Happy Earth Day!

Happy Earth Day everyone! It's hard not to enjoy such a beautiful day we have here. Spring has finally come, and it looks like summer is right around the corner. We went from snow showers to 70's in just a weekend.



Ty in his best on cue, cheesy smile
















Our family has worked hard the last few years to minimize our impact and carbon footprint. We've made some big changes, and have a few more big goals as well. We have:

Switched our family to cloth wipes for cleaning, as well as cloth dipes and wipes for Ty
Almost all our cleaning products are made from vinegar, water, lemon juice, or baking soda
If we can't make it, purchased cleaning products are petroleum free/made from renewable resources.
Switching all our 'beauty' products to homemade
We eat about 95% organic, and hope to make that 100% with the food we grow this summer, reducing pesticides, herbicides, and synthetic fertilizers.
We've started to eat locally and seasonally (quite the process), and will hopefully preserve most of our winter fruits and veggies from our garden or the farmer's market.
We buy all our milk from a local farmer, straight at the dairy. He treats his cows ethically and with proper nutrition, and we are able to make almost all our dairy products from that milk.
We conserve water as much as we can in our desert environment (and the results is a near dormant lawn in the summer!)
We drive intelligently, combining errands, fuel efficient cars, and walk when we can.

In the near future we're hoping to: buy a bike with a trailer for errand running (Ty will LOVE that!)
Hopefully succeed with my bigger garden this year, and make a cold frame by the time fall arrives.
Finish replacing our old appliances with energy efficient models.
Try to replace my car with a more efficient model in the next couple years (we have our eye on an electric car coming out!)

So inspire me and others, what are you doing to reduce your footprint?

Eggs, Bunnies, Dinos, Oh My!

What a weekend we had! Our city holds a great Easter Egg hunt every year where they stuff 20,000 (!!) eggs. They even divide the areas by age, and the eggs were still gone in less than 90 seconds. I'm going to enjoy the fact that Ty just wanted to puts eggs in other kid's baskets because I know it won't always be like this. I'm even wondering if next year he'll be so generous! After the South Ogden egg hunt, we headed over to the dino park for another hunt. We got there early enough to hang out with the dinos and Ty was in love. Now that the weather is warming up I see a membership to the park in our future. What a great way to spend a morning.

After two eggs hunts, me driving an hour south of here to practice agility, and dinner with friends on Saturday night, we happily enjoyed a day at home Sunday. The weather was fabulous and we played outside most of the day. Peas, onions, lettuce, radishes, chives, spinach, cabbage, and swiss chard are up in the garden. Tomato and cuke seedlings are up in the house. I know spring is here but we keep getting teased with gorgeous weather and then bouts of snow. Hopefully the predicted snow showers this week will be our last for the season!


Sporting his favorite jammies and playing with dinos from the Pennsylvania easter bunny.

















Checking out his new dino shirt (thanks Hammah and Poppop!)













Another easter bunny and despite this hilarious expression, Ty loved him. He can say bunny now (it sounds like bunn-ay) and had a hard time standing in line while yelling bunny!















Ty's easter egg hunt field. So many eggs, and luckily the city recycles the eggs each year. :)













Trying to wait patiently for the hunt to begin.



















About to start...


















The loot!


















A huge croc skull at the dino museum













Checking out the easter bunnies


















A few of the 100+ replicas













My favorite



















Nice view!













Uncovering some dino eggs



















More eggs




































The playground was of course equipped with many riddable dinos.

Baby Animal Days

Every spring time a living history museum about an hour north of here puts on their Baby Animal Days and despite a cold and rainy day, we went and enjoyed all the baby farm animals. Ty pet bunnies, goats, sheep, cows, horses, donkeys, snakes, turtles, and puppies! He got to go on a pony ride (absolutely wonderful for him, especially when the pony sneezed!), we went on a wagon ride, and even saw the Easter Bunny. What a morning!


Ty thought the Easter Bunny was too cool

Our wagon ride, with a view of fresh snow on the mountains













Jenn and Pete














Mr. Serious on the pony ride, this is after his round of giggles from the sneezing pony.













Meeting a baby Lopp Bunny