Summer, the rat

The other night Bronson discovered a lump in his rats stomach. Leslie and I just figure she would die and that would be it. The next night Bronson came in with a somewhat disgusted look on his face and told us there was now a hole in his rats stomach. Seems that thing had some sort of an absess and it worked its way out, leaving a pretty good view into its belly. She didn't seem sick, Leslie cleaned the hole out with some peroxide and put some neosporane on it. I was still convinced the thing would be dead in the morning. We were crackin' up when Kait googled 'hole in rats stomach' and got a bunch of hits. One guy explained in detail how he had his vet draw a sample from the lump for tests and almost paid to have the lump removed. It was hilarious. He could have bought 15 new rats for what he paid for the tests and the antibiotic his vet gave him. Anyway, we are happy to report that the did not have to attend a rat funeral and the hole has healed up completly.

House Plans

Well here they are, finally. Now we have to go to work on getting a permit from the county and we can start building. That should take us a couple weeks. Still need a few things before we can submit them. If you have any suggestions as to what we might have done differently, please keep them to yourselves. It's too late. Click on them for a better view.

New Friends

I finally caved, mostly due to a recent visit to the Ivins home, and agreed to some new pets; Smokey, Buttercup, and Sandra. They've been really fun and despite a poor reputation they are really clean animals. It's the "animals" that are responsible for cleaning their cage that we need to work on. I'm still waiting for one of them to start cooking gourmet meals. Update: I just read Erman and Jessica's blog and am now having second thoughts about having these rat's in the house. They assured me that they were really clean.... I'm not so sure now.

OK we're back!!!

Seems like we've been so tied up trying to get everything taken care of with the house that I've not done a good job of keeping this blog up to date. So much has happened in the last couple months that I won't even attempt to catch you up, except to say that we have finally agreed on a house plan and are now waiting on an engineers stamp so we can take the plans to the county for a permit. We anticipate a groundbreaking party in three weeks or so(leslie says six, but it's just a game she plays with her brain. She does this to avoid any dissapointment.) Then the fun begins. Leslie already has a fridge, stove, and even some of the doors bought that are stored in the shed behind the house. I thought for a while that at the rate we were going we'd have everything for the inside of the house purchased before we started building. In the meantime we are all still getting along and nobody has killed anyone while we try to live on top of each other. Thanks goodness we change from 9 o'clock meeting time on Sunday to the 11 o'clock time.

Kaitlin finished up with her basketball season and took 3rd in their season ending tournament and I gained an appreciation for girls high school basketball. Cooper lettered in swimming and from what we hear did a pretty good job of keeping everyone on the team in stitches(the funny kind) including the coaches. He has quite the sense of humor. Wyatt and Bronson have had their birthdays this year and I told all the kids that this year I would be buying what 'I' want for their birthdays. Bronson was first and he was not happy when we going to get my present. He couldn't believe I was making him go. I decided that we're all getting new bikes for our birthdays this year so his attitude changed a bit when we got to he bike shop and I told him to pick one out. He and Wyatt have been waiting for the spring weather to get here so they can go ride. the last couple weeks have been really nice and they've had friends ride to the house and off they go. Wyatt of course turned 12 this year and was ordained a deacon. It's been really fun to watch him pass the sacrament, along with 8 other brand new deacons. He and I went together on his first winter camp out and had a blast, except for the sleeping part, or lack thereof. It was really, really cold. Had a blast Saturday sledding down the mountains. Addison is loving school and asks everyday when she gets home from school if she can go ride her horse. She loves it and is going to be quite the little cowgirl.

We just recently made a new addition to the herd. Kaitlin has grown out of the pony sized horses that Leslie moves in and out of here so we've been looking for a bigger horse that she and I can use. ( when I ride the pony sized horses my feet almost drag the ground) We found this guy online and had Leslie's sister go try him out for us because he was up in Idaho. Here he is. He is a great, great, grandson of Secretariat. He hasn't made it down from Idaho yet so we are still looking forward to trying him out.

We look forward to updating the blog more regularly with progress of the house. Stay tuned......