McDonald Clan Life and Times

Early Morning Light

2011-08-24T21:13:00.001-05:00

I wish I were a better photographer. The reds behind the trees were incredible. I could not get it right with the camera (granted it was my phone which is crappy at best). But you get a hint of the beauty I saw.

The Whole Family in one place at one time.

2011-08-24T21:07:00.000-05:00

This is a typical picture for this family. But I was incredibly happy at that moment. All my Children and Grands in the same place I was. Exhaustion, dead Oso Perro, Silly happy faces all just add to the joy of the moment!

Update coming soon!

2011-01-02T13:06:00.001-06:00

Welcome to the wild animal park!

2009-07-26T10:56:00.001-05:00

We looked up from working in the yard yesterday and saw this....

Look closely and you will see a scary wild animal that has claimed the rango as its own....

Wait a minute that does not look TOOO scary........

Nope it is just Adams silly Buck guarding from the highest non natural point he can get to! He is such a fun dog.

More Ari Birthday!

2009-07-20T21:12:00.003-05:00

The presentation!

Laugh til your tummy hurts! Tagg, Heather and Kenny are singing on the phone along with those of us in the room.

Adams version of the Mississippi Squirrel revival a la birthday cake???? Don't ask me ask ADAM!The smoke clears and Benny is on the move.

Ari's Birthday Celebration Begins!!

2009-07-20T20:35:00.004-05:00

Yes as you know we can NOT celebrate a birthday on just one day. We tend to string it out over several. Today, the actual anniversary of Ari's birth, we went shopping. There are no pictures of this since we all know how I feel about shopping! However we do have various other goofy pictures of just us being us.
Ari was captured trying to get her mom! Busted!
Ari and Fog in the fog!
This is the cat Storm keeping A company!
Ari's best friend Alex modeling her toe-less socks!
Ari is falling into the truck......just a hint honey if you let loose of the money you can save yourself!

She has struck it RICH!
Ari has learned to put her money where her mouth is!

Cat Car????

2009-07-20T20:23:00.004-05:00

I have heard of a Cat House but a Cat CAR?

Just a bit of a cat nap.

UH OH better scram!

More fun pix

2009-06-24T11:15:00.004-05:00

These are some of the animals and maybe even some people that inhabit this space.

Here is A. being seriously funny! Even when he is doing goofy faces he is so handsome!

B. of course, he has the cutest dimples!

If I understand correctly this was during a water fight in which even the animals were participants. This is Cody the horse standing there with A. the wet girl. Hmm if I am judging by wetness I think the animals are winning!

This is Doc the donkey he came to us for Christmas and is such a wonderful guy!

This is one of the many cats that wander around outside here. A. is their protector and apparently hairstylist!

Cody and Leland came to us for Christmas. They are awesome young men.

AT LAST!

2009-06-24T10:59:00.003-05:00

I am finally getting back into the swing of things I think. But then again who knows! I can only say that in this moment I am posting.

So as we know Ben is a famous, within the family, fisherman. Now he is famous within our area! Someday this guy will be famous throughout the WORLD!

This is my favorite picture of me that does not have K in it. Of course any picture WITH K in it trumps any without lol On my right is Dayle and on my left is Dealer.

This of course has K in it so would be one of my favorite pictures!

I think we are flying a kite in this one!

WOW TOOO LONG!

2008-12-01T10:38:00.018-06:00

I have been a terrible Slacker! Kelly had to use the camera for a job he went to Houston and Ohio for and so I just got out of the habit of taking pictures. But the camera (and the husband) are back so I will hopefully be back blogging. I am putting some random pictures on while I get re organized.

This picture is a great demonstration of a joke Adam (funniest guy on earth) told me awhile back. I was sitting at my computer with my back to the room (and to Adam). Suddenly Adam said "Bear you're in the Frito position." with out turning around I said, "do you mean the fetal position?" He said "No, he wants my Frito's so he is in the Frito position" He is just the funniest fella!

