Easter Sunday - Our Lord has Risen!

It's Easter Sunday!  It's all rainy and cold here in the Great Northwest but that didn't stop us from donning our raincoats and heading out to Church to celebrate this wonderful day.  We took our little guy and visited the church up here on the corner - someday I will get motivated enough to investigate a little more and see if we can find a church to attend on a more regular basis.  We (at least I) have gotten totally out of the habit - and I miss it.

I was really truly blessed when I found that S'te had taken photos!  So here is the 2011 Album of the Elmore's at home.  The only one missing is Ty - he is still in SD and doing wonderfully - at least from what I hear - he is!  He has grown into an awesome young man - Rod and S'te can be very proud of the part they played in shaping this man's life.  With thier influence he has learned much that he may not have ever been exposed to if he hadn't traveled the road that he did.  My hat is off to you Ty (and to you Mom and Dad)

Mom and Dad - LOL - aka Rod and S'te

The kids that are still at home!

Ladaria (19)

Brayana (14)

Destini (13)

Jaleel (13)

Makkiah (10)

Taniyah (6)

and last but not least
Cavelle (3)

 And here is our baby with the bunny dog cookie that his Aunt Sallie gave him to celebrate with - and with him is his 'Sallie bear" that he plays with and guards constantly.  NO one is allowed to play with Sallie Bear except for Chato.

And here is what the Easter Bunny brought for our little guy.  He is napping so I didn't get him in this - but want to make sure he is included!

And here is the King of this Castle - ready to go celebrate the King of Kings.

And not to be left out - April and her family were able to go over to Kentucky to spend Easter with Grandma Beatty and Aunts, and cousins.  From the sounds of things, they had a fantastic time too!  Family is everything!



Brennan, Great Grandma, and Elizabeth



Bethany, Elizabeth, Aunt Dolores, Brennan, and Ariel



April and Aunt D



Elizabeth, Aunt Joy, and Bethany



The twins, Bethany and Tim



Happy Easter to All!

New Project - Week 2

We had some good weather for a few days - and then it decided that it was payback time!  

 We laughed and teased about our new swimming pool - fortunately the skies stayed in good shape for most of the ditch digging.  There was a LOT of dirt moved.  Chris and Greg did an awesome job.  I truly enjoyed sitting in the window and watching Chris manuver that huge piece of machinery like he was driving a volkswagon around! 

 There were a few times that everyone headed into the garage except for him - he could just shut the door and stay rather dry.  In one single day they could choose any kind of weather - we had sun, rain, sun, hail, sun, more rain, more sun, and then towards the end of the day - it just turned blue skies - like that was what it wanted to do all day to start with!

 This is the pile of dirt that we wound up with (and a whole dumptruck load went out to Robert's on top of what you see here!) ~ my new and improved and expanded garden spot!  Thankfully, Chris and Greg took turns flattening it out and making it all pretty before they called it a good job and loaded the equipment.  There is STILL lots of work to do on it.  Lime,  and rototill, and some more lime, and some good mulch, and maybe some stuff oout of our compost pile, and then some more lime to be tilled in - and maybe we will have a garden in a few years.... LOL!!

 And this is what we ended up with as a footprint.  Chris even walked that big trackhoe across the front sidewalk without so much as putting a chip in it.  I do love to watch men work! :-)

 And I got to see a lot of it for the rest of the week.  I couldn't guess how many forests had to be chopped to get enough wood for the massive forms for the foundation pour!  I watched it take shape - so much more quickly that I could even imagine!  And being right here - I can ask questions and get answers as things go along instead of trying to play catch up like I did with our last project.  And by the way - I finally had to get the Contractors Board involved with that - as we just kept finding more and more issues! But that is a totally different story.

 By the end of Week 2 - we had a great start going.  Rain, hail, and sun - these guys just kept right on showing up and working - just so wonderful!

So this is how it looked when Monday Morning rolled around.  Mighty fine progress.

And in the midst of all of this - we got a little guy to visit for a bit - so we are having fun now!