The Blakes

2009-10-24T16:01:00.000-07:00

Well, I finally got sick of looking at our name at the bottom of everybody's blog list so I decided to post a little something about the past year so we could be at the top for a day.

John's heel is recovering slowly. It will be a year next month and he gets a little frustrated with it slowing him down but it is still getting a little better each week. His right foot is a little longer now with the lump on the back but he seems to make his boots work somehow.

This is John's heel after he got his cast off in January

and this is John's heel a few days ago.

We spent most of our summer horseback. In April we went and helped my parents brand their calves.

The rest of the summer we spent moving our cows around and apparently taking pictures of Bailey on horses. We spent quite a bit of time at the lake with family and friends but I always seemed to forget my camera. Here are the few pictures that I got.

This is Bailey at the 4th of July parade. She thought the nearby steps were more fun.
This is the turtle Bailey caught this summer. She named it Pink along with everthing else she names. We had to let it go finally because it wouldn't eat anything. Here are a few farm pictures from the summer. Bailey loves helping her dad every chance she gets. We also had another baby a few weeks ago. Sadie Lou was born on October 13th, exactly 2 weeks early. She weighed 6 lbs 6 oz and was 20 inches long. We sure think she's pretty cute. Bailey kind of likes her too sometimesRishelle (you're probably the only one that got this far) I am expecting an update from you soon. Thank you.

Catchin Up

2008-12-18T20:48:00.000-08:00

Well, it seems like a lot has happened since I last posted, probably because it was like four months ago. Anyways, here is a semi-quick recap of the last few months....

Bailey was a bunny for Halloween. Her costume was a little small for her but we made it work.

We started building our shop. In these pictures we are putting the floor heat in. Bailey thought it was a real fun jungle gym.

We got a new milk cow. Our holstein, Daisy Duke, tried to trample John to death one night.

So I talked John into trading her in for a jersey. This is Lori Darlin and she is much sweeter than Daisy. John also got the automatic milker set up so we are in business. If you want to take a step back in time just come over to our place. We drink A LOT of milk and we also figured a milk cow could be considered a form of food storage.

This is the fridge in the barn. The neighbors just take a gallon and leave a buck.

We got our shop framed and John started putting the tin on the roof...

then he fell off and crushed his heel bone. He had to have surgery a couple of weeks ago. They put three plates and nine screws in it. He is doing pretty good considering. It drives him nuts that he can't go outside and work though. Bailey drags books to him all day to read to her.

Our ward, neighbors, and friends have been so helpful. They milk the cow, feed the cows and horses, pack the wood in (the mutual also had an activity and chopped and stacked all of our firewood), and finished putting the roof on our shop. We really couldn't live in a better area and we are so grateful.

Bailey also celebrated her first birthday a couple weeks ago. She got real spoiled.

She was really proud of her new pink boots.

Just a few more pictures I thought were cute.

Merry Christmas!!

August

2008-09-08T14:22:00.000-07:00

Bailey and I went to Oregon for a couple of weeks in August to spend some time with my family. My sister Rishelle flew up from Houston with her kids and we had lots of fun riding horses, freezing corn, learning to moon walk, and cleaning out my parents basement - in which we discovered several exciting treasures including $150 hiding in old Birthday cards, purple leg warmers, our high school jeans - which unfortunately looked similar to "mom jeans" sporting 9 inch zippers, very large hips, and tapered legs - a strange note written by my sister telling us that "we will be better off without her and to take good care of her things" that she has no recollection of writing, and my old baseball card collection complete with Nolan Ryan's Rookie Card.

When Rishelle's husband flew in from Houston we all headed back to Rexburg and hung out for a few days. We went boating a couple times, celebrated Myles birthday, and watched The Office - except for John who said "this is gay" and went to bed. I suffered from a small case of Vacation Letdown Syndrome after they left, but have since recovered.

Bailey riding Elvis

Rishelle and Ellie
Freezing Corn

Freezing corn

Still freezing corn
Bailey with her cousins Sammy and Claire

Bailey rolling over poor Sammy.

Poor kid...... her hair matches her life jacket.

Myles won the Big Air Competition.
And Lisa came in a close second.

I won the Most Attractive Picture Competition.

And John came in a close second.

Nice pearly whites.

And nice pearly whites.

Bailey thought the tube was pretty fun.

Summer Fun

2008-07-21T16:55:00.000-07:00

Summer Fun (Contd)

2008-07-19T12:02:00.000-07:00

Here are a few pictures of our past month. We've been busy trying to keep our crops wet, our cows watered, our house clean (unsuccessful), our stomachs full (successful), and our fuel bill really high (also successful). However we managed to have a little fun boating, swimming, going to family reunions, and attending church (semi-fun).

Little Girls and John Deeres

2008-06-10T14:45:00.000-07:00

Bailey loves to ride in the tractor with her dad. She usually falls asleep on the job though. John is pretty proud of his new tractor and his cute daughter.

Mud Flat Branding

2008-06-06T12:33:00.000-07:00

We headed over to Oregon last weekend to help my parents brand. Bailey had lots of fun playing with her cousins all day, John had fun roping and throwing calves, and I had fun eating. I didn't do a very good job taking pictures. I was busy eating.