Bear is our dog he is an awesome boy.

My incredibly awesome and talented daughter has written some more poems for us. She is hoping that Heather can see some photo ops of something to go with them. here they are.

Night
Quite why?
Is it honor,
or the love of God,
or is it when
the spirits of the dead
living life again
but silently,
the crickets and the cicadas
singing to them.

Moonlight
Shining and glimmering
in the water
or off the green,
red, orange,yellow,
bronze and brown leaves
or off sleek cats fur moving about.

Comparing
Starlight and moonlight
or electric light
which is more beautiful?
Starlight and moonlight?
Or electric light?
Moonlight and Starlight!
Likely right?
You answer.

Ben recently gave a talk in Primary it is about being Thankful.

I am thankful for my family, they help me to learn how to be a good brother, a good son and to know I am a child of God. In Ephesians Chapter 5 verse 20 it says "Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ"

It is not easy to give thanks all the time. Sometimes bad stuff is happening. But it says to give thanks ALWAYS for ALL things. So that is what I am going to do.

God loves me. He will comfort and protect me. He will walk beside me and hold my hand. I can be thankful for things that bring me that close to Him. I am thankful for this talk, it helped me to learn about being thankful even when it is hard.

Benjamin's Birthday

2008-08-19T15:39:00.010-05:00

All Ben wanted to do for his birthday was to go to

Roaring River for the kids fishing day. The Boy

LOVES to fish!

Here is the cool fisherman just wetting a line with his buddy Evan.

This is the split second before he started yelling "net mom we need the NET" I dang near dropped the camera! Evan had caught his first fish EVER! Unfortunately we did not get a picture of his fist fish as I was scrambling for the NET. I might add that it was no where near me! Evan decided that the fish was too small, we all agreed, and he let it go.

Later Ben caught this fish. It was quite large especially considering the size of the fish people were catching around him.

These two fellas were instrumental in bringing this baby in......well one of them had grabbed the line and broke it, the other one dived for the fish and knocked it up against the cement thing so it was just wooozy enough that we were able to scoop it back up with the net....whew what a save!

Evan later caught this fish whom he named Billy and also let go.

His sister Sierra caught this guy whom she named bob (not to be confused with our boB) she did not let it go and did take it home to eat all gone yum yum!

This is Jaws he was very yummy. Ari says that he was blind in one eye. That kind of grossed me out hehe. He was FEROCIOUS (wink wink)

ARTISTS UNITE!

2008-07-24T16:03:00.004-05:00

Heather took this great picture. When Ari saw it she was inspired by it to write this poem. They make an awesome team! Ari and Heather have teamed like this before. To check that one out go to Kendricks blog (yes I know it is Heather and Tagg s family blog but hey I am the Grandma hehe)

Dragons dancing in the air.
Finally they alight
taking a breath before they go

Just a great Picture of the Birthday Girl!

2008-07-21T12:36:00.001-05:00

Ari's Pictures with her new CAMERA!

2008-07-21T12:19:00.001-05:00

Ari just loves her new camera and she will be a regular contributor to the blog from now on! Here are a few she took of the furry people (and feathered) that share our homestead.

Here are a few chickens from Ari's flock!

This is Sadie the carnivore wannabe!

Bear went on our ride as our "protection" he is a very tired and footsore boy now. But happy very, very, happy!

This is Sweety Pie the kitten. She is studiously ignoring Ari and the Camera.

The Birthday RIDE!

2008-07-21T11:54:00.000-05:00

We did more riding than picture taking but we did get a few.

We stopped and had our lunch at (IN) this pretty stream. Ari's horse Sadie was a HUGE MOOCH. Even tried to get us to let her taste the fried chicken. YOU ARE NOT A CARNIVORE SADIE! Grapes and bread and carrots as well as the apples were a big hit with our equine partners.

