Wedding Dress Shopping

 We are in Provo shopping for a wedding dress for Valerie.  She already knew which dress she wanted, but she tried a few others just for her mother's sake.  I had a great time picking out her veil and the belt.  She looked absolutely lovely. 

 Here are her sisters giving good support and making things fun and exciting.

We will add lining to the top to make it modest.  The dress she had on was two sizes too big.  They are ordering the the right size and it will be here in a week. 

We also shopped for shoes and some jewelry for the bridesmaids. This is what we felt like after the long hours of shopping but what fun we had.

Turning 50

This year I will be turning fifty.  It is also a year that I can say that I have been married longer than I was single.  I think turning fifty is a big deal.  It is a good time to look back on your life but also good time to plan ahead.  It is kind of a midterm of life.  I want to do fifty new things that I have never done in my life before this year's end to celebrate this milestone. I found out that I have had a pretty good life and it was not an easy task to come up with the list.  I mean there are plenty of things that I have never done before, but that is because I have no desire to do them. 

So here it is, after 5 months of careful consideration my fifty things to do this year.


1. Corn Maze (done)
2. Arches National park
3. New camp ground(done)
4. New camp ground (done)
5. City of Rocks (done)
6. Hell's Canyon (done)
7. Farmer's markets (done)
8. Drive in movie
9. Salmon, Idaho (done)
10. Silver city Ghost town (done)
11. Drive to Moscow in the fall
12. Camas Prairie Marsh (done)
13. Hockey game (done)
14. BPO concert
15. New Temple (done)
16. New Temple (done)
17. Emmett Cherry Festival(done)
18. Read the entire Ensign for the whole year (done)
19. Deep sea fishing (done)
20. Make a garden bench
21. Make homemade ice cream
22. Try Basque food
23. Get my US citizenship (done)
24. Dress up for Halloween (done)
25. Get a US passport (done)
26. Wedding reception(Done)
27. Make a bouquet for a wedding(Done)
28. Wedding dress shopping (Done)
29. Make a bird house (done)
30. Multi day backpacking trip (done)
31. Make curtains
32. Personal Progress (done)
33. Take a community education class
34. Crabbing (done)
35. Grow a new variety of vegetable(Kale)
36. Grow a new variety of vegetable(done)
37. New recipe (homemade Ravioli, done) 
38. New recipe (BBQ pulled pork sandwich)
39. New recipe (done)
40. New recipe (done)
41. New recipe (done)
42. Fly fishing
43. Homemade Tortilla (done)
44. Mount Borah
45. Weaving
46. Glass blowing
47. Paddle boarding
48. Blog (done)
49. Shakespeare festival
50. soil testing (done)

The Day that I Knew there is a God and He Answers Prayers

I lived in a small mountain village in Korea until I was about 9 years old.  our small village was located between a small town and a city but I never went to the city and I went to small town only a couple of times.  That small town had a movie theater and shops but it wasn't a part of my world. Because we had to walk everywhere it wasn't worth the effort or time to go there, and what was the point of going there since I never had any money to spent on anything.

The only entertainment beside the ones that I came up with on my own was weekly Bible story time.  There was a lady who would gather all the children from the village and read stories and tried to save our souls and make us believe in Jesus.  I enjoyed these story times very much.  My favorite story was when Jesus cast evil spirits from men's bodies and they asked Him to allow them to enter into the bodies of swine.  Then they all rush over the cliff and fell into the water(Matthew 8:28-32).  It left me with a vivid impression of all these pigs running to their death. I wish I was there to witness that.

I can not say that I believed in Jesus because of all these Bible stories.  I treated them like fairy tales or Aesop's fables, just good stories.  But time had come that I had to try out and see if this Jesus is real.

One afternoon, I lost my homework and even though I looked all over the place I couldn't find it.  Now this was a very serious problem.  If I showed up at school without my homework my teacher would punish me in whatever form he sees fit.  Often it included getting my hands hit with a stick, getting spanked, standing in a corner and facing public humiliation.  I was really worried about going to school the next day without my homework.  Then I remembered that the lady with the Bible said if you ask Jesus he will help you with everything.  I was desperate; what was there to lose?  I never said a prayer in my life before and I don't remember what words I used, but I did ask for help.  After the prayer I am not sure if it was a voice or a thought that came to me, but I heard/felt that I should look behind our mill stone that was leaning against the wall of the deck where I was sitting.  I reached back and there it was.  

I didn't run down to the house of the lady with the Bible and confess that I was a born again Christian.  Come to think about it, I don't think I ever told her about my experience.  But I knew that there was a God and that he cared about me enough to help me find my homework.  Me! a small girl up in a mountain village in Korea.  I was a nobody, I was less than a nobody, but He knew me.

It took another 10 years for me to say another prayer, but that is another story.       

Meet our chickens.

 This is Lemon. She got her name because when we first got her she was a cute yellow fur ball.  As you can see there is no trace of yellow anymore. We tried to call her Lemon pepper, but that didn't work out.

This is Jeanette. Look at her cheeks! She has chipmunk cheeks, so we named her after one of the chipettes, from Alvin and the Chipmunks. She lays green eggs.

We call her Hazel, just because of her color.  She is a very mellow chicken.

We call these two twins. One of them we named Zorro because she looked like she had a black mask on when we got her and of course we had to name the other one Don Diego (Bagel for short).  We never can tell which one is who so we just call them twins. I think the one in the bottom picture is Don Diego because she is at the bottom of pecking order and you wouldn't except that from Zorro, would you?

And here are their daily offerings.  We just love our fresh eggs from our happy chickens.

Soil testing

I love gardening; I just enjoy the time I spend outside in my garden.  When I was a little girl we had a very big garden- more like a small farm.  We grew everything we ate other than the rice. I didn't particularly enjoy working in the garden at that time, mainly because I was only about 7 or 8 years old and when you are at that age you have more important things to worry about than food.  I loved wandering around the mountain looking for things that even I wasn't sure what I was looking for.  But as I grew older I found out that I have a strong attachment to earth.    

Even though I've had my own garden every year I have never tested my soils before.  But this year, rather than fighting to figure out what is wrong with my garden during the growing season, I thought I will have a good start by checking out the soils and fixing things up before I plant my garden.

First, I drew the map of my garden and numbered them so I will know which soils came from where.

I mixed soils with water and let it sit for few hours, then I would be able to test it for nitrogen, phosphorous, and potassium.

(p.s. I didn't need the entire jar of water, a small cup would have worked)

Here in the green tube I was testing for pH levels.  So far all my soils are more of the alkaline side.

The kit came with color coordinated tubes and powders so it was easy to remember which one goes to where. 

So here it is for a happy and bountiful garden this year.