Seven years old. Seven!

Here is the final destination of my birthday tulip. :)



Before I get to Justus's birthday pictures, a couple bird pictures. One day, around 11am, I looked out the kitchen window and was so excitedly shocked to see an OWL!! This is a barred owl, evidently very common in our area.



[Here is a close-up of the bird in that picture.]



We got to watch it fly up into the tree!





We also have a new birdfeeder visitor: a male red-breasted grosbeak. (Sorry there's no great picture yet; this one is majorly doctored, and is still not good.) So far I haven't seen the female.



Justus got to start celebrating his birthday on Friday, two days before his birthday!



Justus *thought* his BB/pellet gun would be inside this gun case...



... and was very disappointed when it wasn't.



Jeremy thought it would be funny to hide the gun in the other room, so Justus went told to go look in a certain place, Justus came back with it.





Needless to say, Friday night the children got their second official shooting lesson, about an hour's worth, including "dry" practice. Then, Saturday morning we headed to Troy & Kayla's farm; it's about a 45 minute drive. Troy and Kayla were members of Grandview before they moved to their farm. They homeschool, and have five children: Ty, Anna, Emma, Ella, and Abby, ages 9, 7, 5, 3, and 1, respectively. Here are pictures from our time there.



A few of their 12 ducks are barely-visible there in the machine shed, but the 'pet' birds are the precious geese; this species of goose is 100% sociable, with precious personalities!!







Here Kayla is calling 'Seb' like one would call a dog!! Awesome! lol







Some friends of Troy and Kayla have loaned them, for the summer, two 20-year-old horses! Seriously, Natasha just lost herself in the animals. Shooting was as far from her mind as possible. At one point she said, "A farm, for me, would be paradise!" (blink!)











Here you can see the shooting ... in the background.





We did have some lunch there; the guys ate outside while others were shooting. N & I ate inside with Kayla, Ty, and the girls. Ty was making punch from an AWESOME kids' recipe book ... one which I hope to gift to our children at some point.



This is the view from Kayla's kitchen sink. Ahhhh.... Can you say 'idyllic'?? :)



Oh, yes, and much shooting was done as well; here are a few pictures.







While we were there, Kayla received her birthday card from her parents. :) Kayla's birthday is the same as Justus's! Therefore, when we learned that they would be in town Sunday afternoon and evening, we invited them to join us Sunday after services for Justus's "birthday party" ... for which we were having over the Morts and the Gordons. They ended up being able to come!







I even got to shoot, enough that my shoulder and chest were sore the next day. :) [I am so sad to say that I have no pictures of Justus shooting! My, my, my....]



Sunday afternoon Jeremy and I spent some time building and decorating a cake the way Justus requested: Lego Mr. Freeze. *sigh* LOL!







Justus asked for Jeremy's specialty, "Triple Threats", for his birthday supper. Pork chops stuffed with sausage, wrapped with bacon, Mesquite-grilled.

















This is what Justus requested when asked, "What do you want for your birthday?" A wind-up alligator. ??!





Today while giving blood I learned that only 6% of society gives blood, which is "not enough to support the community." I also learned that my B- blood type is very rare (Only one blood type, AB-, is more rare.), and that it would be of more benefit for me to give platelets on a more regular basis. It is a bigger time requirement, but I believe that time commitment (2 hrs. no more often than every 2 weeks) for two hours of forced relaxation could be almost therapeutic for me.... :) So anyway, I'm going to start doing that next time I'm eligible to give, and see how it goes.