. In thanks for all he does for me, I made my baby-daddy a rhubarb crisp tonight. And I even agreed to pair it with butter pecan ice cream :)

So thankful for all of the support and help Nick gives me throughout my pregnancies!

Timeout!

Both Cayle and Lindy receiver timeouts when needed, not too often, but when they have been given chances and continue to make poor choices. 

Apparently this poor, naked doll was not following directions today...

Father's Day

dad's 60th birthday party

I didn't get to see my dad on Father's Day since we are staying pretty close to home these days.  But I talked to him, and will see him soon once the baby is born.  We got him a little book with lots of pictures from his 60th birthday party a few weeks earlier.  I think he really enjoyed the pics.  As I've grown older and have started a family of my own, I realize the things I cherish most about my dad are his ability to accept us kids where we are (faults and all) and his commitment to his Faith. 

I married the best man I could have ever selected to be a father to our kids.  Nick is a patient, loving, creative, and fun dad.  He works so hard as a stay-at-home dad, and I am so thankful every day for his commitment to our family.  I can honestly say that I know his job as a stay-at-home dad is much more challenging than my daily job of teaching 6th and 7th grade math.  Nick is an incredible role model for our children as a parent and a husband.  I love him for his dedication to being a man that teaches his children the importance of God and family.  He always thinks outside-the-box, and works his bike training schedule around the kids' needs, he supports me in all I do both personally and professionally, and he makes so many sacrifices for all of us.  I am so grateful for these sacrifices and the hard work he puts in to creating positive  family relationships.

nick and the kids in his father's day gift - a hammock for the backyard!

           

Visitors

I've said it before, and I'll say it again, I'm sure.  We made so many great friends in our 5 years of living in Eagle County.  Friends who we miss dearly every day (not an exaggeration in the least).  Friends who became family, who were invested not only in having a good time in the mountains, but friends who have an on-going interest in our lives and the lives of our kids.

School has been out two weeks and we've already had three great visits :)

First up was Tiffany and Carter.  The visit was a surprise for both Cayle and Carter and they had a great time together :)

cayle was not injured in the taking of this photograph

crazy kids

i miss seeing this girl on a daily basis :)

Next up was a visit from actual family, but they live in Colorado, so we love them for their adventurous spirit (among other things!).  Apparently I took 0/zero/zilch/none pictures while they were here???

The latest visitors were Mark and Amanda.  They stopped by on their way through to Michigan and Ontario. 

cayle was so excited that uncle mark took us "motorboatin'"

Maternity Pics Baby #3

We had maternity pics taken when I was pregnant with Cayle.  And then we didn't have any taken when I was pregnant with Lindy (no clue why??? - middle child thing???).  I decided it would be nice to have some family pics taken while I was pregnant with #3, especially with how excited Cayle and Lindy have been about the baby's arrival.

Cayle seems to understand there is a new baby coming, that if it's a boy he will share rooms with him, that the baby has lots of stuff (8,000 items Cayle claims...).  Lindy loves to kiss my belly and touch my belly, but I'm not sure she really understands the impact of a new baby.

Regardless, they both look super-cute with my belly...

MATERNITY PICS (just a few of the 400+).  Photos were taken by Alicia Schuette.

Less than 2 weeks to go :)  

I'm a Beekeeper!

I've been waiting for this day for months. Since September, when I began attending Beekeepers meetings with Crossroads Beekeepers in Effingham. I drove an hour north this morning at 5am to pick up 1 hive and 1 nuc of bees. I was supposed to be getting 2 nucs, which are like mini fully operational hives, but instead got 1 full hive, and 1 nuc. The Queens from the other nucs didn't take, so the nucs didn't work out. Nuc's normally come in a smaller box, like a 1/2 size box, but this guy just decided to put them in a full size deep box. Good thing about that is, I now have more equipment!

 Since the guy didn't have 2 nuc's ready for me, he offered me one of his hives, which he already added a 2nd deep onto, for a slightly higher price. I wanted more bees, so I took him up on the offer. He had them ready to go and loaded them in the truck when I got there. There was a few bees on the outside of the box, "I was like, will those bees just hang out there on the way home or what?" The guy was like, uh... they'll go somewhere I guess... Beginner beekeeper questions.

