Day 1

 New plumbing for tub and toilet

 New 80 gallon water heater

 New shower head where everyone but me wants it

 New shower controls

 New wall and tub (I love the new wall the most)

 Old wall (not too bad for what it's been through)

New shut-off valve for the whole house

Stay tuned for tomorrows exciting activities (window, green rock, mud, etc.)

Busy weekend

Raya finally conquered the monkey bars.  It only took a week of crying and determination but she can make it all the way across.  Now she is trying to figure out how to turn around and come back without stopping!

 We attended the Denver Scout Show on Saturday.  There were booths EVERYWHERE and people EVERYWHERE and noise EVERYWHERE. Quite overwhelming in my opinion.  I took the younger three while Kevin worked with Braxton. 

Adria trying out the police "explorer" helmet

We saw a K-9 presentation.  It made us think of Uncle Matt.  This guy was swinging the dog around.  He was a big dude.

Cubmobiles.  Luckily the hill wasn't too steep, especially since adria ran into the cone half way down!

Kanyon's early bday gift this year was to attend LegoFest.  He had a blast!  He said it was the best bday present ever.  That's going to be a hard one to beat!

Kanyon with the rock monster, taking a picture of dad.

Kanyon swimming in the pile of legos.  It was ginormous from what I understand.

Lightning McQueen completely of Legos.  How do you think they move these things from the different locations?

They had color sections, Kanyon built the pyramid and Kevin made the word "blue".  How creative huh?  There was only one size piece so it made to be slightly difficult.

Harriet Tubman and Johnny Depp on a Saturday night as we celebrated one year living in DC.

One Last Look

One last look at a 32 year old bathroom that has seen a lot of use.  Mom cleaned out all the drawers under the sink and we're ready for the contractor on Monday.  Then its a week of tub baths in the downstairs bathroom.  Maybe I'll just take a big cup and pour the water over my hear.  Mom has all the tile and stuff laid out on the dining table ready to roll.  You can probably tell we're not the least bit excited about this project.  We both took tomorrow off to get things started and to watch the demolition.  We went up to Moscow Builders yesterday and bought three new shut-off valves for the sink and toilet.  We also bought flowers for the lamp post on the deck and some of the boxes and pots we have around the front and back.  This morning there is frost on the grass.  Hope the new flowers didn't freeze.  I'll post pictures during the week as things progress.

PS - Kevin, Mom found the box with the coins in the Tootsie Roll Can that you wanted.  We'll save them for the reunion.

Towers

I found this one in my album. Sorry it's fuzzy. I have more photos somewhere.

 We continue to put our tower-building skills to use. I made King Benjamin's tower for a primary activity two years ago.

Easter Fun

Just a little bit of Easter fun we had a few weekends ago.  We went to Brant and Leslie's colored eggs, had an egg hunt, and ate egg salad sandwiches of course! 
The "boys" (I think Ty definitely has his mom's lips!)

Shawn, Annie, and crew joined us (with an extra one they were babysitting).

The Girls (Aimee, Katie, and Amelia)

Adria and Kori sat with the moms at the table.

The easter egg coloring "fun".  There were a lot of little hands coloring hands. They all did so well being patient and waiting their turn. 

One last photo, this is a little old but Raya finally lost her first tooth.  She couldn't believe it finally happened to her!

Corn in Egypt - the tile is here

I just got up this morning and looked out the window and what did I see. This amazing cloud formation.

We got a call yesterday that the last pieces of tile have arrived at Home Depot. I e-mailed our contractor and told him we are ready to proceed. Hopefully we will get going this week or next.

It was a beautiful day yesterday. It got up above 70 degrees and you could almost hear things growing. I mowed, sprayed Round-Up, repaired the lawn mower (actually our neighbor cleaned the carburetor for me and it runs great now), and took a load to the dump. Everywhere we went there were lines, at the recycling center, the dump, on and on. Yesterday was Hemp-Fest at East City Park. It brought the usual group of people. Where else can people get together and celebrate such a fine activity. Mom has tackled the storage room down stairs. I never knew you could put so much stuff in one little room. Now it is all over the downstairs family room. She is organizing it and putting it in plastic bins trying to make it a little more usable and kid friendly. We've thought of a few more activities for the reunion - should be lots of fun. Brant's post reminds me of the old Fathers and Sons tower. The tradition continues.

Pioneering Campout

 Ty setting up his shelter- no tents this campout.

 He slept nice and warm and it kept the wind out.

 Our pioneering tower- As always, it is a lot taller when you stand it up.

The finished Tower.  Ty is in camo hat on back right.

Brant

Weston's Experiment

Weston wanted to know if the Easter Bunny is real...

He set this all up on his own.

Looks like we had about the same kind of day that Dad did in Moscow. We mowed the lawn, trimmed a tree and planted a little garden (I felt kind of weird planting things in April, but everything we can find says we're out of the frosty season. Guess that's one of the benefits of living in the South). I got a new toy this last week and somehow we decided to ride to the nursery to pick up some potting soil and plants for the garden. 25 miles through parks, neighborhoods, and highways, but we made it back with all of our loot. The trailer rode a little better than the one I used to hook to my red, banana seat bike as a kid (dad, do you remember the hitch you welded up to hook that trailer to my bike?).  

Kelly relaxing on the swing after our ride. All she needs is a good Louis L'Amour and she could stay there all day.

