A few weeks after school let out the Dahlke family hit the road. We had many places to see and we decided to begin with my Grandma Gray. We drove North to Nebraska (about 14 hours) and stayed the night in a hotel. The next day we headed west through Wyoming and by that night we were in Salt Lake City, UT and at Grandma's house. Within 10 minutes of arriving, my Boy Scouts had a couple of tents set up in the back yard, very impressive! Our plan was to stay in Salt Lake for several days, but had received a phone call during the drive informing us that Trent's Grandma Bowles had passed away. Therefore, we needed cut our visit short in order to get to California for the funeral. It's alway fun to visit with family. I love being able to take my kids places that I used to visit with my family when I was young. Grandma has a little park behind her house that I used to love to play in. Now my kids enjoy spending time in the same park.

My Grandma is a neat lady and I'm so glad my kids are able to get to know her. The Sunday before we left we had a big family barbeque so we could visit with much of my extended family. We live far away, but I'm grateful we get to see everyone at least a few times a decade;)

Horsemanship

(Troop 560 enjoying some down time at the campsite, they also found a water hole in which to swim as well as fish...What a great camp out!)

For years our Scouting program was broken. Recently we've had some amazing men called to be Scout Masters, and they've helped fix many of the problems. Our newest Scoutmaster makes sure the boys have plenty of camp outs to attend and merit badges to work on. Our latest merit badge has been horsemanship. To finish it up the boys went on a camp out to a members home who has several horses. My boys were not too thrilled about going (anything that pulls them away from video games is frowned upon), but once there, they all had a great time.

(Matthew, 13 years old)
All three of them learned how to ride, control (sort of), and generally care for a horse.

(James - 16 years, Bryan - 17 years)

Trent told me that once the basic lessons were over the boys were allowed to saddle up and ride at their leisure. James took advantage of this opportunity and rode for quite a while. He also made sure to properly unsaddle the horse and rub it down. Good job boys, and thank you Brother Collier for your horses, knowledge, and patience with a bunch of teenage boys!!!

Ahhhh, Country life

I love living out in the country. When we lived in Loa, it was great having horses and cows for neighbors. I remember one time I was talking on the phone and I looked out the window to see a flock of sheep grazing on my lawn, how cool is that!!! That never happens when we live closer to the city. Occasionally, I might see a group of squirrels, but it's just not the same as a flock of sheep. Friday I was out walking the hills around my house and I saw some large objects coming down the street. As I got closer I realized they were peacocks, yes two male peacocks. I was close to the house so I ran in and got the kids. We watched them walk down the street until they disappeared. A bit later Trent and Rachael joined me as I finished up my miles for the morning. As we were chatting Trent pointed toward a neighbors house....sitting on their porch railing were the peacocks. We waited for a few minutes to see if the people would emerge, but no such luck. I REALLY wanted to catch their expressions as they opened the door and found themselves face to face with my two new friends;)

Spring storms

(Trent, Savannah, Charlotte, Rachael, Joey, Matthew, Isaac, and Jacob)

Spring in Tennessee means rain, lightning, rain, thunder, rain, tornadoes, and did I mention rain. This has been an extremely wet spring for us. Our grass/weeds are green and healthy and growing faster than we have dry days to mow. A few weeks ago a large storm came through and brought with it huge amounts of rain. At some point the accompanying wind began to move in a circular pattern and the kids in school ended up having to get into tornado safe places for several hours during the day. The afternoon buses had to run late because the school district didn't want students on the roads in the case of a 'touch down'. I decided to pick up the younger boys so they would get home before dark. While driving home I asked them how their day was. Joey complained, "I had to stand in the girls bathroom for more than an hour." Poor Joey, guess his class is assigned to the GIRLS bathroom in the case of tornadoes. Jacob was thankful his class was assigned the hallway and not the bathroom. He informed me that he hopes he doesn't get a certain teacher next year because than he would have to stand in the girl's bathroom for tornado drills, Yuck!!! When the storm finally passed we went exploring. We discovered the woods behind our house had flooded. Matthew and Jacob ran down to further investigate and quickly discovered the usually dry area now contained over 4 feet of water. As they played in our new "pool" I ran in and got Trent. He decided it was plenty deep to pull out the canoe. Once the boat was settled we called our neighbors and invited them to come play as well. They all enjoyed hours of fun and it was a good thing they took advantage, because by the next day the water was gone, in fact by that evening it was dry enough to mow our overgrown lawns/weeds, YEAH!........the boys were thrilled;P

Why were you crying?

