The saddest news of the week is that Tuesday we had a continuation of warm beautiful weather which caused me to think leaving the chickens out for the afternoon in their box would be great.  Unfortunately I left the lid on because Macho was prowling and in three hours it got really warm and Spencer's chicken Artemis died.  By the time we found them Allison's was in pretty sad shape but after giving shade and lots of water to the remaining three they rebounded.  The kids spent the afternoon laying on the grass crying and remembering when.  (The really gross news is that Artemis is still sitting on our porch in a bag but he is going to mysteriously be buried tonight :) )Spencer was quite sad and depressed for the afternoon but it made me proud of how well he handled it.  He didn't blame me, yell and scream etc.  He just tried to wipe away the tears without anyone seeing and stroked his dead chicken while he looked at photos on his touch of his six weeks of life.  A traumatic event but he is doing just fine now.  Especially when Jeremy pointed out we will need 3 more chicks to fill up the coop!

The coop is almost done.  I feel like I keep saying that but it is true.  It needs to be done this week as we are leaving and I need them out of the house.  The chicken are getting tired of being cooped up in a little box.  Jeremy has all but the tin roof and ramp done.  I caulked it Friday and got all the paint.  So a few days of painting and some tinkering by Jeremy and next time I will show you a picture of the finished project.  Jeremy did an amazing job on it.

Saturday was my big century bike race in Salt Lake with my friend Carol.  Friday I stopped to buy a lightweight cycling jacket in case it rained.  It poured.  I mean buckets, storms, barely can see, water dropping in sheets of your helmet with it staying at 40 degrees.  I was so glad I had my jacket but wished that I had packed artic gear!  At 40 miles right before you go across the crossway to Antelope Island they had a rest stop.  The firemen of Syracuse who seriously were amazing opened up the firehouse to people could warm up.  We were shaking so badly by then we could barely move.  The organizers were telling everyone to quit and take the train home and they strongly suggested we not do the causeway.  After regaining feeling, getting our clothes to a damp versus soaked state, my friend Carol taking a warm shower and seeing the rain stop we decided to skip the causeway and do the 40 back.  It was gorgeous going back but I think I expended more energy than I thought with the cold and rain as muscles were pretty sore.  But we did it and were quite happy that we made it.  Best part was that the lines for the bathrooms were maybe 1 or 2 deep for the women's side and 30 deep for the men's side.  It was definitely a male dominated race.  In fact it made me feel a lot less wimpy to see all these guy athletes shaking so violently at the fire station as they tried to warm up.

Now while I was away having all the fun, Jeremy held a priests service project here to pad Taylor's room.  I felt badly that I said here is my vision, here are the supplies and left him to perform a miracle.  And he did as this is what I came home to:

I think it looks so good.  We still need to put some molly's in, patch up nail holes, caulk and touch-up but that is all small work we can do over the next few weeks.  We have a great priests quorum.  Jeremy talked to them about how to interact with Taylor and how they can serve him.  It sounds like it went really well.

Taylor is doing much better.  Home clean-outs are working, lets leave it at that.  The grossness of being a mom gives me so much scope for stories of things I never thought I would do.  When we got married the hardest gross thing I had to do was reach into the garbage disposal to clean it out.  At some point it hit me that my mom or dad were not going to magically appear to do it for me!

On Monday Robyn had her music program for 1st grade.  I forget sometimes how important it is to her that I go to all these little events but she was quite anxious till I got there.

She sang one of my favorite songs, I like being me and kept looking to make sure I knew that she knew I would be so happy.  She is in the back row with the tall kids as she is still getting tall and lanky.  She and Allison helped me this week at the Pinewood Derby to make twinkie race cars.  Robyn loves being the helper and with my girls making oreo tires and running around the church it made me remember helping my mom with so many primary activities.

Spencer had his Shakespeare festival at school on Friday.  Robyn wore her Cinderella dress for it so she could be a princess.  They set up this whole village and all of the 8th and 9th graders dressed up in costume.  Spencer helped run the archery shop - he was in heaven.  On Monday he went to a Lord of the Rings party and with a bunch of boys dressed up played hobbit, dwarf and orc for hours.

Allison had a babysitting job Friday night where she took care of a 2 year neighbor girl for 5 hours.  She felt so old and cool.

The girls were supposed to go a swim clinic all week in the afternoon.  We showed up Monday all suited up with a 93 degree sun shining down to find the clinic cancelled for the week with the pool broken.  So with Robyn in tears I ran home to grab a suit for Taylor and me and we went to a different pool for the afternoon.  Taylor can no longer fit into his floaty.  His hips and thighs are just too wide.  But he was giddy laying in the shallow end with me.

Jeremy has been working hard with photos in the evening lately.  He seems to have a photo shoot most nights as everyone wants spring photos.  And his temple picture was used in the LDS Living 2014 Temple calendar which he was happy with.  And LDS create has been using some of his photos.  It has made him a busy guy.  Throw in a back that keeps popping out of place and laying him flat in pain he has a lot on his plate.

This week we get to have my two nieces and nephew stay with us for a few days while their parents go to Denver.  My kids are sad they still have to go to school during the day but they are currently running around like banshees having a great time.  I am making cheesecake for dessert so I have a big smile on my face.