Aaron went to his first Cub Scout Day Camp this week. It was one hot week, but he had fun...though by Friday he was less energetic as usual! A mother in our ward was the main walker for Monday-Thursday. Alyssa was a walker with the boys on Thursday along with their cubmaster. Andrew and I and later the cubmaster were the walkers/helpers for Friday. After a whole day in the sun...I was glad to have only spent one day there. The rest of you ladies were awesome to last so long!

Flag Raising Friday morning. Note the boys are a bit droopy...it's been a busy week!

Aaron doing his Yoda impersonation.

First class of the day, making an animal cell from an old CD.

Run, Aaron, Run!

Obstacle course during BB Guns and Archery.

Shooting soda cans.

Hit the target again! (You can barely see his successful arrow stuck in the middle target.)

Getting sweaty...good thing we're in the shade.

Hot Andrew!

Frying/scrambling an egg on a can stove.

Scrambled egg Day Camp Style.

Shrimp Boil...aka...Beaufort Stew

One of our favorite southern meals is Beaufort Stew...or more simply called a Shrimp Boil. Here's how to do it!!!

In a large stock pot, put onto boil a box of Zatarain's...this time we went EXTRA SPICY!!!

Add cleaned and quartered red potatoes.

Then add 1-2 inch chunks of your favorite sausage.

Then add small-sized cobs of corn.

Let the above boil until the potatoes are tender, then add generous amounts of fresh shrimp (not shelled but de-headed!

Once shrimp is nice and pink, you're ready to serve and EAT!!!

Drain the boil/stew and lay it out in the middle of the table on trays or newspaper (we use trays!!!)

Load up your plate and EAT... and EAT...

and EAT!!!!

Oh, yes...be sure to have shrimp cocktail sauce, lots of extra napkins, and bowls for shrimp peelings!

Aaahhh....it's good to live next to fresh shrimp catchin'!

2009 Projects

Those of you who keep up with us know that we're always dabbling in some house, yard, or service project. Here's a few highlights of what we've done since January.

Painted and added chair rail to our Dining Room.

Painted living room with a brown accent wall.

Alyssa putting the decor back on the ledge.

Dug out the Japanese Maple planted just last year that Ken accidentally weed ate the bark off and killed most of it!Replaced the dying Japanese Maple with another....

This one has more foilage!

It'll be beautiful burgandy come winter time.

Particiapated in our Regional Day of service by painting a shed of a widow in our ward and clearning land at a local assisted living facility.


I'm painting! The others providing annoying...I mean "moral" support!

Audrey with Sis. Stapleton...whose shed we were painting.


Ken chasing Alyssa with a paint roller!

Turn about is fair play!

Alyssa chasing Ken with a paint roller....after the paint fight...

the water fight ensued.

Purchase, loading, and unloading of timbers for our backyard patio shade wall. (It'll be a partial wall on one of the round patios we installed last year.)

Began digging holes for beams/posts to make the patio shade wall. (5-6 feet deep)

One Saturday's morning work...the digging of three holes...almost.

All three "Hamm Boys" are in one each.

We can't dig much beyond lunch time, it gets too hot!

Began planting lovely flowers in our flower bed we made last year by installing the retaining walls. (Upper circular patio shown earlier this spring before our flower planting.)
They're really beginning to take off!

Woodshop turned into Barbershop!

We are all off for Spring Break and are trying to do Spring Cleaning inside and out. Yesterday we focused on our backyard and flower beds. It was beautiful and we all ended up with the first sunburned noses of the season. Today we did the front yard as quick as we could because severe thunderstorms were on their way. So with all the weekend torrential thunderstorms we had and now today's we're still having flash flood warnings! More flooding is expected during the next few days. Guess we can be glad we live in one of the highest spots in our city!!! Anyway, Ken shaved the boys' heads this evening as we've been stuck inside all afternoon, temporarily turning the woodshop into a barbershop!

Andrew has very strong waves in his hair, when it gets long it really starts to curls. The curls kind of camoflauge the length of his hair.

Aaron's hair is still baby fine and straight as straw. Which is what it looks like most mornings!

Wood Shop turned Barber Shop!

After.

After

Disco Alyssa

Last weekend one of Alyssa's friends hand a Disco birthday party. There was a costume contest. Alyssa had found an old pattern at a yard sale from the 1969, so we sewed it up, found some huge sunglasses, and some platform shoes at Goodwill. The shoes were originally black, but she wanted white, so we spray painted them and the outfit was set! Outta' sight!!!

Whoa!!! Look at those shoes!

Truth be told, she didn't do a lot of disco-ing in them, she was too unstable!!!

Well the first month of the new year has already passed and spring is trying to come early in the Panhandle of Florida. We had a nice quiet family Christmas and a nice new year. My sister Geneva Chugg, her daughter Hanna, and baby boy Cole, came to visit the week of the Martin Luther King holiday. We had a great time with them and she took lots of great pictures. I'm just not smart enough how to access them. You can see a few of them on her family blog site. Yesterday was the last day of January, which is our Grandma DeSpain's birthday. While she's up freezing in her Minnesota home we had a Primary Presidency and Bishopric get together at our house. It was a backyard picnic. We grilled burgers, and roasted hot dogs and marshmallows over coals in our fire pit. Then when it got dark, we added wood to the fire and the adults sat around it to chat while the kids got bored of playing in the dark woods and watched WALL-E instead. It was a fun night and we wished Grandma could have been with us to share in our fun. Below are some pictures from the event.

Master of the grill and fire, takes a break!

Toastin' marshmallows over the bed of coals. Audrey probably toasted a bag herself...though she shared them!(Alyssa sitting on the far left, Audrey to the right of her, Andrew standing, our EQ president sitting to the far right)

Several of the primary girls making a "brew" with leftover rain water in our wheelbarrow, they added all sorts of interesting things they found in the small patch of woods attached to our backyard.

Several of the little kids "rocked the boat" literally. On our upside down canoe they jumped and rocked it back and forth trying to get each other to fall off. Hope the canoe's okay!!! :)

Several of our guests chatting and fixing plates. Notice Ken's BYU hat and chair...not only is he a proud alumni, a proud dad of a co-ed too!

Thanksgiving Week

Thanksgiving Week is always shared with Andrew's birthday in our household. This year he turned 12! Yikes, he's going to Young Men's now and an official Boy Scout! For his birthday, he received a whole new Sunday Attire ensemble--Suit, Shoes, Belt, Shirt, and tie. So for his Deacon ordination on Sunday the 30th, he was all spiffed up!

Few in the Hamm house like cake for their birthdays. Andrew had Cheesecake Factory Cheesecake for his this year. It was a trio of Dulce de Leche Caramel, Godiva Chocolate, and White Chocolate Rasperry Truffle! Yum!!!! It was perfect, 12 slices that housed 12 candles.

A fun thing about turning twelve is you actually get to light your own candles. What is it about boys and flames?

After they're lit your family sings you "Happy Birthday" in horribly out of tune voices and then you quickly blow out the candles. It's a ritual performed yearly that only lasts a few minutes, but what would a birthday be without it?

The day after Thanksgiving we went to get our Christmas tree, all 10.5 feet of it. It's quite wide too, we put seven strings of lights on it, each with 150 lights a piece. And we didn't over do it!!! We still haven't finished the decorating of it. Oh, we usually take the truck to get the tree but it decided not to start that morning, so we took the van. It looked kind of comical...just like it needed a big red bow on top.