Visit with Great Grandma Wilkey

We were able to visit our wonderful Grandma Wilkey for a bit this evening!  It was so good to visit with her and she loved seeing Madison, her "namesake" as she always calls her.  Grandma has been fighting strong as she has struggled with multiple strokes for the last 3 1/2 months and has been in and out of the hospital and care center.

  I love this amazing woman. 
A woman of faith.
A woman of prayer.
A woman of family.
A woman of optimism.
A woman who loves the scriptures.
A woman of serving others.
A woman of hard work. 
A woman devoted to her God and religion.
I could go on and on and on.
She is an extraordinary example of a Christlike woman.
I hope to be like her.

We got a family pic with Grandma.

Madison was quite tired and not very cooperative...
Uncle Creed kept her entertained by pushing her around :)

Group hug :)

Doll

Where's Madi?

:)

More Magna pics

She liked throwing things down the stairs and saying "uh-oh!"

Gotta be careful what I let her play with...luckily I found our keys in the kitchen drawer before we were frantically looking for them!

Watched part of Leslie's performance!  (sorry not the best pic)

And 6 little ducklings hatched!

Morning dew (by Mike)

Everything but snow

Today started out as a beautiful day!  We can almost lose Madi in the grass because it's so tall.

She had fun picking dandelions and pulling them apart. 

Playing in a field of dandelions!

This one is for you Grandpa Redmond



Then this afternoon a crazy storm came through!  Just before the storm hit our power went out (and didn't come back on until 3 hours later!)  We watched the fast moving clouds move in and it got extremely windy.  Blew our bikes and a few other things over.  The wind brought hail and then rain. 



Hangin' out in the dark.  She still loves to put things in her mouth and go about playing with it hanging there.  Poor turtle :)

Luckily we did still have quite a bit of light from the big kitchen window.  But when the power is out and you have a feeling it's going to be out for a while, you start thinking!  Where are the flashlights/candles?  What am I going to cook for dinner?  What about the food in my fridge/deep freezer?   How will I blog? jk :)

and for us - our water comes from a well and eventually the tank would run out, so we had to be cautious on how much we used (since we didn't know how long the power would be out). 

During the hours that the power was out we would laugh at how many times we would try to turn on a light. 

After our 3 hour power outage, which really isn't that long...we decided we should practice going without power for a day or two (we could try a month, but we're going to take it easy on this challenge :) )
We'll let you know when we try our power outage challenge :)

After the storm passed by we took a drive in our backyard

We live right in the center of this picture, just below this big white cloud that rolled in

It was a bit muddy



Eventually the fog found us and blocked our view. 

Jamie if you are stalking this, I got your e-mail & will call you tomorrow!  And you should start a blog! :)

Leslie's prom pics!

Leslie went to prom a week ago! 
Dad and I did a photo shoot with her!  She was beautiful! 
And her dress was made by Mom (isn't she amazing!?!)!

If they had been able to find a modest dress at the stores then Mom wouldn't have made this for her...but since they couldn't they got busy picking out fabric and sewing!
Way to be modest!!!

Leslie has an awesome collection of big, fancy, fun rings, and of course she had a blue one to go with the dress!

Love this shot in our apple orchard, especially since it's blooming!

One of our favorite shots!

I just love this one too...
can't really explain why,
maybe just the way little Madison is looking up at Princess Leslie (and the fact that you can only see part of her dress...)

Cute silver shoes!

The dates!  Sorry, I don't remember their names...

oh and she is amazing at painting her fingernails with cool designs...I didn't get a pic, but Dad might have one (post!)

Swarming Bees

Thursday night Mike made the comment to my Dad that it looked liked his bees were very busy. 
Dad told him that was pretty normal.



But when Dad went out there, he realized they were more than just busy, they were swarming! 
Bees!!!



My Dad has a few hives going and has learned a lot about bees. 
A queen bee hatched and it was time for her to look for a new place for her "bee followers" so they gorged themselves on honey and then swarmed.  Okay so he explained it to me, but I don't remember the details, other than bees are fascinating!  My Dad should be writing for this post...(dad-you can leave a comment and correct anything!)





Most of you are probably saying "AHHH!" or "Quinn you've got bees on you!  Don't let them sting you!" But because they were so full of honey they weren't in the stinging mood and would just land on us to take a break.



Oh boy, they would even land on our skin! 



If you don't like bees, better stop reading!



They got really up close and personal!



I promise, he didn't get stung.  Look, he's even smiling!

The air was thick with bees!



These bees must have been really tired.



Time to get some protective gear on.



Here they are starting to clump together.



They really like Dad

A lot.

And his camera.

You can see them in the top of the tree on far left.  There aren't too many flying around now. 

 

Wow.  Tons of bees.  They have swarmed around their queen.





Now comes the fun part of catching this swarm of bees and introducing them to a new hive.



First Dad cut the branch that this small bunch of bees had swarmed on and then he put it in the bucket.

Then he knocked the huge clump of bees into the bucket.

A couple squirts of sugar water into the bucket to attract the rest of the bees there.

They still really like Dad.
After most of the bees had made it to the bucket they introduced them to a new hive to call home.
The Queen bee and all her "bee followers" will now live happily every after.

okay Dad, you can really edit this! :)  you're the bee man!