  

 I already had everything set up and ready to go since I thought I was getting 2 nuc size boxes and would have to transfer frames to my equipment. I had to pack up my stuff (Good thing is I now have extra equipment, meaning I'm ready to add more hives in the future) and set out the new stuff. They don't look quite as nice as my freshly painted hive boxes, but they will be fine I guess.

Bees hovering outside the hive, the entrance is blocked off by wire mesh.

The bee yard after I removed my 2 hives and before adding the new ones.

Half of the wire mesh removed. Bees came pouring out when I removed the entrance covers! Angry, pissed off bees!

 I set the boxes on the stand, removed the tarp straps, and made sure everything was ready to go. Since it was raining today, I couldn't remove the tops to have a look see, so all I had to do was remove the wire mesh from the front entrances. Hmm... There's a lot of bees there, soooo... I finally took my bee brush and softly brushed them off the wire, then grabbed the wire and pulled it out. Man the bees were furious with all the moving around and what not. They were pelting me straight in the veil with their stingers! It was slightly unnerving! They calmed down a bit, and after watching them a bit longer, I packed things up and headed to drop the truck off that I had borrowed. When I got out of the truck, a bee landed on my arm (no longer had a bee suit on) and stung me! I quickly removed the barb, but the damage was done. 12 hours later, as I type, my forearm is still swollen. Little stinker!

When I got home, I told Natalie I was going to take a shower, cause I was feeling kind of itchy... When I got undressed, I counted 6 stings on my legs. The little buggers were flying at me butt first, but their stingers were getting stuck in my bee suit, and must have been kind of grazing my legs or something, because I had 6 clearly defined little welts on my legs.

The good thing is, when I go in to look at them, I will have my smoker and that will help relax them. They should also be settled in to their new homes, so that should help as well. Probably a good thing I didn't have Cayle out there with me today. Although when we went over later, he wanted to go check them out and see how they were doing. From observing the outside of the hive, it seemed like they had settled quite a bit. As soon as we get a sunny day, I'll head over to check things out.

For now, I'm just pumped to have my bees! It's been many hours of work, cleaning, painting, learning to get to this point. I'm looking forward to this new hobby and learning as much as I can!

Never thought I'd say this... I'm a Beekeeper!

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Tomorrow is the day!

Going to pick up bees tomorrow morning!!!

 

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One Year Completed

Well, it wasn't so bad :) One year down as a new teacher in a new district. The good news is next year I won't be the newbie anymore.

The absolute hardest part about the new job has been making new friends.  I like people. I like to be social. So it's been a tough year when I can literally count on one hand (actually on one finger!) the number of times I did something socially this school year with someone other than my husband. And it's not why you think... (if you're thinking I just don't like my colleagues or they don't like me, which is, I suppose, entirely possible??).

I've talked to a number of people about this, trying to come to some sort of conclusion about my lack of social life.  Here's my conclusion:  Eagle County is a tough gig to follow in terms of making friends.  And in lots of other ways, but I'll keep my focus on friends and social events.  In Eagle County, everyone is out to make a friend.  Pretty much every person lives hundreds (if not thousands) of miles from their closest relative.  So friends are a pretty big deal.  And in order to make friends and become like the family support system we all needed out in Eagle County, we had lots of social events.  Like at least weekly.  Here in my new locale, folks live approximately three blocks from their closest relative (or so it seems!).  So they have their friends and traditions established.  And it's not that they don't need.want new friends, but they certainly don't need that support system like we needed in the mountains.

I don't know that there's anything to do about this predicament.  It is what it is.  And it's ok.  What it's really made me realize are a few things...
*  Those relationships that were formed in Eagle County are extremely special to me and I wouldn't trade them for anything.
*  It's a really good thing I love my husband since he and I have become each others' social outlet :)  

Cayle is Learning to Read

Happy 1st day of June!

 

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