Tea with a friend

Gabbby and her friend Hannah went to tea today at Pomeroy Farm. Gabby's Gramma Lee and Hannah's Gramma Lough treated the girls to this special outing. Tea, complete with cookies and scones is one of Gabby's favorite things right now.

Houdini

This is our llama, Houdini. Everybody say "Hi, Houdini!" He loves that. ok, that is not true. So far, the only things that I know Houdini loves are his llama treats. He does not seem to love me, or anyone else in the family, for that matter. He is very interested in the children, especially if they are jumping on the trampoline and making lots of noise.

So, why have this aloof creature? Well, this past Spring, we had coyotes invade our land and eat many of our sheep. Although Jeff purchased a shot gun (and even shot one of the coyotes!), we penned in the sheep and goats at night, and we cleared out most of the brush so that the coyotes could not hide...the wiley pooches were still managing to get our sheep. We had an expert coyote trapper/sniper recommended to us by the WA Fish and Game Department, and he came out to our house and told us what he could do...but it was mainly setting up traps and we felt the dangers that those posed to the neighbor cats and dogs (not to mention our own, not too bright, domestic critters) were too much of a risk. Soooo...this is the part where Houdini comes in...we looked into this thing called "llama protection". You can read more about it on the web, there are both pro and con articles about this use of llamas. So far, our llama seems to be detering the coyotes. We did have one of our sheep killed a few days after we got Houdini, but he had not "bonded" with the herd yet, so perhaps he was just too far away from them when the coyotes attacked. That was back at the beginning of June and we have not had any more deaths.

And that is the story of why we have a llama. Oh yes, and also because he is funny looking and makes us laugh.

A long, tooth-less night...and into the next day

Gabby's front teeth are finally out! Those teeth have been wiggly for months and yesterday she finally announced to her big sister, Shell, that she wanted them out. (Shell is the in-house tooth remover--she absolutely LOVES pulling teeth--no kidding!) Well, that wiggle session must have loosened them up enough, because a bit after Gab had gone to bed, she reappeared with her left front tooth in her hand and a big grin with a hole in it! Although daddy then made a good attempt to get the other one out (it was dangling), it did not make its final exit until mid-morning when, while playing with her brother, Ian, Gabby triumphantly pulled out that right front tooth.

Just look at that new, beautiful, toothless smile!

Camping at Fort Stevens

A couple of posts ago, I mentioned that at the end of Camp Fun, we packed up the camper and headed to the coast for the weekend. These are some photos of that trip. The shipwreck is that of the Peter Iredale. It is so fastinating to be able to walk (at low tide) right up to it. One of my favorite things in the Northwest.

Prom

Prom? In the summer? No, silly...I just started this blog AFTER prom, so I am going back now and adding photos of our beautiful prom girl and her boyfriend, Brek.

Happy 4th of July!

The bombs burst. The food was fabulous. Good times.
Thank you to those military men and women serving and protecting our country. May you come home safely.
God Bless!

Camp Fun

One of the most anticipated summer weeks by the younger kiddos is Camp Fun. It was created by Mommy a couple years ago as a distraction during the time Shell went to visit her mom.
This year the activities included tie-dying shirts, painting canvas pictures, creating a camp sign, and a visit to the zoo (in our matching shirts, of course!).
We ended the week with a trip to the coast in the camper...a "real" campout, starting a campfire, roasting hot dogs and marshmallows, dipping our toes in the ocean and getting sand everywhere!

Let's try blogspot

So the Gove family website never seems to get updated. Many things contribute to that fact. The primary factors being that I (Annaliese) write the updates, but Jeff is needed to post them, because my brain just cannot seem to wrap itself around the complexities of the web posting system. I was, however, the one doing all of the posting in China, and since this is the same type of automated system (I believe)...I am pretty sure I can handle this one on my own. (she says with an air of confidence and yet realizes in the same key stroke that she now may have no excuse for why she is so behind in her web posts...)

This first post is very much just a random ramble of words. It is to see if I can successfully post.
Please do not put much weight on the content of this post. They will get better. They must.