so much news!

It has been such a busy week!

I will just have to hit the highlights I guess or you would be reading for hours!

My friend Melissa had a baby on Friday -- a beautiful little girl, 8 lbs, 11 oz; Tim and Melissa named her Hope Raelynn. Baby Hope had some complications that have kept them in the hospital for the past week but they are so thankful there is a possibility that they get to come home tomorrow!!! I can't wait to hold baby Hope!!!!

Of course the week was a huge, way too busy flurry of activity getting ready for Regalia. I was so grateful Gabrielle sewed a dress for me. I would not have had a period dress if Gabrielle had not saved the day! Also, my friend Georgia sewed Zachy's shirt which finished his outfit and two other friends, Sierra and Rebecca Y, came out and did up not only the dance cards for our ladies but also the gentleman's schedule cards. I was beyond grateful!!! Saturday Tim, Elijah, Josiah, and Gabrielle joined some other ConfiDancers led by Georgia decorated the local school gymnasium for Regalia. Everything was SOOOOO beautiful. Painted carpet tubes became castle pillars, regal tables ready for food and fellowship, tulle intertwined with silk flowers and white lights set such a beautiful mood. They did such a marvelous job; it was easy to transport back in time to the days of Robin Hood and Lady Marian :)

Jodi organized a medieval feast. My cousin Fara gave me some great ideas for food and Jodi filled in other items to make the Regalia feast not only delicious but extravagant!!!! SOOOOO much fabulous food!!!!

Of course the theme of the evening is dancing and everyone was so beautiful!!! We had about 100 people in attendance ranging in age from Koliah (our youngest participant at almost nine months) to grandmas and grandpas whose age is not for public information :) We do a mix of dancing styles but the majority are English Country. This was Regalia number 2 and our group just continues to grow in skill and ability. Some of our dances are getting complicated and they are SOOOOO beautiful to watch, particularly when everyone is dressed in period correct clothes that accent the steps more beautifully than modern attire.

The evening was enchanting and marvelous -- SOOOOO wonderful!!! I love being a part of such wonderful memories for my family! To close our dance this time we played "Cinderella" by Steven Curtis Chapman and had our dads dance with their daughters --- after all our dads are our first knights in shining armor....... it seemed appropriate. Lots of moms were teary - me being one of them!

I am working on posting a new slide show -- Picassa takes a while but look for it tomorrow (6/11)

Sunday after church I had a baby shower to attend and it was really weird.......not the baby shower but the drive there. I came up the hill by our house and I was in a black cloud - I slammed on the brakes and asked Gabrielle "What IS this?!?!?" -- it only took a matter of seconds to realize it was honeybees and they were swarming. It is a bee keepers worst nightmare to have a hive swarm. The best case scenario is that your hive gets overcrowded, they make a new queen and half the hive jets to start their own hive. Worst case scenario the entire hive leaves. This appears to be a half-hive swarm.........

ANYWAY...... I called Josiah and told him to quickly go check his hives. I was dreading hearing that we had lost our bees. Gratefully that was not the case but Josiah called me back and said that the swarm was settling. Usually the swarm will settle somewhere for just a couple hours and then they leave to settle in their new home. Time was of the essence and the gauntlet had been thrown. Tim couldn't let them swarm away :)

SOOOOO while the girls and I are at the baby shower Tim and Josiah captured the swarm and hived them! SOOOOOO way cool!!!!!! Tim sprayed it heavy with sugar syrup and then clipped the branches apart. There were two large branches and then a couple of smaller ones that were all connected with bees clinging to each other. It was a huge volume of bees about the size of a basketball and a half --- I am guessing about 25 THOUSAND bees!!!! A package that you buy is between 11-15 thousand and this was easily double that. Tim said it was like working with a huge ball of snow.... if anything changed or wiggled clumps the size of Tim's fist would fall from the larger ball of bees to the ground --- very cool! After I came home I opened the hive. My friend Julie had sold us her extra frame feeder so we filled it with sugar syrup and I resprayed the bees with syrup and I shook them off into the hive box.

I am happy to report that when we fed them again yesterday they had taken the hive -- they are ours!!! We are so jazzed!!!!! What a gift from the Lord -- a full new hive!!!! With as active and full as they are we might get some honey out of this new hive, even though it is their first year! SOOOOO blessed!!!!!!

Unfortunately Timmer got stung in the process. Josiah and I were unscathed but poor Timmer got stung FOUR times -- once on his neck which concerned me a lot, once on his back, once in his wrist and once in his eyelid. His neck which concerned me the most because of its proximity to the veins in the back of his neck barely reacted. His back didn't have any reaction. His wrist was SOOOO swollen - he had a balloon hand; it was stiff and uncomfortable to move it. His eye was a mess -- it swelled shut and turned red. Oh it looked bad!!!!!! Tim ended up staying home on Monday - work would have been tough. He did Benadryl every four hours as recommended and by Tuesday he was looking much better. Tuesday in addition to our ladies' study (which is AWESOME by the way) we had the privilege of having Jodi's son Same come out and stay while Geo is recording in UT. My boys LOVE having Sam around and I enjoy him also - he is a GREAT kid!

Yesterday I cleaned house and took the little kids on a nature walk. Grandpa George gave Judah a really good flower identification book for Montana as a birthday present. Judah LOVES identification books; he loves to learn the names of things and find them in his books. So Joy, Bekah-boo, Judah and I took a walk out around McMaster Hills and found OOOOODLES of flowers. Natalie suggested pressing them which we did and we did work on identifying them all. Great day with my little guys!!!

Today was nuts -- a local potato farmer donated a semi-truckload of potatoes to anyone that wanted to come pick some up. Judah, Zachy, Bekah and I went and got a couple of hundred pounds of potatoes which is a total blessing. Then we had a funeral for a friend's mom -- very sad and then I had the opportunity to meet a friend's brother who came into Helena for a class and I got to watch his little boy. Super sweet, very cute little guy. It was a pleasure to meet my friend's brother and to have him trust us with his little guy for a couple of hours. Great day --- way too busy - but very good day......

Okay, that pretty much catches me up for the moment. I might fill in some details in the next few days as things are on my heart but there you are with the gist! Watch for the pictures!!! I am going to try and get a few new slide shows loaded tomorrow!