Animal Happenings

Taft likes to take pictures with the animals. Blinky and Taft - a selfie! Apparently Blinky eats bark or is smokin' a cigar.

Chicken in the sun!

Chickens in Love...not romantically as they are both Hens.

All of the above photo credits go to Taft.

We got an egg with a double yolk! Also featured is my sour dough starter - look how bubbly and beautiful. It's kind of an animal in and of itself...a little bossy sometimes, too.

Some of the younger chickens get out of the fence and forget how to get back in. Taft found a couple of them roosting in the tack room!

The next night he found the same rooster roosting on the gator roof!

Taft loves the animals most especially. He has trained our three original chickens to come to the door. One walked right in the other day and went to the office where Taft was to say hello (ok, fine, Alyssa led her there). They really are fun though!

 

Bone Breakage

Kent is the first child of our Archibald clan to break a bone. He was getting out of the back of the gator and ended up head down and then in a heap on the ground. The sister missionaries were over helping us work on a fence and one of them said, "oh, he broke his arm." I was ready to tell him to get up and he'd be ok when I realized Sister Olson was right! Kent had broken his arm! I picked him up, ran inside, got him ice. Erik gave him a blessing and ibuprofen and then I took him to the ER. Erik blessed Kent that he would be able to endure the pain and Kent was truly blessed with that. He hardly cried and was calm on the 40 minute drive to the hospital. We were also blessed to make almost every light green on the drive. A true miracle for 290, especially through Manor!

We went to the children's hospital where they know how to make your experience as smooth sailing as possible. They numbed his skin for an IV, gave him nasal pain medication so when they x-rayed it, he wouldn't have as much pain, and then heavily sedated him when they set it. He says when he woke up he didn't know where he was and he had forgotten that he had broken his arm!

When Kent got home, Taft gave him a kit of goodies to help him feel better. 

Kent has been mostly rolling around the living room. He discovered he can still play Bomber Man with some assistance. 

Evan has been a great assistant. He gave Kent some ibuprofen tonight! Everyone has been kind and helpful to Kent. We're just trying to remind everyone that breaking your arm is not fun and should not be attempted, even for goodly amounts of attention.

 

An Unexpected Day of Spontaneity

 Today has been the "best day ever" according to Taft, which is wonderful to hear him say because also according to him this month has been the worst month ever. 

We had a really fun, random, unexpected spontaneous day! We started this morning by jumping on the trampoline while listening to songs like Jump On It and We Didn't Start the Fire and Here Come the Men in Black. We might have ripped a spring off the trampoline - maybe a trampoline isn't designed for 2 adults and 3 kids, but we sure had a fun time. Taft suspects the cows wanted to jump too because they were all looking at us intently.

Erik made breakfast and we ate it outside. It included pancakes and a chocolate banana shake.

We played pickleball this morning and this afternoon. We went from casually hitting the ball back and forth to designing a makeshift court with a baby gate for a net. 

After pickleball, Taft was hot, so he decided he should swim, which landed all the boys in the hot tub which was heated up for the first time since we have moved in. It was about 80 F outside but the water was 63 F. They swam for almost 2 hours with Erik and Alyssa joining them towards the end. The hot tub made it to 96 F, which made the experience much more enjoyable and tolerable.

Erik also did a Sea World training routine for us! The kids were his whales and dolphins. The pool fun mostly ended when a scorpion was discovered and then lost in the hot tub. It was a little scary staying in there after that!

Erik has been working with all the kids on building a climbing wall. They decided to paint it like the solar system. It is looking so good! It is ready to get the climbing grip things put on and then somehow we will figure out how to stand and mount the wall!

Alyssa and Evan chased chickens. 

Tonight we had a fire and roasted hot dogs, little smokies, and s'mores.

It was just such a pleasant day and we had fun! It's been a long time since I have had good ol' fun.