Our Long Awaited Return To The Blog World! Part 1: MN

So now that I think I am totally caught up from being on vacation the whole month of July, I can finally justify updating the blog. Boy, have I caught a bunch of heck for taking so long! Sheesh!

So here we go! These are some of our pictures from our week spent with Grandpa and Grandma B! We all had a great time. The boys have lots of fun memories from the week on the farm! And Grandma B kept us busy busy busy with all kinds of things!


DVB found a relaxing chair right off the bat!


We like to bring Teddy, the Dog, a new toy or treat when we visit. But this time we picked one out that he could have cared less about. DVB couldn't understand why he didn't want to play with it, Toni (our dog) would have loved it!


The boys found the black cap bush right away too! But they were a little on the sour side!


Of course the big tractor had to come out right away too!

This is a fort that Grandma B made for the boys! Fort Grandma, we called it!

And after only 2 hours of being on the farm, LOB crashed on a stump in the fort and scraped himself up pretty good! Bummer!

This is Flippy the Frog that I found in the garage and the boys, especially DJB, played with for the next 4-5 days! Poor frog!

I thought it was so strange to see milk in a bag!

Papa tried to teach the boys how to trap gophers. This was their first catch! Just the tail of a streaky gopher!

Here are all the cousins together! They had lots of fun playing!

We always go down to the neighbor's dairy farm to visit too. DVB loved the little kitty who knew where to get a yummy drink!

We usually get to see baby calves too! This one is sucking on LOB's finger!

Cousin L posed so nicely with the boys!

And yet ANOTHER tractor ride! The boys would do this all day long if you let him!

We visited the new National Eagle Center in Wabasha, MN.

This was almost a perfect picture!

And after a few day's practice, Papa got his gopher trapping touch back! Look at these big, fat, pocket gophers!

These are gopher feet! In MN there is a bounty of $1.75 per set of feet! Gross! But the boys thought it was FUN!

And Teddy the Dog got to have a nasty snack after the feet were removed! gag!

We also visited 96 year old Great Grandma! She's doing pretty darn good for 96!

We got to visit a neighbor's goat farm too. Here a goat is trying to get into the chicken coop!

The boys picked eggs and it even inspired at least DJB to try to eat scrambled eggs! yay!

The neighbor had so many nice flower beds and this beautiful pond with fish and frogs in it.

Of course there's nothing like taking a tour of the next door cemetery and finding your family plot while drinking a beer!

Grandma B taught the boys how to make butter~it was pretty tasty!

We took in a nearby town's parade.

And the boys took home just a tad bit of candy from that parade!

Papa got a few handy man jobs done around the farm too! See him up in that tree?

Another highlight of DVB's trip was about 4 sippy cups of fresh cow milk straight from the bulk tank!

Needless to say he didn't eat supper that evening! His belly was just a tad bit full of milk!

Thank you to Grandpa and Grandma B for the great vacation!

Up next----Part 2: Our week in Iowa

Birthday, Tooth, and Plates!

We finished the first half of 2010 with lots of fun!


DJB lost one of his top teeth on LOB's 8th birthday! He said he just knew he was going to loose it on LOB's birthday! GOB pulled that sucker out while eating supper! It was just a hangin' there and it was grossing me out! The Toothfairy ALMOST failed once again but remembered to leave the $$$ at the very last second! Good lawd, that's a horrible job! (for me anyway!)


We really weren't planning on having a big party for LOB's 8th birthday. But at the last minute, we threw one together with the Hoodies. It's so hard to fathom that he is 8! In 8 more years, he's gonna want a car for his birthday! Scary!


Tiger, the cat, is enjoying the benefits of birthday presents!

On LOB's birthday I asked him where he would like to go for lunch. His response, "Hooters!" I just about peed my pants laughing! Sadly, we did not go to Hooters but we did try out Culvers for the first time. It was good and the boys really enjoyed the custard.

And ending June with a big bang was finally succeeding on getting the boys quads legal! It took 6 months of time, numerous phone calls, 1 close call with the PoPo, a few naughty words, a tad bit of frustration, oodles of paperwork, several dollars, and SEVEN trips to the MVD (idiots) to get those puppies legal! It's a LONG story but we are now law-abiding and will be spending a week riding them in Colorado later this month without a care of being stopped by the PoPo! Yay!

I'm thinking the rest of the month I will be taking a blogging break. We have a very fun month on tap and without the use of my laptop, blogging would be very difficult. But be expecting a doozie of post when I return! Happy 4th of July and we'll be back in touch just in time for school to start! Yahooooooo!

Not Only Do We Have A Brewery....

But we have a vineyard too!

