Bee Update

For all of you who think my husband is cool OR crazy for keeping bees with small children around, here's an update.

The first time Justin got in the beehive to do some checking things looked like they were going great. Here are a few pics of what the bees had accomplished in two weeks.

But, the next time he opened the hive he found A LOT of dead bees. This is very unusual. Bees are very clean animals and usually take the dead bees out of the hive. Justin cleaned out the dead bees and left them alone for a couple more weeks. Checking them again, he found the same thing, TONS of dead bees.

Every beekeeper in the Salt Lake valley has a different opinion about why our bees were dying. Some think the queen had died or left or just wasn't doing her job. Others think our bees got into some major pesticide. Bottom line is, Justin pretty much lost his hive. Which means we probably won't be able to harvest honey this year. The bees will need everything they make to survive the winter.

So, if you loose your hive you can just go buy more bees and start over. Or, you can get on a swarm list at the bee keepers store. Did you know if you see a swarm of bees or have a swarm at your house you can call one of the local bee keeping stores and they will send someone from the swarm list out to get/remove them? Well, you can, and bee keepers like Justin will be very happy to come take the bees off your hands.

That is what our Monday morning consisted of this week. Justin received a call from the bee store with a swarm reporting. They gave us the address and we were off to catch a swarm to replenish our hive.

This swarm was about 15 feet up in a pine tree. Justin looked like a pro catching this swarm. Before we left to get the bees he took a few empty frames and drizzled honey on them. He put those inside a trusty Costco diaper box and there we had a very nice be transport system. He climbed up into the tree, gave the branch a really good tap on the box and most of the bees fell in the box. He then used his ever so soft bee brush to help the others in the box.

That's it really. Justin took the bees back to our place and introduced them to their new home. Hopefully things will go a little better this time around. We'll keep you updated.

Lagoon

It looks like our kids will get to enjoy Lagoon more than once this summer. Thanks to Uncle Brian who got a summer job there. We took our first trip last weekend. We started out at Lagoona Beach. Both Isaac and Grace had a ton of fun. I didn't think we'd get them out of there. But, after we reminded Isaac about the rides, he was ready to go. Grace thought she was ready, until she found of what a ride really is.

This was the look on her face most of the time. She didn't even really like the carousel. She did enjoy a lazy car ride with her brother, but that's about it.


Isaac on the other hand, had this look on his face the whole time.

Keeping up with him at Lagoon is hard work. He runs from ride to ride and won't take a break. He even got to go on some 'big kid' rides with Dad this time. He wasn't scared at all and talks about it all the time. Every morning when Isaac wakes up, he askes me if Uncle Brian has given us another special paper so we can go back to the roller coaster place. Sounds like he kind of likes Lagoon, huh?


Thanks Uncle Brian! You've made Isaac's summer.

Memorial Day Weekend

This Memorial Day we had planned a camping trip with some of our friends to Capitol Reef National Park. We've camped there before and were really excited to go. But, as Mother nature would have it, the overnight lows were supposed to be 38 and there were supposed to be 60 mile an hour winds. I ended up with a cold and our friends daughter got strep. Needless to say, the camping trip was cancelled.

Instead, we decided to take our kids out for the first fishing trip of the season. Sandy has a fish pond on 9800 S and 1000 W. It's also got a great little playground. We took a lunch and had a great time. Isaac didn't really understand that you have to leave your hook/lure in the water for a while and be patient before a fish will bite. But, I think he still had a pretty good time.

Such a girl

Grace is such a girl! And, she should be, right? It's just amazing to me the difference between boys and girls.
Lately Grace has to have her hair done almost immediately after breakfast.


She loves to do her makeup and has confiscated my makeup brushes to do so.

And, her purse goes with her everywhere. Even out to dig in the dirt and play trucks with her brother.

Am I Mean?

Some days I think Isaac is out of the terrible twos, but other days...not so much. This day in particular.

Isaac was in time out. When time out was over I opened his door and told him he could come out if he was ready to be nice. I didn't peak in his room, just opened his door. I really should have peaked in because a couple hours later I discovered black crayon all over his tan wall and white door.

Am I mean that I made him clean it all off?

I guess it's one of those what goes around comes around kind of things because I have a very distinct memory of scrubbing a farm scene off of my bedroom wall when I was little.

And, it starts...

We have the best next door neighbors. It's also very convenient that our children are around the same ages. Isaac LOVES playing with the little neighbor boy. This particular morning, I'm not sure what was going on, but we wouldn't let them play together. They really, really wanted to play with each other. They were at the fence scheming for almost an hour tyring to come up with a plan so they could play. After several failed attempts of asking each Mom and using several different reasoning tactics, they devised another plan. It went like this.

Said neighbor boy hands Isaac wood from their wood pile to make a ladder on our side of the fence.
That darn ladder keeps falling over. Back to the drawing board.
Stack the wood on a bucket. Not so stable...
Neighbor boy thinks hey, I've got more buckets, let's just stack them.
Ahhh....success! The buckets gave Isaac the height he needed to crawl on top of the cinder block fence and JUMP onto the inflatable ice fishing chair and an overturned tupperware waiting on the other side.

I have to applaud them for their perseverance, but if they're scheming like this at 3 and 4, what is it going to be like when they are teenagers?

More Ducks

More ducks, but this time it was in our own back yard. We woke up one morning to seven Mallards waddeling around it. We kept the kids out of the yard for probably a good hour while the ducks had a nap.

Then, we decided to let the kids have a little fun. We took some bread out and fed the ducks. Isaac the duck chaser was let loose and Grace played peek-a-boo with them.

Surprising enough, the ducks came back later that day. We hoped it would be a continued thing throughout the summer, but we haven't seen them since.

Catch Up

Justin is out of town tonight. I thought I'd use this time to catch the blog up. We've been huge blog slackers lately. So, ready or not, here comes A LOT of what the Rammells have been up to.

Clear back at the beginning of April it looked like Spring was peaking at us (boy, weren't we fooled). We took the kids to Wheeler Farm. We LOVE having it so close to us.

It was the first time Grace was really old enough to appreciate something like this and I think she enjoyed herself.

Isaac is quite the duck chaser. I'm sure that is his favorite part of Wheeler Farm.

Grace probably needs to work on her bread throwing arm...but, we'll get there.