Independence Weekend Continues!

On Friday, Susan had to go to work, so we missed having her with us.  We went up to the walking trail behind the college to get our morning workout!

Steve called the hotline number on a sign to report problems with the Fit Trail, and one of the workers came and got him in a cool little John  Deer maintenance vehicle to show him where the problem was!

We set up the volleyball net in the backyard.  Since you can only see the pictures, you'll just have to take my word as to how amazing we are at playing volleyball. 

I suppose you can see our skill from our position and stance.

After Susan got home, we played Cranium.  Here she is acting out the word "baptism."  I got it!

Happy Independence Day! It's All About the Food and Fireworks!

If there's a Decker gathering, the food is important.  Sadly, I didn't take any pictures of our Fourth of July Feast.  We did Dutch Oven Steaks.  I think it was a first for Chelsea and Angela.  Sadly, Angela got a stomach bug, so she didn't get the full glory from the feast, but it was, indeed, glorious.

Getting the fire ready for the Dutch Oven Steaks.  Dad also set a grill over the coals to grill some corn.

Shucking the corn.

Getting ready for the fireworks!

From the pictures, it looks like we did our fireworks in broad daylight.  That's just the pictures.  It was blue dark.

It's really dry here this year.  The county put a ban on lots of different kinds of fireworks, so there weren't as many backyard illegal arieal fireworks this year.

Anticipation!

It doesn't matter how old you get... fireworks are still exciting!

Happy Independence Day! Patriotic Urban Golfing!

We had a great Fourth of July this year!  Brian and Chelsea and Steve and Angela all came for the weekend!  It's been over a year since we were all together.  Here are a few highlights (or lowlights, depending on how you look at it) of our day!

We each had to blindly pick out a club!

Brian was the power hitter.

Notice where the ball is?

Ready for the PGA circuit.

That was just a practice shot!

It's all in the stance...

...and the grip...

...and the concentration...

...and the follow-through!

This Week in Pictures!

Carol was visiting with us this week, but I didn't get any pictures while she was here because I sent the camera with Doug (or so I thought) to Clovis.  After he got back, I found the camera here at home after all.

Susan is going to make a throw quilt this summer.  It's pink.  Fancy that.  Here she is cutting it out!

This is the pattern she is going to use.  I finished my top.  I'm going to make another Quilt of Valor with it.  It's not quite bit enough yet, so I'm going to enlarge the outer border.

The dad's beloved fan started making some screechy noises.  He thinks he's fixed it.

The dad got a Kindle Fire HD for Father's Day.  He's enjoying a lovely Shiatsu massage as he reads.

Susan liked the dad's Kindle Fire HD so much that she bought one of her own!  I bought a used regular Kindle just so I could download books.  It has a Text to Speech feature, so the Kindle can read to me while I do fun stuff like... washing dishes.

Susan as she's heading out the door to go to the big Youth Conference in Flagstaff.  I hope she has a great time!

Happy Father's Day!

It has been a good Father's Day for me, and I think that it has been a good Father's Day for the Dads in our lives.  I called my dad this morning.  Your dad called Papa this afternoon.  Brian and Steven both called Dad for Father's Day.  We have been blessed with some wonderful men in our lives.


The Primary Presidency was in charge of putting together the Father's Day gifts for the fathers at church today.  I made 50 of these, and we wound up with 19 of them left over.  As you can see, we had a small turnout at church today.

Last night for dinner, we made foil dinners.   We were going to cook them in the fire pit, but it got windy and rainy (Hooray!), so we wound up cooking them on the grill  insteady. 

We got Dad a Kindle Fire HD for Father's Day.  We thought it would be nice with all his traveling.  I think he likes it.  In fact, he's spent the whole afternoon fiddling with that thing trying to figure it all out.

Dad downloaded the LDS Church Library from Kindle.  Oh, look!  Now he can watch Johnny Lingo any time he wants!

We made Dad a Seafood Sensations Sandwich for Father's Day Dinner.  It was delicious!  Here is Dad talking to Steve on the phone.  He was one happy Dad when his boys called just to talk to him!

Susan's Graduation Present at Last!

Our three older kids all got cameras for their high school graduation gifts.  Susan already has a camera, so we decided to get her a bicycle for graduation.  Since she is planning on staying here and going to UNM Gallup for her first year of college, she thought it would be helpful, as she can ride it to school sometimes.

We asked her what features she wanted in a bike, and she said, "Pink."  Well, sadly, that is the one feature we weren't able to give her.  It's very hard to find a decent women's bike that is pink these days.  She finally picked out a Schwinn Adminral.  It is white with red accents.  She says she loves it even if it isn't pink.  (Her helmet has pink in it, though.)

It even has a bell!

She likes it... even if it isn't pink!

A Not So Amazing Post

We really didn't do anything worth blogging about this week, so here goes nothing.

This is a baby quilt that I'm making for Marissa.  Her baby is due in two more months.  It is a girl, and they plan on naming her Melody.  Lance's wife just had a baby boy.  His name is Talmadge.  He was huge when he was born.

We had a lot of plants that needed to be divided.  This plant is now two plants.  It looks much better.  It was getting pretty doggone root-bound.  We have four more plants today than we did yesterday.  I have three more rooting on top of the refrigeratorAnybody need a houseplant?

Cooking liver for dinner on Saturday.

We have baby grapes growing on our vines!



I told you we didn't have much to blog about this week.  This is as good as it gets for now.