The Storys came to Visit

We were so glad to spend some time with Mike's sister, Kellie and her cute family.
We met them down in Salt Lake on June 18th and did the Temple Square thing.

Seth and Ty getting acquainted. This was the first time Kellie had seen any of our boys and we had never met Kels and Claire!

Kate and Wes getting acquianted

Checking out the view from Mike's office

Seth's karate move in the elevator

After Temple Square we headed down to the Gateway's Children's Museum for some more fun.


Wes is a climbing maniac

Amy and Kels

Look mom NO HANDS!

I thought this was fun!

Tyler pulling Claire around

Christian loved playing in the water and it was just his height!

Claire what a cutie!

Brig's loved driving in the police car

Cousins in the helicopter




Seth interupting Kellie's Weather spot
Cousins on TV


Future engineer! We need one of these walls at home.


We need this at home too! Christian booby trapped himself in some pipes and was rendered helpless

Cousins building


The Brave Ones!! We stopped by the Olympic water fountains. The weather was so nice it was still a bit too chilly to play in the water with the cool wind blowing.

The wimps!!

Ended the night with a yummy dinner and Dave and Ronni's.
Grandpa and Brinlee


Cousins Picnic
Noticed Dave and Ronni's beautiful new lawn!
Playing with Grandpa


Whoo! that was a long post. I guess it is time for me to learn how to do Picasa collages!

Schools out, but it is RAINING!

I am not complaining about our long cool spring. These were taken the week after school let out. I actually had the heater on on June 1st!
We watched movies and had some yummy chocolate chip cookies!

I love our $40 DI couch. Lots of kiddles can fit on it!

We love you David!!!

David Archuleta that is





Mike noticed on his way into work today that David Archuleta would be at the newly opened Deseret Book next to his work. So we headed down for a great little concert. Nice guy, great singer! I don't know what song he sang of his own ( Katelyn would know), but the 2nd song he sang was Broken Road by Rascal Flats and he sang it a capella. It was good! Fun to meet with the local celebs!

Christian: 13 months

Christian's latest trick


"You can't tell me what to do mom!"

If you are missing something make sure to check the vent!

Couldn't keep him in his stroller during Ty's soccer games. Always messing with the cones


Likes Kathy Kaehler as much as I do!




Gotta love this little guy!

Briggy! Where are you?!!!!

Oh, there you are!

Christian is a good sport

With the weather warming up I like to spend a lot of time in the yard. I have been weeding like a mad woman. Christian is with me all the way!

Got all 3 flats of Impatiens planted just in time for a record snow to practically kill them. Needless to say, I was upset at Mother Nature, but I think most will recover.



I love seeing these Columbine bloom


We planted peas, carrots and some tomatoes in buckets up on the balcony to keep the deer away. I was telling Mike this morning that it has been a long while since I have seen a deer. Yeah! I sprayed all my roses with Invisible Fence to keep the deer off. Our house stunk like you know what! I counted 12 rose buds. So excited and the deer will suffer if they eat my buds! Tyler has been target practicing with his bee bee gun already.

The lawn is mowed, edged and the beds are weeded. I am going to enjoy watching it all grow!

Happy Birthday...

to the Cats! They are 4 years old. We haven't been able to locate Long Tail, but Short tail dropped in for a visit and we snapped a pic on her birthday. We will have cake and ice cream in their honor when we celebrate Mike's Birthday.

What the....

SNOW in May!
We set a record! Latest snow ever recorded in history! Since they have been recording weather, of course.

3.5 inches for Bountiful!


Those aren't our ducks in the picture. That is the Mallard couple that has adopted our pond and FOOD. ( Mike has already looked up when duck hunting season is here in Davis County. He is going to get him a pretty Mallard come October)

My poor Hawthorne tree. Luckily no branches broke. As soon as I could I was out there with a broom gently knocking the snow off. My poor peonies took a lot of snow too, but just a few broke. Luckily their buds were still small.

Ducks: 7 weeks Old

So our little chicks are ready to move outside. The weather might get warm soon and they are just to darn big for the box we have them in.

So Mike designed this duck house for them. They are getting used to the idea. They roam the yard and pond all day. At night we feed them and lock them up to "Keep our Duckies safe"!

This is not the final product so more pics to come soon. Hopefully, I will be able to catch them with my camera walking into the house.
Mike built it to resemble our gazebo. It has a plastic top so the sunlight can get in. Equipped with there own stall for hatching.

Katelyn did a little decorating. She choose different colors so when we retrieved eggs this fall we could keep track of which nest we got the eggs from.

All ducks need to learn their ABC's (backwards)!

The ducks view!

Our Treehouse

Because Mike is the coolest dad ever he built our kids a "tree house"!




The exterior is from the fence our back nieghbors replaced. All the railings for the outside and inside beds are from trees in our backyard that we removed last spring. Most structural wood was reclaimed from our gazebo that Mike took down. Windows and door were found on KSL.com.
Mike Black has gone green!


Inside there are three levels for "beds". Each level is equipped with its own outlet/switch/light. The custom windows add a lot of light.


Isn't he amazing?!!