Snow in June

Okay, this is going to be a run-on post, so fair warning.  I wanted to post the snow pictures Wednesday, but our internet (and Verizon) was down.  So here it is,  better late than never, right?

 It's been really cold the last couple days, and Wednesday morning we woke to snow.  Not a lot of snow, but enough to know we had some.  There's a lot more in the mountains

 I drove into town early Wednesday to drop off the ten year old.  He headed up into those snowy mountains for a three-day 4H camp.  He took all his winter gear with him :)  It was really foggy heading in.

 Only a few hours later, the snow around the house had melted, but there was still plenty in the mountains, and it continued to snow all day - a bit down here, but mostly in the mountains.

 We had MESA riding again, and this time the five year old got to ride a new horse.  His name is Buck (because he's a buckskin).  He's a beautiful horse, with a soft coat and a gentle stride, but he's bigger than Sadie.  We weren't sure how he would do with a new horse as new things don't always go over very well, but thankfully he was fairly okay with it.  Another child with autism was riding Sadie, and I wondered if it would bother him to see someone else on Sadie.  But we made sure and visited with Sadie a bit beforehand, and we talked about Buck all morning, looked up pictures online of Buckskin horses and prepared him the best we could.

 He rode around for awhile with his eyes covered. I think that was just his way of being a bit rebellious.

 It snowed all during the lessons, as you can see from the dogs that just went out for a minute.  The snow was coming down pretty hard at that point, but it was more like snowballs than flaky snow.

 I really enjoyed watching the sky all day ... so dramatic, and always changing.

 We refilled the bird feeders and each of the boys fed the birds.  :)  They can't reach either feeder, so they just make a little pile, and the birds eat it right off the deck.  The other day I actually saw a gopher up on the deck.  Didn't know they would use those steep stairs.  This deck is really high.

By the end of the day it was nice enough to sit on the deck, watching the sunset and reading my book.  I truly do live in paradise :)

 Also on Wednesday, the five year old had therapy at his old preschool.

   The two year old likes to tag along for these appointments because they have so many toys :)

 We took the two little boys out for pizza.  They have a great salad bar full of stuff the allergic-to-everything two year old can have.  He has tomatoes, cucumbers, olives, peas, craisins and sunflower seeds.  He usually eats two plates this full.

 All my boys like salad stuff - veggies, fruits and so on.

 The day after riding Buck, the five year old found one of our toy horses that looked most like him, and that has been the toy of choice all week.

I was pretty impressed with his makeshift halter.  He is always wanting me to cut pieces of yarn off for him, and he's pretty creative with what he does with it.  He told me now he needs a saddle and some reins. :)

 He tied him off to a Lincoln Log, and later the two year old tied him to a giraffe.  A lot of fun can be had with a simple piece of string :)

In other news, we finally got a target set up for the ten year old to practice archery in the yard.  We have the state shoot coming up in July and he will miss two of the practices for it because we'll be out of town, so we borrowed a bow and have him practicing at home.

And just for the record, this is NOT why we have a king-sized bed!

Sorry for the blurry picture.  On the way home from book club Thursday night the sky was beautiful, but I only had my phone.  So I snapped a couple of pictures, but it doesn't nearly portray the beauty it really was.

So now I think we're caught up.  I guess I better get busy. We have a special meeting at church tonight with Ben Everson.  If you've never heard of him, you really ought to listen to some of his music online.  It's amazing.  He sings a cappella, and produces all the background music and all the different parts with just his voice recorded over and over.  Very impressive.  Click this link to see how it works.  Click here to listen to a my favorite song.