Gettingt Closer

This week we picked up the new tub, vanity, floor tile, and mirror. We now have everything except the bull-nose tile that goes around the bathtub. We ordered 66 pieces and when they arrived 44 of them were broken. They are now trying to find more. It turned out to be a discontinued pattern from Home Depot and there are not many left in the country. As soon as we get all the pieces and parts we will contact the contractor and get going.
Yesterday was a beautiful day. I blew leaves, mowed the lawn, and put the pads back on the swing on the deck. Then I sat out there and read a Loui L'Amour book. The old forehead looks a little pink this morning. Today looks pretty good too, just a few high clouds. Mom is cleaning the "game room" so we can get to the water shut-off and inspect the floor of the bathroom. It's amazing what she is finding. Can anyone say old football helmets, 1000 piece puzzles, etc. Hopefully we will back the pickup up and load a bunch of it up for the land fill.
Enjoy the spring weather.

Happy Birthday Matt!!

You're a wonderful husband and even greater daddy!! Hope your day is a good one!

Riley Pics

I haven't posted pictures of Riley in a while so here are some good ones!

I'm pretty sure we were having one of our great conversations during this one. She's a bit of a chatter box!

I tried pigtails that day and haven't done them since. I think she needs to grow her hair just a little bit more! Either way it was pretty cute.

Bright eyes!

Happy girl!

I found her one morning asleep and hanging a leg out of her crib. I thought it was pretty funny...

We just got a new high chair! I swear I could not get her to smile.

I love this outfit and she's just such a fun girl!!!

Family Reunion Portraits

Hello All!! Matt and I just got home from a wonderful Easter Sunday in Moscow. Visiting with Kent, Martha, Seth and Lacey was so great and as we were talking, ideas and plans for the reunion came up. Since it is such a rare occasion that all of us actually get together, we are hoping to take advantage of this and have family pictures taken! We thought it would look really nice to coordinate our looks and make it into a great portrait. I don't know if you all know what Pinterest is but it's a site that has great ideas on putting colors together to make a photo look great. We like the colors Navy, Grey, and accents of Mustard Yellow. I found some things on Pinterest so to get a visual of these colors together here are some examples. And another example. This site doesn't have the color scheme but it has great advice about making family portraits.
Any objections or suggestions?? There are great ways to be creative with these colors. You can do solids, stripes, plaid, patterns, and layering these makes for great photos! We're hoping to achieve a nice/casual look, so men can be in collared shirts and jeans and women in shirts or blouses and jeans. It's also good to avoid shirts with logos. So PLEASE comment and let us know if this is too much of a hassle or if you hate the colors or something! Thanks!

A Day Without Rain!!!!!

Where's this bridge????

While we were at Hordeman Pond yesterday a college age couple came canoeing by on their way down the creek. It brought back old memories of a bunch of kids floating down the creek in early spring. The other day in the paper it said they might try to dredge part of the pond so it doesn't get so stagnant in late summer.

Mom and I attended the adult meeting of stake conference last night. There were some good talks. Tara spoke and gave an excellent talk. She made reference to visiting Grandpa Zirker with her kids as a means of service. Today we will go to the Mountain View building to view conference via a computer link from the stake center. Matt, Kimbre and Riley are coming down for church and dinner. Seth, Lacey and family will be here too.

We hope spring is just around the corner. Dan (next door neighbor) just bought a pretty blue 2011 F-150. I am every envious.

Have a wonderful Easter and enjoy and remember the significance of this special day. We love you all.

1940 Census

I was poking around on the newly-released 1940 census today and I found this listing for G-pa and G-ma Zirker. They actually ended up listed on the same page of the census, so I'm guessing their families lived very close to each other (Is this true Dad?). Click on the link and it should take you right to the right page (Grandma's family is the second one down). Let me know if it doesn't work and I can send you the page in pdf format.

Grandma and Grandpa Z in the Census

This link should take you to some more Zirker relatives. The link will open up page 4 of a file, if you click over to page 5 there's some more of the Zirker clan there as well.

Myton Zirker clan


Mom - if you can tell me what city your parents were living in in 1940, we may be able to find them as well.

Here's a great article about Dr. Phil Allen, from BYU.
http://www.lawnandlandscape.com/ll0312-leadership-awards-phil-allen.aspx

Cousins!

Cousins are great!  We got together on Wednesday and played great together.  The moms just sat back and relaxed.  How many Zirkers can you get on a trampoline?

.......more rain........

Anybody recognize Mountain View Park?

Not to keep beating the same old drum but it just keeps raining. Last night on the news it said the wettest March on record in the Palouse had about 4.1"of rain. As of last night we have had about 5.3". Nothing is happening on the farms, the street by Richards has been closed twice, you can see by the picture that the park has been underwater a couple of times. It sure would be nice to see the sun!!!!!

We gave the contractor the OK this week. Friday night Mom and I went down to Home Depot in Lewiston and bought almost all of our "stuff". We still have to order the tub and pick up the new water heater. Hopefully construction will start in a couple of weeks.

Dan next door sold his big Dodge pickup and will take delivery of a 2011 (with 26,000 miles) F-150 this week. I an not just a little envious.
Conference has been great. Hope you are all happy and enjoying life. Sounds like it is a little warm in Denver. Kevin, have you ever met a Bishop Palmer from Aurora. His brother was just release as bishop is Lewiston.

PS - another moose has found its way to Moscow. It is hanging around in about the same area as the last one.