Here is Ari explaining the dietary laws of horses to Sadie. Note the look of disagreement on that horse's face! With us were Terry on the left and Lori on the right. Jenny was not able to be with us and we missed her!

This was the After Ride Party!

More presents! Ben was the present delivery person and enjoyed his job immensely. Ari received lots of cool stuff and says thank you thank you thank you!

Lori's husband Mike did not even go on the ride and he looks more tired than the rest of us! HA

I do not know why but I really like this picture of my beautiful sweet daughter!

Ari's Birthday!!!!

2008-07-21T11:06:00.000-05:00

Yesterday was Ariana's Birthday. We had a GREAT day! We took a girls trail ride. It was a little sad without Q and Pony but we had a lot of fun. We did find that without the leadership of Q we have no natural leaders in the whole group. Therefore everyone wanted to follow or walk beside someone else. This did not work so well and we had to do some schooling to get a good trail line going on the narrow trails. Here are some great pictures from the day!

Here she is intently working on seeing what was in the BOX! That is her brother Ben and her friend Erica with her on the couch.

She Squeals with delight when she sees NIKON and knows it is a camera!

This camera came with all sorts of cool stuff!

The Ships

2008-07-03T09:19:00.001-05:00

This is Heathers new Boat, or is that Ship.... hmm what is the size criteria on that? OK really it is not Heathers but since she is Heather Marie and this was Marie... well hopefully you get it!

This is my dream Ship/Boat! And it is for sale!!! OK well you know me I have to get stuff that needs fixed so I am not bored. Then I can fix it up and........

It will look like this when I am done! We can live on it and be happy. The down side to this is I am pretty sure the horses are not going to think this is a great plan!

This is a wonderful vessel called the Lynx ( I am pretty sure of the spelling maybe) I know for a fact that this one was called a SHIP! I got these shots as she was coming in. I do not take very good pictures and for that I apologize, But I hope you can get a least a little of the feel for how wonderful this ship is! This was taken at the Port if Ilwaco.

Our Beliefs

2008-06-29T13:34:00.001-05:00

It has come to our attention that there are many people in the world today who do not understand the beliefs of our church. ( The Church of Jesus Christ Of Latter Day Saints) So we as a family decided that we would every so often share some small bit of what we do in fact believe. Today we will be sharing our first article of faith.

"We believe in God, the Eternal Father, and in his Son, Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost"

More from our trip

2008-06-26T09:57:00.000-05:00

OK here are some pictures of people we were able to see on our trip. This will definitely be a multi-parter!

You have no idea how hard it is to get attractive pictures of this crew!This is Megs in the foreground, my sister Cris with the finger action going on, Uyen and of course Kendrick in the background.

I tried again! The additions to the picture are Connie, Megahn's mother, and Opa. Of course we still have Megs and Cris goofing. sigh the things a person has to tolerate. HAHAHA Do you know how much I love these people!

This was my last try!

Again non-co-operative People! I said look over here they glanced and went back to talking. between me and my camera I am just not that quick!

So this is what I ended up with. hehe soooo attractive guys. This is Meg's dad Ron and my brother David. I so understand what heather must go through just trying to get a decent shot! Have you seen her pictures?? They are AWESOME!

This is my Bro in Law Brad I only gave him one shot hehe. Notice the yakking fellas in the back ground sure NOW they smile.

My neice Courtney and her guy Alfredo.

Megs and my Nephew Zach. Even with a history of bad pictures this ranks in my not so hot category but it is the only one I was successful in getting Zach in.

Our Trip to Washington

2008-06-24T14:56:00.000-05:00

Heather, Kendrick, Lisa and I went to Long Beach, Washington and had so much fun.

This is of course Kendrick!

Heather in a TREE! It was an awesome tree but I am not so good with the camera!

Lisa in the same Tree. This was along the walk to the North Head Lighthouse at Ilwaco WA.

Tagged Again!

