Sorry for the long absence--now that we're back from Hawaii, we'll do better :)

Sooo, it been the longest interval ever in the history of the Nelson family blog. Sorry.
Last year was a crazy whirlwind of a year for us. My landscape firm has experienced astonishing growth. When we started in 2010 we were doing $7,000 jobs, the end of this year saw us wrapping up a $145,000 job! The price I paid for that was 70+ hr weeks and no outside life.

This year looks to be even more successful and crazy. Although my focus will be to maintain a better work/life balance. And with my in-laws leaving the country/continent to serve a mission for our church I will endeavor to keep up on this blog with more routine.

The biggest thing to happen to us this past year, besides the huge success of my company, is that we took some much needed family re-connecting time and spent the month of January in Hawaii.
It was such a calm and tranquil place. We had a long time there so we did  not feel any pressure to fill our days up with sight-seeing. In fact there were whole days when the only things we did was sit on a beach!
We had 2 weeks on the Kailua-Kona side of the Big Island, and 2 weeks on Kauai.

So here are some pics. [we just discovered that if you click on the pics they will come up in a full size slide show, however you do not get the captions with it] Then we shall resume afresh from here. (Before viewing the pics, start the music on the right side of the screen for background music.)

 At the airport

 Our "home" in Kona. it was very homey.

 Henry in the waves

Homeschooling.

 Nice eh?

 We saw lots of sea turtles

 I took lots of pics of the waves, they had a very translucent quality to them.

 Those waves are breaking on the shore nearly a mile away. I figure they were splashing about 150+ feet in the air.

 Steam vents around the volcano

Kids

 Neat pic of the waves. Everything was so beautiful.

 Sea arch on some of the newest earth on Earth.

 "Road Closed" ya think?

 My beauties!

Exploring a lava tube. It went in a least 400 yds. That's where Henry made us stop.

 The kids loved playing in the waves.

 Another beautiful sunset. Everybody seemed to stop and celebrate the sunsets.

Beautiful blue ocean waves--could just hang out at this beach for days.

 A golden sunset--almost every night was another amazing sunset

 Us looking towards the sunset as we were watching whales

There were at least 8 whales playing just off the coast--amazing!

Spinner dolphins

Our next home in Kapa'a Kauai

  

 We rented a Jeep. Then took it for a spin. It got very dirty.

  Removable tops are pretty darned cool.

 

Beautiful Hanalei lookout

 Neat looking waterfall spilling over red soil

 Fern near Waimea Canyon - the Grand Canyon of the Pacific

 Lunch break at Hanalei Bay

Crashing waves on the dock

 Kids at our Kapa'a beach

 After off-roading, we hiked through the jungle to a remote waterfall

Beautiful sunset

Yummy shave ice

 Ummm....maybe not the best day to be out in the ocean

 Hiking the Hawaiian way

 Super nifty sea cave. In the summer they say it's like a lake in there.

The Napali Coast--one of the coolest places I've ever seen in my life.

We can definitely see ourselves taking a month off every winter.

Spring is here

Spring is here! The socks and shoes are off and swinging time is now :)

Henry's first pinewood derby race. He & Caleb had a lot of fun making the car.

Fun at the park with the family of Keen shoe wearers

We have entered a new age--little boys helping out mowing the lawn. The other day Henry got the mower out of the garage, took it to the side yard and started it up all by himself. What a great helper!

Finally spring seems to be here. We have been so busy with all that entails. The garden is going in, the beds are mulched; I'm really looking forward to my dahlias coming up and the veggies growing. Yea for gardens!

Grounded (Caleb's business) is keeping him very busy and we are keeping busy too. The kids' favorite subject right now is history. They also love to visit the new baby kitties in the barn and run around outside, look for frogs, make forts and draw.

So, you're probably wondering whatever happened to the Nelsons. We're still here...just not updating anyone on what's been going on since sometime in October! I have to say that I (Lyn) am mostly to blame as I volunteered to post halloween pics and that never happened, so here's a picture of the spunky kitty and two jellyfish.
Done.
Just kidding :) I've got a collection of pictures so that you can get a glimpse of what we've been up to.
Fern & I went to visit my family for a couple days. We got to enjoy the beautiful fall foliage up Rock Canyon and had a great time visiting with everyone, including my sweet grandpa.How is this for contrasting next pictures?
The day after Thanksgiving is White Friday when we get to go up Icicle Canyon and get our Christmas tree. It was a beautiful sunshiney day and the kids loved sledding and playing in the snow.
We also had our traditional fancy picnic complete with plastic champagne glasses and turkey sandwiches on rolls--yum!

And here are the fearless Christmas tree explorers taking a self-portrait :) We have been getting our tree in the forest for years now and it is always an adventure and fun to find one just the right personality for our house.

And then there were treats... I love baking for Christmas. I have to admit I go a little overboard, but I have too many things that I love to eat this time of year. It's hard to pick a favorite, but one of my new favorites is homemade tangerine gumdrops.

And this sweet little drawing is of "Kombucha the bear". Not sure how he came about, but Fern loves to draw him & he is so cute! She also loves to draw kitties and is happy with any piece of paper and pen. Fern is a very expressive artist; Henry is more of a precision draftsman. He doesn't draw whimsical things--he draws schematics of his various inventions.

Here is Henry and his scarecrow friend. They had the funnest time one morning making buddies out of their clothes. It was a little disconcerting when we put them to bed and it looked like there was someone standing there...