I planted this grape plant as one little twig a couple years ago and it never really did anything but grow and then die last winter in one of our cold snaps. I trimmed it back to the ground and it started to grow like crazy this spring. In about March, I noticed clusters of tiny grapes growing on it as I tried to weave the tendrils a little neater on the lattice. And then, I forgot all about it...that is until last night the boys mentioned that the grapes in the backyard taste really good!

And sure enough, we picked our first crop! There's about the same amount still on the vines that aren't quite ready yet. They are kind of small but they are sweet and tasty! I guess we can call them totally organic too! Or maybe GOB fertilized it with dog poop without me knowing? Who knows! Just kidding! LOB says we should plant some more! I agree, maybe we should!

Do you thing I have enough to make a bottle of wine?

CAUTION: HUGE, LONG Overdue Post Ahead!

This is the post in which I catch up for about the last month of our life! We've been busy busy here at 3 Boys and a Brewery! Sit down, grab a beverage, and enjoy our adventures from the last month!

DJB graduated from Kindergarten. His teacher Ms. S was so incredibly awesome! She cried and cried when she had to say goodbye to him. She said he is a student she will always remember. I sure wish he could have her as a teacher for his whole school career! I told her many times what a wonderful job she did teaching DJB-it was a transformation beyond explanation! I also told her I really hope that she stays at our school so she can work her magic with DVB in a couple years!

There were about 120 Kinder grads! They sang a bunch of cute little songs with cute little dance moves.


Here he is receiving his diploma from Mr. M, the principal and Mrs. D, the assistant principal.

Then there was a celebration in the classroom.

Now on to Memorial Day weekend fun!

We had lots of company for the weekend that we spent up at the cabin. There were 6 little boys and 1 little girl to keep busy; not to mention 6 parents who needed the relaxation time! On one outing, GOB brought out his arsenal of guns! Well only 15 of them! The company also brought a few of their own! So needless to say, after several hours of shooting, we had a ton of used ammo to clean up!

This poor little future sharp shooter did not enjoy being confined to the back of the truck for too long!

LOB was shooting his Cricket with a new scope attached!

This is Curt helping DJB line up a target!

Cousin A had to manually toss a few clay pigeons a few million times, I believe.

I guess GOB threw a few too with his side-hip-helper!

It was a fun weekend with friends and cousins!

Now onto Momma's girls only trip to Mexico!

I went with 3 of my wonderfully fun neighbor girls to Puerto Penasco, Mexico-it's a quick 4 hour drive just south of us. The 5 days away were absolute heaven! It was very much needed and very much recharging! We had tons of laughs, several hours of soaking up the sun, many bargain-filled shopping trips, and maybe just a few beers while we enjoyed our time away!


This was the view from our 5th floor condo balcony.

What a beautiful Mexican sunset!

Here's the clan!

This cute little boy made a few bucks off of us suckers! He was selling bracelets on his lunch break while we were having shrimp tacos and tecates at a little shack!

These are a couple of my Mexican purchases! I just had to have the beer drinking monkey and the cute little Tecate dog was too cute to pass up also! I had to buy "Poncho" a poncho to cover up his junk because he is anatomically correct under that little cover-up! But I thought he might be kinda warm this summer so I got him a much cooler outfit for $3 on ebay and named her "Ponchita" for the summer!

My Mexican get-away was one to remember for a long long time! We are thinking of going back down for Fall Break with our campers and we thought we'd let the rest of our families join us!

This is just a miscellaneous picture of my cute little boys! They are all Toy Story maniacs and just had to have these pool towels! They are looking forward to the release of Toy Story 3 this weekend!

Next up is our most recent weekend adventure!

GOB and I got our own quads last week. We didn't like sharing with the boys any longer! Since the weather was unseasonably cool (high 80's, low 90's for June is unheard of in AZ), we couldn't pass up a weekend of trying out our new toys in the desert dirt! We found a great, flat camping/riding area that is just about 30 miles east of our house a few months back and have returned there several times since.


This is my new ride. It's a Honda 250 something or another. I don't know, but it goes plenty fast for me! She's a little on the plain side so I'm in search of some PINK decals for her! I'll post a picture update when I get her all prettied up!

We all ride safely, of course!

This is GOB's new beast! It's a Honda TRX 700 something or another. All I know about this one is, is that it can go WAY too fast! He's going shopping this weekend for lots of protective gear!

Here's our cute little fam all geared up for a family ride! Just before this picture we were out toodling around and DVB actually fell asleep while riding with GOB!

So what's next up on our adventure agenda? Well, my first born will be turning 8 years old next week so that calls for a celebration! He actually opted for a "friend-only" party instead of the big ol' shindig his Momma likes to throw! Boo hoo! He's getting too big!

The month of July will be very adventurous as well! Our calendar is jammed-packed, full of fun!