The Stache

I think 13 is a little soon to be impatienty waiting for some scruff. But what do I know? I have never been a teenage boy before.

Mystery. To. Me.

Wordless Wednesday: Kissing Cousins

(February 2006, Ryland 2 years and Ridge 20 months)

The Ally Blog

Ally has started her own blog. I am so proud of her.

I have always been a "record keeping" kind of girl and especially lately, as I have been working on family history, from all sides of the family, I can truly see the importance of it. I myself have often wondered, "Will anyone besides myself, EVER want to read this?" I can tell you, YES! I have loved pouring over my ancestors, both distant and close, journals and records. It is so fascinating to me.

So I am super proud of my Ally girl for having the desire to keep a record of her own life. Way to go Babe!

Mills Monday Memories

I thought tonight I might post a little photo journal of what my Monday was like today. It isn't obviously everything I did today but it gives a little bit of a snippet into my day. 

After getting to bed later than I would have liked, let's just say later than 1 a.m., Sunday night, it was rough when the predawn alarm went off for me to go on my morning run. So by the time 10:30 a.m. rolled around, I was already dragging. So I convinced Evie to snuggle under a blanket with me. With the fire going and Sesame Street on for her viewing pleasure it was the perfect recipe for a mid morning snuggle/nap. It was perfect. Albeit short lived.

Once I got off the couch and kinda got rolling, I was picking up the great room a bit and I came upon this.

He wasn't the only Star Wars Lego dude hanging out in my plant, but he was the most easily photographed. I am constantly finding Lego's and other random toys of Rylands hiding in my everyday household items. I will really miss it when he stops doing this.

Last year the kids started collecting aluminum cans to take in for recycling. We pick them up whenever we see them lying on the street, some of our neighbors give them to us, but our biggest contributors are by far, Great Grandma and Grandpa Sargent and Grandma and Grandpa Hale. They have been awesome! So far the kids have earned about $75. They are saving the money for spending money when we go on our next family vacation.

Well, our box that we keep in the garage for the cans was starting to overflow. It had been a while since the kids had spent any time crushing the cans. So I sent the boys out to the driveway for a while to just crush cans. They came in a while later and wanted me to see what they had created. I am guessing this was Ryland's idea. He has been learning about the Transcontinental Railroad this term and part of that was to learn the names of all 50 states. They were super proud of their portrayal of our United States.

Nate is attending a special training type camp this week for MarketStar. Something about the art of negotiating. So he is getting home later than usual this week. Between that and the fact that I was still kinda dragging today I decided that Family Night would include going out to eat dinner. I wanted something close, inexpensive, and that the kids would eat. We all agreed on Chinese, so off we went to Zhang's Chinese. We had never been there. It was pretty good.

Ally ordered the sweet and sour shrimp. She loved it and ate almost her entire plate!

The bookend children opted for chicken nuggets and fries. What!? At a Chinese restaurant? Whatever. Just eat your dinner.

Ryland ordered the Chinese version of Chicken Noodles. He loved it. He only ate about 1/3 of it, but that bowl is HUGE!! He also insisted on using the chopsticks. To eat his soup. Whatever. Just eat your dinner. He was especially excited about going to a Chinese restaurant. Like I said, he is learning about the Transcontinental Railroad and a big part of the history of that is Chinese workers. The majority of the Transcontinental Railroad was built by Chinese workers. He kept telling us all about how the Chinese are all about RESPECT. So we were under strict instructions to be respectful! Oh, how the lecturing tables have turned.

So there you have it. My day in a very tiny nutshell.

Fifty Years Ago Today

Fifty years ago today, my Dad, Elder Gordon L. Burke, gave his Missionary Farewell Testimonial, in Annis, Idaho. Before leaving to the South Germany Mission for 30 months.

I have been working on organizing and scanning his mission memorabilia this last month or so. It hadn't even dawned on me that this February the 24th, 2013 was exactly 50 years to the day that he gave his Farewell address until just a couple days ago. What a fun thing to be working on at such a momentous Anniversary.

27 Days Til Spring: I Need To See Something Green or Flowery

I am slightly torn. While I do enjoy winter time, I think I am ready for a little sign of Spring. I am really enjoying the laid back quality of winter right now. Once Spring hits I feel like life hits the gas pedal and it just gets C-R-A-Z-Y!! But today, to wake up to a new onslaught of snow, well, that was a bit rough. So I took a few minutes and looked online to find some images of trees that we have planted in our yard. I didn't use my pictures, because we don't have a photo of all of our trees yet, and they are still smallish. I wanted to see my trees in their potential full size. Some of the trees I opted to just show a closeup of the blossoms. Now, we have more trees than just the ones I have posted. Quite a few more actually. In fact, I may have a problem, because I still want more trees in my yard. Good thing I have a half acre. They better start to grow faster so I don't think I have any more room for them. Any how, enjoy this little digital splash of Spring.

Eastern Redbud

 Coralburst Crabapple

 Kwanzan Flowering Cherry

 Hakura Nishiki Willow

 Purple Prince Crabapple

 Purple Prince Crabapple

 Hawthorn Paul's Scarlet

 Krauter Vesuvius Flowering Plum

 Royal Raindrops Crabapple

 Royalty Crabapple

After enjoying all of that flowery prettiness, I now turn you back to our regularly scheduled program, at least for a few more weeks....SNOW.



Flashback Friday: Teaching Em While They Are Young

Cannot believe these two used to be so little. Actually I can, it just seems like it was yesterday. Now they are Middle Schoolers. Unbelieveable. Truly.

 This was the first time they helped me by doing the dishes. It was February 2007. They were 7 and 5 1/5 years old. Little babies.

They don't show nearly this much enthusiasm about doing this job anymore.



Science Fair

This year Ally and her friends, Hannah C. and Jayten M. decided to toss their hat into the Science Fair ring. They did a great job doing their experiment and displaying their findings. So proud of my Ladybug!

Sledding, Among Other Things, in Midway (For a Change): 2013

Every President's Day weekend we head outta town. We usually hit Midway, Utah for a little, or a lot, of great food, relaxation, swimming (hot tub for me), and sometimes, if there is enough snow, sledding. We usually get in some great movies by the fireplace, shopping at the outlets in Park City and hanging with family. We usually head up there with Matt and Jen and their family and sometimes with the Franklin family. I usually take more pictures over the weekend, but this time I only busted it out during sledding. So, even though I have already posted a grundel of sledding pictures this month, here are some new ones.

 Matt and Anya

Lauralea, Taylor and Tracy

Our only non-sledding photo from the entire long weekend. For shame. Atleast we had a great time. Which we did.



Flashback Friday: You Can Never Be Too Safe

Today I wanted to show these cute pictures of Ryland I found. It was February 2008. We had a lot of snow that particular winter and he loved being out in it. He was only four years old and for some reason he insisted on wearing his lifejacket out in the snow. What a little cutie. I miss my four year old Chub.