Not so bad

So one year older and things aren't so bad. How can someone complain when they get this to wake up to?

Birthday

So my birthday finally came around to finish out the round of family birthdays for the year. Sam really outdid himself...it was wonderful! I had a great treasure hunt; even if it was helped and hindered by the same 3 year old little helper.

 The family loot! I was spoiled.

Down at the other family dinner I got a 6 day cooler, a Gene Kelly movie collection, and a kids book for helping with FHE or something (it hasn't arrived yet so I'm not sure exactly). 

It was a lovely day. I am blessed and highly favored of the Lord.

Another cake

So this cake....oh boy. I just hope it tastes good! It's a created lemon/tart cherry cake with a vanilla custard filling (I should say custard failing!) topped with a dairy free lemon "butter cream" frosting. The flowers and trees are marshmallow fondant and the green letters and some of the leaves are vanilla frosting. It's got all kinds of problems, but that's okay.

This is the girl talking to Lela and Papa.

Ruby Mountain Relay

Well, we can still walk! Sam and I finished the Ruby Mountain Relay earlier today. It was 184 miles, 12 runners, and we finished in 31 hours. Here are some of our favorite pictures.

We started at 6:30 on Friday morning, and to get there we had to get up at 3 and drive to the other side of the mountain. We had 6 runners in our van and 6 runners in another van. We each would run about 15 miles in 30 hours.

Our "Van" was dubbed the Shady Oaks Retirement Home because we had the 3 oldest runners of both teams in our van.

 Sam's 1st leg on the 1st day.

 Sam's 2nd leg on the 2nd day.

 My 2nd leg on the 2nd day...I was thrilled because I only had 1 leg left.

 While we waited for the other 6 members of our team to finish the last 30ish miles we got the kids and let them play at the park where the finish line was.

 This was our team at the finish line. 

 Peter, Adam, Me, Sam, Andy, Marla (Van 1, all Neff's) Cindy, Bryan, Braden, Scott, Whitney, Brad (Van 2, from the Jensen side of the family)

 Our team and 4 people from the first team who were still around. 

 Our Van picture.

 This team had hot pants and kilts, I had to take a picture.

 I don't know what she was doing with her face, I just gave her a blow fish, maybe she was feeling violated.

 Our 3 year old was our photographer!

We had a family dinner tonight to all sit around and hash our our aches and pains. It was really fun.

This little gem happened at the finish line, it was super funny!

Swathing...

So we've been having lawn mower trouble for... a while. Things got so bad we had to call in the big guns!

This is embarrassing and entertaining all at once... What we really needed was a mini baler because I had to haul all that grass off of there by hand!

Birthday cake

So my mother in-law had a birthday this last week and I made her cake. Sam and The Girl wanted it to be "fun" and Grandma wanted chocolate cake with chocolate icing. So this is what she got.

 The veggies are shaped as a "69" because that's how old she is now.

Chocolate cake, whipped fudge filling, chocolate frosting, vanilla frosting grass, and marshmallow fondant decorations. Everything was made from scratch except for the Oreo "dirt" on the top of the cake.

Pioneer Day

We went up a canyon and had a big valley party for Pioneer Day on July 24th. We had 2 ranchers from the valley come and give the history of how their families got to the valley. It was really fun and interesting. We couldn't complete the event without the kids bike parade. The Boy is the one in overalls, probably thinking, "Wow, I'm totally about to be run over!".

 Maggie and her best friend, Natalie.

Tatting

During the Neff/Jensen reunion this year I talked Marsha Hall into giving a tatting class. It was great! I still have a lot to learn, but I'm having so much fun! I have a new favorite thing to do in the car!

 This is Marsha.

I got hooked on making earrings. I have since made many more pairs. These ones were to give to people and I've added some for my own collection.

So for those who were wondering, this is what tatting is.