I walked out in the garage just now and was shocked to see and hear the garage door going up and down, up and down, all by itself!  I wondered earlier what was going on when I went out in the garage and the door was open.  The strange thing was that when I got home an hour earlier the door had been shut and then when I went out to feed the kitty, it was open.  While I was feeding the kitty, the door went shut on its own.  I had just barely watched the door shut itself when it opened again.  Up and down it went, up and down.  Thinking I'd better do something or I'd have to listen to it all night long going up and down, I unplugged it.  Hopefully that will fix the stupid thing!

We planted our garden last Monday.  It was a beautiful day to plant, warm, breezy, but not terribly hot.  One week later, today, the seeds have popped out of the dirt and are growing.  One reason they germinated so quickly is that this last week has been unseasonably hot.  We can't remember it going from cool to HOT so quickly.  We are having August heat in early June.  Hopefully this will bode well for our garden and our new heirloom seeds we are trying.  Our tastebuds are fairly watering thinking of all the yummy veggies we will be eating in a few months.

Caught on "tape" for the first time......darling little Daniel having a temper tantrum.....Doyle was chuckling so hard he could hardly take the picture....Heather has told us about Daniel's little tantrums, but we had never seen one.  It seems that Mommy walked right by her little darling and didn't pick him up, so Daniel threw himself on the floor (ouch!). (Umm.....didn't make any difference to any of us and he soon was up and crawling away......)

In other hours we spent most of the day Saturday with the little boys, here at the house, out at the ball park and at a graduation party for Bonnie Dickson.  The boys were very good, and we all enjoyed our day, but ended up very tired.  Sunday after church they came over again and Doyle and Peter fixed the brakes on Pete's van and than took Izzy and Jonathan on a wagon ride.  Izzy was over because her parents were packing as they will be moving to Colorado in July.   

Beginning at an early age,  Daniel picks up the Wall Street Journal to read.  Interesting that he chose the Money and Investing portion to read.  Do we have a future CPA, MBA or PGA?  (Okay, that last one doesn't really belong there!).  Anyway, as a proud Nalli who thinks her grandchildren are the smartest ever, you now have proof positive that I am right!

In other words, while Daniel was reading the Wall Street Journal, his Daddy and "Uncle" Robbie were playing a "Warhammer" (wargame).  That definitely says something...........just not sure what.....

I obviously don't have much to say today.........so I guess I'd better sign off..........

One of my favorite verses on the wall of a bakery here in Pagosa.  It's a bit blurry, but totally readable.  We spent the morning sitting in the hot springs again and decided if we lived close to this place we'd buy year-round tickets to the springs.  It really does make me feel good.  To bad we can't bottle it (minus the smell) and take it home with us!  Ha!

The parents and their babies.  We wanted to get closer, but were afraid of getting attacked. 

Doyle and I are enjoying some time away in one of our favorite places.....Pagosa Springs, CO.  It's not very far away from home, so it is easy to escape to when we want a different pace.  The hot springs are awesome, it was very quiet this afternoon when we went there, the crazy summer crowds haven't arrived yet, and we enjoyed reading, soaking and enjoying the view. 

Going on a walk after supper, we saw three momma geese guarding their little ducklings.  They cautiously watched us as we approached, ready to attack at any moment if we got to close to their little darlings.  We took pictures of the little ones, and tiptoed away.

It's been a strange and hard week.  It's the kind of week where you just want to crawl in a hole and cry, but you know you don't have time.  We had a nice time in Santa Fe with Erin and Nathan, came home and a small plumbing job has become a HUGE plumbing problem..  I am so thankful we have no one living with us right now, no little kids who are dirty all the time and want something to drink all the time and have more dirty clothes then necessary, it's just Doyle and I and we are dirty enough!  I get water from our neighbors outside spigot and thank goodness it's really close.  We keep thinking we will have water any minute, but then there is another glitch.  Some of the glitches are just because Doyle is so tired.....he has been going for too long and too hard.   I am so very thankful through it all though that Doyle can do the work and we aren't paying a plumber for all of this.  And it will be really nice when the job is done and we have all new pipes. 

It has made me remember when I was a child and the mission station where I lived was without water for two weeks.   Our electric generator burned down to the ground and we had to send all the school children home for two weeks until it could be repaired.  We hauled water for the mission twice a day (I think it was) from a mile and a half away.  It gave us a lot more respect for the Navajos who had to haul their water every day for all their lives.....real soon you find out what to "waste" water on, and it's not much, you re-use it as much as possible and accept dirt a bit more freely. 

More than the water though, I am thankful for a husband who is long-suffering and mostly good-natured through it all when I know he is so frustrated at all of this.  And through it all, life goes on, he is training a new employee while I am writing this, and running in to town to get parts between crawling under the house and the training.  You can tell what kind of Christian a person is by how well he acts when adversity strikes.  Don't preach me a sermon on how to act like a Christian...........just live like one.  I love my husband because he lives like a real follower of Jesus Christ..........he lives his faith.

And I also think how spoiled we really are...........we want clean water when we want it, we want electricity when we want it.  Most of the world would be thrilled with clean water from a spigot next door.  And then again, we can just pretend we're camping............

A new apron that Erin made from vintage materials, scraps and an old apron.  Notice the pocket for the cell phone?  That is a necessity these days. (Another apron is peeking out on the right.)   We are now home and I am getting my new counter tops put in my kitchen.  With any remodel job there are always "glitches."  Yesterday as Doyle was working on the sink and the water pipes, he busted one.  Turns out our pipes are very old and very rusty and very full of sediment.  So, what started out as a nuisance and a pain, will in the long run be a positive thing, as he is putting in all new pipes under the house.  Naturally, it's not something he was planning on doing, but it will be nice once its done.  But in the meantime we have no water.  It's always interesting to me to live without water for awhile.  It's amazing how much water we use without even thinking of it, and how much we waste!  It would probably be a good thing for people to pay more attention to how much water is wasted, especially here in the west and southwest.

Doyle and I are in Santa Fe visiting Erin and Nathan.  This morning Erin and I went to two plant nurseries, both really wonderful, but very different.  These pictures are taken at Southwest Plants, which is a nursery which just carries native southwestern plants and they don't put them in greenhouses, just always keep them outside.  I loved it!  This lady was extremely helpful and so sweet.  Erin says they are always so nice at this place.  Erin is landscaping her backyard and it will be so beautiful when its finished.  When we came down yesterday our van was loaded with two wheelbarrows full of plants we dug up from our yard  Day-lilies, daffodils, irises, strawberries, daisies, and who knows what all.  We also brought her wood for her little fireplace outside (who wants to pay $5.00 for two sticks of wood to burn outside?), and tools to fix their car and her kiln.  Yes, we came to see them, but also to help them with some projects!  The weather is beautiful and actually feeling like Spring!