2008-06-03T21:01:00.000-05:00

I have been tagged by my wonderful DIL ( I hope everybody realizes that means Daughter In Law I am not sure I have ever said) This is a fun tag, well so far all of them have been hehe.

A) Four places I go over and over: Pasture, the horses demand it! Church, Library, Riding anywhere I can go
B)Four people who email me regularly: Megs (massive amounts then little amounts but it averages), Jason & Christina (between the two of them it equals regularly), Mom, and my equine mag.
C)Four of my favorite places to eat: This is so hard!!!! Olive Garden, Bailey Street, any decent Mexican food,
D) Four places I would rather be right now: With my Kenny, With my Tagg, With my Heddo, With David and Megs, With ...................
E) Four people I talk to on a daily basis: Kelly, Kids, Heddo, Animals
F) TV shows I watch over and over: none right now but CSI, NCIS, Monk, Psych
G) Four people I'm tagging: I do not know four people who blog yet! Vea, Opa&Uyen, My niece Michelle. that's all I know!

The Youngest of the Burkard kids.

2008-05-30T09:11:00.001-05:00

Well you finally get to meet Jason! You also get to meet his sweetheart Christina and her new grand baby Destiny. Life is so sweet!!!! Jason is currently stationed in Quatar and Christina is at home in San Antonio delivering grandchildren and loving him home.

Here he is working so hard! He says the 110 deg. heat does not bother him at all!

He is from Texas, hello.....really hot there! hehehe.

This is Christina with that gorgeous baby Destiny right after she was born. What a great gift!

How sweet is that face!!!!! Grand babies are the awesomest, now I want to go cuddle my Kenny. I miss him so much. BUT I get to see him soon!!!

I need more pictures of all my siblings an their sweeties and their kids!!!!! Get on it folks. I know that you love me because I am bossy, I know it is true!

Well Its About Time!

2008-05-22T13:47:00.000-05:00

I have been so slow getting new posts on here! With all the computer Juggling and such it has just been interesting. I putting on some pictures of the Tagg and Heather and Kenny family. Tagg took this one and Heather took all the others. Now you know why we have such a hard time getting pix of Heather she is always on the other side of the viewfinder taking fantastic pictures to bless all the rest of us.

This is of course our Kenny and the Worlds best DIL Heather!

Tagg and Kenny having fun at Box Elder Campground in Utah. It looks like Ken just wants to dive right in! Doesn't that water just look so fresh and crisp? Heather takes the most awesome pictures! I can almost feel the coolness of it!

Kenny says "Yo, What up?" I love that childs expressions!

He takes his Pat A Cake very seriously, and does it very well!

He looks like he is just a hurrying his dad along doesn't he?

Kenny loves his Dad a LOT!

More Family Fun.

2008-04-21T16:46:00.000-05:00

This is our sweet Kenny when he was tiny. This is also a bunch of his grandmas. Not all of them mind you, just a bunch of them. from the left it is Great Grandma McDonald (Heber City), Great Oma, Soo Tall Grandma McDonald (actually these people are all just short), Grandma Nielsen , Great Grandma Taggart, and Great Great Grandma McDonald (Saint George). Yes someday we will get into the Taggart McDonald vs Taggart/McDonald part of all of this, but not today.

This picture is from Saint George. We had gone down for Kendricks blessing and these two goofballs were having fun getting ready to play in the pool.

I have been tagged!

2008-04-15T12:05:00.000-05:00

I was tagged by Heather for this one.

This is a very fun tag! You go to Google Images and search for the answers that apply to you and use a photo from the FIRST page of results.

Age on my next birthday

A place I'd like to visit (Venice)

A favorite place

One of my favorite things

My favorite color

My favorite food

My favorite flower

The city in which I live (this is literaly what came up lol)

Name of past pet

A Nickname I've had

College major

1st Job

A hope for 2008

Meeting more family.

2008-04-10T11:46:00.000-05:00

I promised to introduce you to some of the rest of the family. Here is a picture of the kids with their Grandma McDonald

This is a picture of My Aunt Debby, me, Gran, Mom and Megs.

