Our Guests

Here are "our" boys! We found out today that we will be hosting Daniel (10yrs) and Randu (11yrs). From what I have read, everyone falls in love with Daniel and he has a "cheeky" smile. His father is from the Giriama tribe in Kenya and is 4'10". Evidently, this tribe is very small in stature and so is Daniel. Randu has six siblings, and his brother is one of the drummers in the choir. His brother is only a year older than he is, and they look a lot alike. Because of this, they like to play pranks on their instructors regarding who is who. We are anxiously awaiting our guests!

The Singing Children Of Africa

We found out yesterday that we get to host two children from Africa for four days! They are coming to perform with their group "The Singing Children of Africa." A lot of them are orphans, all of them live in extreme poverty. Many live in mud huts. This is the very first time they have ever been to the US. Right now, they are in the UK doing some performances, then they come here on July 31. We are SO excited and know this will be a fantastic experience for everyone involved. I spoke with the coordinator and she told me that their favorite food is chicken and rice, or chicken and "chips" (fries). We got to request how many children we will host, their gender, and peferrable ages. This was my chance to balance the scales a little with some more girls in the house, but guess what.....I told them we would take two boys. I figured they would have a blast with my boys and vice versa. We are just so excited to experience all their new experiences here through their eyes. Running water, toilets, air conditioning! We are going to take them to the pool and water slides, and probably a good ol' American baseball game. What else would you do with them?
You can read about their program here. I'll post more info as I receive it!

I'm A Chesser Afterall!

Growing up, we spent nearly every Saturday during the summer at my Grandma and Grandpa Chesser's house working in their HUGE (1/2 acre) garden. We grew everything imaginable from lettuce, to green beans, to grapes. As an adult, I have never really had my Grandma's green thumb. I always claimed that gene seemed to skip over me. I can kill silk plants. Seriously, I can. My brother Jerry however, can stick a twig from a pussy willow tree in the back yard and two years later it's a full blown tree. (That is an honest to goodness true story) He SPITS in the ground and it grows. Of course, he's lived in Iowa and Nebraska, I live in Utah, where the only thing that grows well are rocks.
I have wanted to plant a garden for several years now. However, I have no desire to till up the ground or weed it constantly. My friend Mindy introduced me to the idea of "Square Foot Gardening" using homemade planter boxes. It's GENIUS! I must add that I have done this completely ALONE! Joel has made it perfectly clear that he will never, EVER help me with a garden, then rambled on about childhood scars from weeding blah blah blah. Read about his gardening musings here. Funny, the entire rest of his family doesn't remember it going down quite like he does, but I digress.
I bought the wood and made my boxes about six weeks ago. Then I made my own soil. (This is the key to no weeds) Thanks to Trisha, I finally planted them (she did one box, I did one) two weeks ago. Just TWO weeks ago. Almost one entire box was started from seeds. The other, from small plants. They are growing HUGE! I even have a bell pepper and a hot pepper growing already! When those little sprouts popped up out the soil, I was peeing my pants excited. It's like my new child. I'm out there every night, watering it, admiring it, beaming proud of my new born veggies. The boys are really excited about it too, although Jack likes to attack it with the hose a little too vigorously. We are growing Roma tomatoes, cilantro, yellow bell peppers, orange bell peppers, hot peppers, sweet basil, pumpkins, cantaloupe, watermelon, peas, carrots,zuchini, cuccumbers and green beans. ALL in this little space. Here's some pictures of my new pride and joy. Since Joel is so traumatically scarred from childhood gardening and is unable to muster up any excitement for me, I needed to share my pictures so somebody could share in my excitement! OH yeah, he'll wish he had helped as the boys and I eat my FRESH GROWN AND HOMEMADE Salsa this fall. "Chips and Salsa honey? OH! That's right, I'm sorry, you thought gardening was LAME." CRUNCH!