What Was I Thinking?

Hi.  It's not such great idea to drive off with your garage open when your cute beekeeping husband just harvested 55 frames of honey the night before. It makes for unloading your groceries a little tricky. Just sayin.

So the story goes on.... over 2 hours later....2 nasty bee stings later...he had once again  moved each of the 55 frames and dusted off all the bees and had them tucked away safely. It took a lot of smoking and leaf blowing magic to get all those bees out of our garage and back where they belonged. In the short time they were out, the bees managed to rob back three full frames that were uncapped.  They had those frames cleaned right up with not a drop left behind.  Those were some busy bees.


I decided I better get busy and make some kind of redeeming dinner. I had a roasted chicken and I made this amazing Tangy Pear and Bleu Cheese Salad found here (it has five stars for reason..YUM!) and some delicious Caprese topped bread.  It was a lovely meal and Mark was a rock star.  No complaints about the bike ride he missed because of my dumb mistake.  I love him.

 You can see the red above his right eye...the next morning it looked like this:

We Can't Keep Him Down

So crutches are old school folks - the new way to be mobile when you are listed on the injured reserve list would be on this nifty little knee walker, or as Mark calls it, Jamaica the Scooter (because it is f a s t like their bobsled team was) OK. Whatever. He just doesn't want to sit still. The scooter has a hand brake that he has already deemed no good. :) He worked a 1/2 day today and did pretty well. He is quite surprised that he isn't in more pain. That's a good thing. We all know that rehab will be making up for that in a few more weeks. He is a trooper and still smiling.

Bee-utiful Day in Cache Valley

A little update about our girls. All three hives survived the winter. That was the first time we have not lost 1/3 of our bees - the typical thing that I happens, we hear. Hive number 3 is extremely strong. We will put the feeders on tonight. Below you can see the queen herself - right in the center of the photo (sorry the focus wasn't on her). It is energizing to go out and watch them at work ~ especially when the hive is opened up like this. It truly fascinates me! Hive 1 & 2 aren't as strong. #1 had some brood - hive #2 didn't have any. That means they most likely lost their queen. Mark "borrowed" some brood from #3 and we will see if they decide to make their own queen. Did you notice the hint of green on the tree behind my cute guy?? :)

May Update

The weeks are slipping by and not much blogging has been going on.  May has been so beautiful this year!  The yard is gorgeous and we are planting flowers & seeds and getting the bees ready for what hopes to be another great honey year!  Mark is doing great.  We are anxiously awaiting the 3 month mark to see if the ablation was successful.  It sure was a happy day for him to get back on his bike this past week. We had a visit from Janell and treasured every minute of that!  Jake Graduated! He received his BA in Business Administration and Eonomics from Utah State.  We had a great Island Luau in his honor.  You can see a few pics on their blog. Way to go Jake!! Our grandson, Liam celebrated his 2nd birthday (see their blog) with such excitement and joy that you can feel it come through the computer screen when you view the videos on their web site! Oh how we miss that sweet family! Davis is enjoying school and doing very well. We need a trip to Portland - SOON! Camber is counting down the days for her trip to Paris & London and she and Em are thrilled that school will soon be out for the summer!!

I sure enjoyed my Mother's Day!  Emily made me French Toast for breakfast.  Camber made an amazing batch of French Onion Soup for dinner. It is one of my favorites!!  Jake & Lindsey joined us and for dessert we had this scrumptious rich, dark chocolate cake by baker extrodinaire, Emily.  I love my family more than words can express.  Being a mom is certainly a huge blessing in my life.  My children continue to teach me every day. 

These extrodinary children are a joy to journey through life with.  If time could have just frozen at this point!  But we all know that none of us would really want that forever - watching them grow and find their place in life is certainly something Mark & I treasure.  Thanks so much for making me such a very happy mommy!

To my mother Joan & Mark's mother Marie  

A very Happy Mother's Day to you both!  

Thank you for your continued nurturing and love and 

beautiful exmaples of womanhood.

We all love and adore you both!

The girls are doing great!!  We had two friends over to help Mark split a hive last week.  They are joining the ranks of apaiary service!  Dean & Ben were like pro's out there!  And how cool for Dean to spot the queen right off!  It's in his blood, this beekeeping.

The gear looks great on all of them!

Dean jumped right in there and went to work.  See the queen he found? The coolest thing about these Queens, is the singing noise they make.  It is hard to hear it, but once you have - its just amazing!  What facinating little creatures these bees are!

Below, you can see her on the edge of the frame.

Mark rides with a good friend, Brian - who is the strongest 12 year old

 he has ever met up with!

Janell lights up our life!  She needed to come down and see her Dad.  We loved the visit with her even though it was short.  If we were photoshop guru's we would have Dani in these photos!  We miss you Dani, and it isn't the same without you here.