Here is David, Mom Uncle Bill and Nick. David is my Baby brother and Uncle Bill is Moms Baby brother. You probably cannot tell but they both tower over us.

Our Views

2008-04-09T22:46:00.000-05:00

So many people have asked about the awesome views that we are always talking about. So here are a couple of pictures to show you the view from our deck.

Tag your it

2008-04-03T17:49:00.000-05:00

OK now we have to tag someone. We do not know a lot of bloggers so this could be interesting. We are going to tag Vea and Opa. The kids wanted to each tag someone but I talked them into only doing the two we know even looks at this and blogs.

Adam's turn

2008-04-03T17:10:00.000-05:00

OK now it is time for Adam to tell 8 interesting things about himself.

1)I have mastered almost all the Pokemon games.

2)I love to read.

3)I have good taste in music.

4)I love my horse named America.

5)I am a comedian.

6)I love my cat Tiger and she is about to have babies.

7)Me and my dog Buck are crazy.

8)I like anime.

2008-04-03T15:28:00.000-05:00

Ariana is next to tell 8 things.

1)I love animals.

2)I like to ride my horse Sadie.

3)I have 12 chickens and sell their eggs.

4)I like scrap booking.

5)I am an AUNT. HELLO KENNY!!!

6)I have 3 brothers and 1 Sister in law. She saved me!

7)I like to cook.

8)When I grow up I am going to have an animal rescue.

The kids have been tagged

2008-04-03T15:13:00.000-05:00

The kids have been tagged to tell 8 interesting things about themselves. We are going youngest to oldest. So starting with Ben:

1)I love my Pony Rosie

2) I love, love, love to FISH.

3) I am smart.

4) I am cool.

5)I am energetic.

6)I like to swim.

7) I like to work with dad.

8)I like to go boating.

Ben and Rosie

2008-04-02T21:34:00.000-05:00

Ben was riding around today on Rosie (Black Rose) and they hit this pose. Ben was saying "here I am with my nobel steed." He was so cute. later, still on Rosie of course, he was running all over bringing tools and drinks and whatever any one needed. Thats my boy!

Double Rainbow!!

2008-04-01T12:22:00.000-05:00

Last night while we were all in the kitchen fixing dinner, Kelly noticed the beautiful colors in the sky after the storm. So we put dinner on hold and all headed to the front porch to see this lovely spectacle. We then headed back to the kitchen to finish our dinner preparation. Looking out the back door we noticed the awesome play of light and shadows on the trees. We all went out on the back deck to look at this and saw the rainbow! As we were watching it and all the beauty there was to see, another rainbow started to become clear! They were so beautiful!! We were able to see both ends of both rainbows!!! The pictures do not do them justice but I had to try!!! You cannot see the last end of the last rainbow very well in the pictures but oh how wonderful it all was! We are sure going to miss this place.

2008-03-31T12:03:00.000-05:00

I am adding a couple of links to important blogs. First and foremost is the blog done by the worlds best daughter in law! http://heathermariemcd.blogspot.com/ and also Opa has been keeping a blog of his travels to Vietnam so his is http://kevininvietnam.blogspot.com/ and then there is My sister in law Vea and her wonderful family at http://prairieflowerhouse.blogspot.com/ and Heather also has another blog of the cool designs she does at http://mae-designs.blogspot.com

KENDRICK

2008-03-31T11:43:00.000-05:00

Now that you have met the Missouri part of us I will introduce you to THE grandson Kendrick.

McDonald Clan Life and Times

2008-03-31T11:04:00.000-05:00

With family scattered hither and yon I have finally buckled to pressure and am joining the blogging universe. Here is a picture of the family here in Misouri. You will also see pictures of the rest of the family including Kendrick (precious grandson) Tagg #1 son and Heather #1 daughter in law. I will introduce you to the rest of our cast of chracters as we go.