Pictures from the funeral

Thank you Teresa for sharing these pictures she took at the funeral today.


Morgan Fire truck
Morgan Guys in their Ogden blues starting from the left: Kevin Waller, Shawn Waller, BUSTER (who is hiding), Ashley Philips, Uncle Boyd Carrigan (also hiding) in his wildland browns. In the white hat is Ogden's Scott Atkinson. And then from Mtn. Green is Austin Larson in blue and Brian Doyle in white. The rest of the line up are from the Clinton Department.

With their backs to the camera, starting on the left: Rounding off the Waller clan, Hillary Waller and Tyler Waller, the tall one with the red band in his helmet would be Lydon Edward Lafitte, after the 6 feet 5 inches of Lafitte, the shorter end of the line up looks like perhaps the Roberts/Carrigan of the department (love you guys!)

That would be Buster Netz's face there third from the left. He was sure he dodged the camera. Way to capture the moment Teresa.

What an awesome tribute.

Gwen-Now would be good time to look away

Bee-cuz I'm about to tell you the story of phase three (phase one-garden, phase two-chickens)of the development of the Lafitte Family Farm and it involves.............

BEEs

(I'm not kidding Gwen---look away now!)

Friday afternoon we drove home with two of these crates full of the buzzin buggers in the back of the car all the way from Logan.

Tim was supposed to "install" them into their hives Friday night but it started snowing just as we hit Weber canyon (perhaps an omen the we SHOULD NOT be bee-keepers). So since we could not keep them outside in the snow, we had no other option than to keep them in our BASEMENT until Sunday (sounds logical, right?)

Sunday evening, Carol and Lydon geared up for the installation (we only have two bee-keeper costumes). The rest of us had to go bee-commando.

Tim opened the bee crates and pulled out the can that held the Queen.

In the Queen can was a Queen box

Here's a close up of the Queen box

The Queen box is covered in bees that had to be brushed off

This is the Queen-box once all of the bees were brushed off

And here is one of the royal highness's. Sorry for the blurry picture. It's hard to focus under the pressure of being swarmed.

The queen then gets placed on her own special thrown inside the hive box thingy.


Once she is in place, Tim dumped the rest of the bees that had not yet escaped into the box hive thing.

Aaron was not lucky enough to score a bee-keeper costume and only had his coat to protect him so this is all the closer he could get.

Which is a good thing because this is what was going on on the top of Carol's head.

We had to go through that little exercise twice because we bought two bee-packages, which is a total of two queens and six thousand bees---I feel bad for the poor fella that had to count out six thousand bees and bag them up for us.

So to all the homeowners of Williams Circle, I apologize for the buzzing and bee commotion. But apparently this summer you will have the most beautiful flowers in town and if you are nice, you may get a jar of honey for Christmas.

Yo Grandma Ruth

Every time Aaron has a gang of his high-class boy buddies over to our house to ravage our fridge for what little bit of food there may be in there, they complain that our jam isn't good enough (BRATS!) and they want to know why we don't have any homemade jam on hand for them (STINKIN' BRATS!) What's wrong with a little Smucker's squeeze, boys?

Not wanting to disappoint the 15 year old boy population of Morgan County, I thought I better whip up a batch of strawberry jam. So I found a recipe, gathered my supplies and set to it.

I scrubbed, rinsed, sliced and smooshed

mixed and boiled, mixed some more

and made what I think looks like a decent batch of strawberry freezer jam. Now, I know that this isn't Grandma Ruth quality strawberry jam. She got to run out to her garden and pick a batch of strawberries. I had to buy mine at the Costco. Her jam was honest to goodness preserves. Mine is just easy freezer jam. She made enough to stock up those shelves behind the flowery curtain at her house. I made six little containers. So I'm no Grandma Ruth just yet. But that's ok.....as long as my jam is good enough to keep the 15 year old boys off my back! (next they'll be whining because my bread's not homemade and I am NOT making them homemade bread!)

Home, home on the range....

Little did I know that when Timmy agreed to buy this forever home for me, he was really planning on turning our half acre of a back yard into some sort of a ranch/farm/plantation.

Phase one here at Ranch Lafitte involves a garden. Timmy's been tilling the land, prepping the soil, planting some starter seeds and this summer we will have quite the garden. With the help of Yo Bob, Aaron, Carol and Alan, he build a fence around his new garden area to keep the pests out (pest are also fondly known as Poncho and Moose 'round these parts).

They got the fence done just in time because phase two of "Ranch Lafitte" arrived this weekend. That, my friends, is a chicken coop. Yep.......a chicken coop.

And Tim is now a chicken farmer

....and the proud papa to a gaggle of Rhode Island Reds

He said he picked the Rhode Island Red because they matched my hair color. Do I take that as a compliment? Cuz I'm not quite sure how to feel about that.

somebody help me!!

Amazingly enough, this little venture is paying off for Timmy already. He brought his "girls" home late Saturday night and this is what Aaron found out in the coop Sunday morning.

yay--eggs. somebody help me!!

My heart is 'bout to explode with pride

My Aaron Jean started his first job today!! He is now an official Deb's Spicy Pie Guy.

I managed to sneak a picture of his first night on the job. He indulged me by letting me order some dinner from him and then he politely asked me to "leave mom--you are embarrassing me". I'll be working with him on his customer service skills. I still left him a tip. He looks so mature. When did he grow up? I am so proud of both my working boys. They really do make my heart want to explode with pride.

He's our NAPA man

When I need a bag of sugar I head straight to Morgan Jubilee where Lydon Edward works the morning shifts. He hooks up!

He's been my Jubilee Boy

And now, when Timmy needs and air filter, he heads to the Morgan Napa where Lydon Edward works the nights and weekend shifts. He hooks him up!

I guess you could now say he's our NAPA man.

Bless his little hard working heart.....he's working at Jubilee, NAPA, running with the Morgan Ambulance and the Morgan Fire all the while going to the fire academy two nights a week and on the weekends.

I think I"m going to start borrowing back some of the money he's been borrowing from me.

Mission accomplished

Most people didn't think it was possible but I was able to successfully complete an OVER NIGHT mission to Park City Utah this weekend.

This is a picture from my farewell. Attendance was low. Tim was at work, Lydon was at school and Aaron was at a friend's house. Oh well, I appreciate those that were there to support me. This is Kristy getting funding for the mission. These things aren't cheap ya know.

Once we arrived, I was able to write home. (FYI, nobody really cared) These are my companions

I'm not gonna lie....there were times when I wanted nothing more than to be released and come home, especially when I ended up at a little home away from home. But I was able to get some retail therapy.....

......... and some much begged for food (nothing says Park City like a Big Mac)

....and I was able to carry on

I strap on my missionary suit (a.k.a. Matchbox Twenty concert T-shirt) and our mission president put us to work on crafting project. This kept us going into the wee hours of the morning. Notice my pillow next to the hotel clock. The time there would be 1:38 AM!! It took us nearly four hours of cutting and hot gluing to put these precious pillows together. After a LONG night of shopping, minimal eating, lots of crafting and NON-sleeping it was time to brush the six inches of Park City snow off the car to head home.

Consider this my homecoming and my report on my mission. And you didn't even have to put on a pair of pantyhose. Your welcome.