Today I was given the opportunity to teach the 'Temple Marriage' lesson to the Young Women. Heidi (the new YW president) asked me earlier in the week, and I really enjoyed getting the lesson ready. I loved being able to wander HobbyLobby and let my creative juices flow as I reflected on what to make as a handout. By Sunday all came together and the lesson went well (thanks to lots of prayer and prep time). Of course I cried as I was able to testify about the importance and blessings of the temple. Anyway, we came home, made lunch and once done Trent and I went into our room for our Sunday afternoon nap.

Joey followed and stood at the edge of the bed talking about little things. After a minute or two I said to him, "Hey, Joey, I cried at church today". He looked at me and asked why. Rather than answer I asked him why he thinks I cried. Joey said, "Maybe because you had to do a talk, sometimes people cry in a talk". I told him, "I did cry when I gave my talk, but why do talks make some people cry?" He thought for a minute, "Maybe because they say the wrong words." We laughed and then he added, "or, maybe because they don't want to give a talk." We continued laughing, but then were able to use the teaching moment to talk about the Holy Ghost and how sometimes we can feel the spirit so strong that we might cry. Also, we talked about when the Holy Ghost might talk to us and how. The whole incident was about 5 minutes, but I sure am thankful for those small opportunities to teach my children, times when they are truly ready to listen. I do love being a mom:)

My 2 year old teenager

Yesterday Rachael was angry because I was chopping veggies and couldn't pick her up. By the time Trent came in she was into a full blown tantrum. After raising so many two year olds I can pretty much ignore anything, but Trent was having none of it. He firmly said to her, "If you can't stop, than you can just go to your room!" To my surprise she stopped, looked at him, and then turned and stomped to her room. Then, just to give us the full "teenager" affect, she slammed the door. After a couple of minutes, her door opened and our happy little girl emerged, and crawled into her Daddy's lap. They sat at the table snuggling until I finished. It was funny and cute.... this time, but I'm not sure how cute the stomping and slamming will be in 10 years.

What's that smell?

So... I have a two year old in the house. You would think with her being child number six I'd remember to keep things up and out of the way. Honestly, I thought I was doing a pretty good job. I have a door knob blocker on the bathroom and try to keep all the sharp and poisonous stuff out of sight and out of reach. Rachael's latest passion is cool, creamy, gooey stuff. Doesn't matter if it's lotion, butter (which she loves to eat and feed to the dog, by the way), medicine (we've gone through several tubes of Neosporin in the last few weeks), glue (we have to really watch where we keep glue sticks, she thinks they are chapstick) or toothpaste. The first time it's kind of funny, but once the numbers get into the double digits, it sort of stops being funny and I'm tired of cleaning it all up. A few nights ago she walked into the kitchen completely covered in toothpaste. I did snicker, but I think Trent thought it was a sigh of exasperation. He grabbed her and volunteered to clean it all up. I was fine with that, and continued to work on the computer. The next morning we were in a bit of rush and as I was brushing my hair and heating up my flat iron, I was telling Rachael to find her shoes. Still distracted, I grabbed the flat iron and started straightening my bangs.... I immediately heard a strange sizzle sound and then smelled something burning. I quickly pulled the iron away from my hair and took a closer look. I guess Trent didn't see the big globs of toothpaste all down the side of my straightener. I touched my hair and, yep it was nice and crispy, but at least I smelled minty fresh.