Flood in Chewelah

The snow is MELTING like crazy!!  The quiet little park in Chewelah was out of control, and it's hard to believe children splash in this little, tiny, creek during the summertime!  It was flowing fast and dangerously expanding all of it's borders.







 The water was lapping against the cement, dangerously close to going right over the entire road.





















This next picture was taken a few days later.  The water DID go over the road, and all the way onto the highway.  As of today, Memorial Day, this little bridge and road is still closed, though the water is now going under the road instead of over the top of it.








  
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Food

I don't consider myself at a cook.  At least, I didn't...but I've been spending some time in the kitchen and things have been going pretty well!  I've been having some fun trying new recipes and resurrecting old ones that I've used before and my family has liked.  Here are just a few images of what I've been doing lately in my kitchen.

 Pita Bread



 Took this for potluck at church and everybody raved about it.  Inside was hummus, sprouted lentils, pea shoots, and olives.  It WAS really good!




 Haystack with a lot of extras!




 Sprout Salad




 Egg Noodles with Pesto Sauce





 Focaccia Bread





 The Meal...Pesto noodles, sprout salad, and Focaccia bread!





 Carrot soup, which nobody liked, and Calzones with spinach and tofu! 

I am rather amazed because being in the kitchen is NOT my favorite place to be, by any stretch of the imagination.  When I was a kid, I'd rather do almost anything than help in the kitchen.  But my family likes to EAT, and with 5 of us, that means a lot of food goes through this household.  Because I know better than to buy everything in a package, I've been making a great effort to cook more for them, and it has honestly been a nicely rewarding experience.  I'm blessed to not have any picky eaters either, so I'm sure that helps a lot with all my experiments!

 

 

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Too Cute

I usually don't clutter my personal blog with our dog business, but this puppy was just TOO CUTE to pass up!  He's a blenheim male Cavachon, already SOLD to Faith in New Mexico.  The babies are just soo precious and soo cute!!




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Country City Contrast

The Flour Mill...a true country store.  Absolutely love this place, the customer service, the basic garden supplies, tools, and everything someone needs for their farm.  And on some days, you can even see the farmer and his wife.

I walked into the Flour Mill and this couple was at the counter, buying their goods.  The lady was carrying a TINY black poodle, with a lopsided bow in it's hair, and if the sight wasn't straight out of a Norman Rockwell picture, I don't know what is.




But the thing that made it stand out even more, was that beside this couple, that seemed to be lost on the prairie, were 3 young adults speaking Russian, and dressed to kill in their modern, 2011, current, attire.


 I couldn't get a REALLY good picture of them simply because I was sneaking all these photos with my phone in the first place.  But having these two sets of people provided such a beautiful contrast in this life, and they seemed to both come from completely different worlds!  
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Hedricks

I said I'd post pictures of my trip to the nursery that I discovered a few weeks ago!  I had so much fun checking everything out.  Here is the sign, large and so very visible along the Highway, and somehow I've never seen it or noticed it!

The building itself is pretty modest and doesn't look like much from the outside.

But the inside is just bursting with color and beautiful flowers and vegetable plants!

So cute that they have little red wagons for people to use to carry their plants to the cash register!  Such a mom & pop store!

Beautiful Tomato plants, so much bigger than those offered at the competetor's store.  And only $1.59 each!  Amazing!

Peppers

More flowers and ground cover type plants!

Part of my loot that I bought!  Going back for more flowers after these are all planted!

Just love the vibrancy of these Marigolds!  They look like little burst of flames!

Happy Shopper!

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Chickens

They're growing, and oh so cute!

The ducks have really grown and boy do they make a lot of noise!!

 

QUACK, QUACK, QUACK!!!

Can't wait for the eggs.  I'm hoping for mid July, or early August, but might have to wait till September.



 Little "Puff Head".  So cute!  
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On the way to Church...

Lake Roosevelt is WAY DOWN this year, lower than we've ever seen it.  As a result, the ferry between Gifford and Inchelium has been closed down, so we had to drive all the way around to go to church each week.  We aimed for just church, so our drive could be a little later in the morning, as well as be a little more relaxed.  On this day, we decided to stop at one of the campgrounds and take some pictures of the "islands" in the middle of the lake!

Wildflowers are starting to bloom around here!

 

You can't really see the depth of this, but this is the point where the kids jump off the rock cliffs into the water.  I was very happy to see that there are NO big rocks hiding below the dark water.  We have never allowed them to dive, even after trying to check it by swimming the area and diving down, but now that we've been able to see it with NO water, I guess I can relax a little bit!  Still don't really want them to dive, but at least I know there are no big rocks for them to hit.



 This photos really shows how low the water is.  Normally, it is more than half way up this cliffside.








 It was a pleasant stop, and who knows when the water will ever be down this low again.  

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Typing

Kaelyn is really enjoying her Typing class this year.  Here she is practicing, and I snapped some pictures to give her a visual on how important it is to have good posture! 

Ahhh, so much better!!

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California Trip

I"m so behind in blogging.  I went to California with my children to visit my mom and sister sometime back in April.  It was a working vacation, but we also took time to see the big trees in Sequoia National Park.  I'll add more pictures later, but for now, this is a bit of what we saw!

Kaelyn & Kendrick

The River was raging!

Me & my girlie!

Kendrick, Emil, Kim, Mom, & Kaelyn

I was NOT expecting to see ANY snow in California, but Sequoia National Park broke their record on snowfall this past winter.  It was stacked up higher than your hands could reach along the roadsides.  It was really incredible to see, and slightly unwelcome, since I was trying to get away from my snowy spring in WA!

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