Hope you are all enjoying your February. We had a lovely day of 60 degrees and sunny as can be. It's interesting how much happier the day (and people) are when the sun is out and we're able to be outside working & playing. We've just had so much fun that we all stayed up past bedtime to play games, listen to music, and use our new telescope to look at stars. What a wonderful day.

Anyway, there's more to come, but this should do for now :)

Catching up. Yet again.

Man, Have we been busy!
Both Lyn and I have been working some seriously crazy hours this summer trying make this venture (grounded) be successful. And so far, it is being very successful. We are currently scheduled out till Dec. 16th on our installations. And we have more promising work that will fill up January. February already has a large project starting that should last about 5 weeks. then March picks up the season again. This will be the first year that I will have been able to work year-round. The best thing I have learned from starting my own company is that it is better to act than be acted upon. I simply got tired of everybody else screwing up my plans, income, future, etc. Only now that I have taken things into my own hands have I found a morticum of success. Of course I would be negligent if I did not credit God with the blessing and support, and blessings of support of my friends and colleagues.

We have done some really cool projects. Most of our projects have been in the $15-40K range! That just was not happening at my previous employer. We have been blessed.
We now have 2 newer trucks and 12' enclosed trailer. We rent yard space where we stage all of our equipment and materials. 2 employees.

As far as the family goes we are all well and happy.
My Brother Logan and his family came over for a couple of days to help harvest the extremely bountiful blackberry crop there was this year. Here are the kids loaded into the truck to head down to the swimming hole.
















Then we had a fun camping trip. well as fun as you can have car-camping. Since we don't have an SUV this year we were confined to campgrounds which are not our favorite thing. It's almost not worth going camping. Almost. But we had a fun time.
















Here is Henry after I dunked his nose in some hot chocolate. We found this great restaurant called Kit Carson's. Very tasty.














Then in Sept we had Fern's 5th B-day. We had it at the church ranch with her cousins. She wanted a Hello Kitty cake. (heck, she pretty much wants everything Hello Kitty) But the cake turned out nice thanks to Lyn who is both an amazing cook and baker.





















Then Henry and I and my dad, brother, and his boy went on a guys trip. We went to the Sawtooth Mtns in Idaho/Montana. We spent 3 days traversing a primitive road crossing the mtn range. We camped every night and had some great adventures . Especially the night we got caught in an electrical storm. We jumped in the Suburban and watched huge lightning and thunder for over 45 minutes. Fun! We had fun playing in the rivers and playing with fire too.
















































Then here's a pic of Fern in the barn. There was a whole litter of cute little kittens over there this summer and the kids would go over for over an hour at a time to play with them. We are so happy that our kids have a barn with hay and kittens and stuff to play with. Sure beats having them glued to the tube.




Isn't this girl cute or what?! I think that I will probably have to beat the boys back with a stick when she's a teenager.
Funny sign I saw "Guns don't kill people. Dads with pretty daughters do!"
Maybe I'll be polishing my shotgun when a date comes to the door.


We took family pics. This next pic is from that session. The official Family Picture will be released at Christmas time.












That's all for now.
We will have Autumn and Halloween pics up shortly. Now that work is slowing down below an utterly insane pace we will try to be more diligent about posting blogs.
Love ya guys.

June & July: happenings

Welcome back! It's been a long time since you've seen us. We have been super busy working on Caleb's new company, which up to a couple weeks ago was going very well, but since everyone is trying to finish up their summer, they haven't been interested in their landscape. So anyhow, we just wanted to update you all quickly via photos.
One day we had very low tides, so we went to West Seattle to explore the tidepools for the afternoon. It was a beautiful day and we discovered a lot of wildlife.

Our garden has been growing great and the kids like to help out. Fern is a great rhubarb assistant by cutting off the leaves. Having a garden is so much fun. It's nice to walk through the garden and select what you are going to eat for dinner that night.
Fern loves Daddy Daughter Dates. No sooner have they got back from one, and she starts discussing what to do for the next one. In the above picture, Caleb & Fern went out to eat at a cool eatery with couches and a record player and they played around taking fun pictures. This one turned out nice.

Sometimes when the kids are quiet, this is what is happening--what a great fort!

Other times.....

Why "chip sealed" roads really suck--Caleb watched Fern trip on her "flippers" (flip-flop sandals). She got really tore up, but Doctor Dad was able to make it all better.

When we were visiting Utah our kids had a great time playing with their cousins. Here is Fern & Sedona hiking.

For Henry Day (AKA half b-day) we gave Henry the option of going to the Children's Museum or go hiking. The choice is obvious--he chose hiking. We found a cool trail system in the Coal Creek area. It used to be a huge coal mine 100 years ago. For his bday dinner he wanted fish & chips (minus the chips of course since he is allergic to potatoes).

This is the cake he requested, with some penguin embellishments of his own.

Henry had been saving his money and working hard in order to purchase this, but thanks to Aunt Zoe & the cousins Schnebly, he got it for his birthday. It says for ages 9-12, but he's been able to do it all by himself. He has quite the technical mind. Isn't this cool?

Blueberries! The first blueberries from our bushes--wait--those are MY bushes that my thoughtful husband bought me for mother's day :) (or was it really because he wants more blueberry muffins?)

This is our favorite part about living here & about not having television. Our kids will spend hours a day out reading and playing out in the yard without problems. We feel truly blessed to be able to live in such a beautiful place & have such amazing kids.

Well, that's it for now.