We Finally Made It!

Well, as you see, we finally made it.  Two weeks ago, we had a family reunion and several people suggested making a blog for better communication.  Here it is!

First, introductions. First, the parents. Mom is a registered nurse but doesn't work right now (she reminds us that she works for love instead). She fills her time by driving kids around, taking care of our wonderful home, and swimming.  Then comes Dad.  He is an engineer who currently works in the city of Manteca as the Director of Public Works.  We live an hour and a half away from Manteca, so he spends a lot of time commuting each day (instead of building retaining walls, which is one of his favorite things to do). These two wonderful parents got married in 1990 in the Washington D.C. Temple, and have since had five children.  Number one was Eliza who is going to BYU and will be a Junior this fall.  Luke came next.  He goes to our local high school and will be a Senior next year. Both Luke and Eliza are lifeguards at a private lake in the area right now, and also have lots of academic work to do this summer, so they will be pretty busy.  Third is Marta, who is just a year behind Luke in school.  She has lots of plans for the summer, but they are only dreams right now because of a might-be (but we don't think it is) broken wrist. Tess is the fourth child, and will be a Freshman at the same high school as my older siblings.  So far my summer has been spent in the water, with my family, or sick.  Last, but not least, is Levi who will be in 6th grade this year. Levi has also been spending his summer in essentially the same way I have so far.  We all love reading (thus the background design), and we will gladly take any book suggestions (especially if it's fiction...).

Our family has 17 pets.  One cat, whose name is Stomach (originally she was Bell then Bella then Belly then Stomach), and 16 chickens who live in the "Chicken Palace" that we built in the backyard. We built our house with the help of many friends and family members about 5 1/2 years ago.

This is our back yard and the building on the right is the woodshed that we built.

We will put a picture of the Chicken Palace in a later post because the only ones we have were taken by a cell phone...

Thanks for waiting and reading!

Tess with help from Luke