Summer Fun!!

This summer has been pretty busy, but mostly for the girls. This was a fun summer for birthdays. Amanda turned 13, so she is officially a teenager. Rebecca turned 10, so she is in double digits. And, Katrina turned 5 and gets to start school this year! Kevin, Lora and Katrina spent the summer at home, while Amanda and Rebecca took turns doing all kinds of things and going all kinds of places.

It began June 26th, when Amanda boarded a plane for Alaska to spend a week with Gma Kathryn and Gpa Herb. It was her first flight all by herself and she had a great time! While she was in Alaska she got to spend time with her grandparents, her aunt and uncle and cousins. They made candles, food, went to museums, to a musk ox farm, and the zoo, where Amanda got to help take care of the wolves for a few hours. We got to talk to her frequently on Google video chat and got to hear about all the fun things she was doing.

Amanda returned home just in time for Rebecca to start Literacy Camp, which is put on by the Kerman Branch Library. The kids spent the week writing and reading and in the end they received a beautiful book about animals. One of our favorite librarians, Miss Rita, was retiring at the end of the week, so we were glad Rebecca got to spend the week with her. (And, we did not get even one photo. Sad face!)

Then it was Amanda's turn to be off again. This time she headed up to Girl's Camp as a First Year. Girl's Camp is healed at Green Meadows in Fish Camp near Yosemite. Gorgeous area!! Amanda had a wonderful time! She loved being there with all the girls from our ward and she made a lot of new friends. Including a girl named Meredith, whose dad went to school with Amanda's dad. She took hikes, practiced archery, and her favorite part was the Faith Walk. Amanda did not stop talking about it for a week afterwards.

Every year when the Nehring grandchildren turn 10, they get to spend an entire week with their Gramma and Papa in Auberry. This year was Rebecca's turn. She got to help feed and brush horses, sewed a skirt, went to an unexpected funeral in Bakersfield, made a birdhouse and went swimming. She enjoyed her week very much!!

It was a busy summer!!

Close call - Scared silly - Did everything right

Yesterday we had a scary situation come up, but everyone handled it exactly as they should, and so it all turned out okay in the end. I start this blog with the end of the story, because it has to do with a rattlesnake and a 3 year old girl.

We were in Auberry, at Kevin's parents' house, and the kids were playing outside after dinner. We have told the kids countless times what to do if they see a rattlesnake while they are walking around on the property, because it is such a serious possibility. Laura and Stone had already walked over the bridge that Dad built over the gully on the north side of the house. Now Katrina was going for a walk with Papa over the bridge. She got to the far side where the boards extend past the end of the bridge. Here there is a two foot gap between the edge of the boards and the rocks. Katrina saw ants in the dirt at the end of the boards and turned around (she has recently been bit several times by red ants and does NOT like to get near them). When she did, she heard the rattle of a rattlesnake and screamed, "snake!". It was only a foot and a half away from her. Papa couldn't see the snake as from his vantage point it was obscured by a rock, but he heard the rattle too. He went running by it and grabbed Katrina up.

Laura was still outside, so Dad yelled to her to bring a shovel. This was the point that Kevin and I (we were inside the house) realized what was happening. We saw Laura running (in that way that you instantly know it is an urgent run, not a run for exercise or anything) and then heard Katrina crying. When I got to the bridge, Laura was holding Katrina and Dad was whacking the head off the snake with the shovel. I took Katrina in my arms and she cried, "the snake almost bit me!". We watched to know that Papa had taken care of the snake, then as we walked back to the house I praised Katrina for doing exactly what she was supposed to do and we talked about how this is why we ask Heavenly Father every day to keep us safe.

Dad brought the headless snake up from the gully and Katrina was very brave and wanted to feel the snake. She felt it's skin and shook it's rattles. I made a little video of her talking about what happened. She said, "Papa saved me.". Thank you Dad, and thank you Heavenly Father!

Dad and Kevin measured the snake. It was 44" long and had 13 buttons on it's tail. It had a big bulge in it's side, so we could tell it had recently eaten, and Kevin thinks that is why it didn't strike immediately. Whatever the reason, we are just very grateful it didn't!

A White Christmas!

We got a wonderful Christmas gift this year! Sure, the games,books, puzzles and the sweaters were great! We love them all, but when we were up at Gramma and Papa’s in Auberry on Christmas night, we got snow! SNOW! It wasn’t very deep and it was really wet, but it was snow! The girls were thrilled!

It has only snowed in Fresno twice in the last twenty years -- once was when Amanda was about a year and a half old. In the past we have taken the girls up in the high mountains to play in the snow, but the last time we did that, Rebecca was about a year and a half old. Katrina has never seen snow before, and she was enthralled! She ran out into it before we could even get her coat and hat on. She was startled when she slipped and fell, but she got right up and kept going! We had to convince them to come inside after a while so they didn’t get too cold. (Our apologies to those of you who are now existing in four feet of snow and below freezing temperatures to so blithely say that they were cold in their sweatshirts and hats.) We hope your Christmas was filled with wonderful surprizes too!


Katrina runs outside without her hat and sweater on

Katrina slips in the snow

Katrina makes handprints in the snow

Rebecca and Amanda run through the snow

our footprints in the snow

Good to the Last Drop

Katrina had Ice Cream at Gramma & Papa's. She wanted to make sure she got all of it.

Happy Easter!

What a nice weekend this has been! For one thing, the weather has been gorgeous! Sunshine and warm breezes!

On Saturday we went to a friend's home for a potluck. The food was great. The company was lovely. The kids had a great time finding Easter eggs and eating all the chocolate in them!

On Sunday morning the girls enjoyed their easter baskets, and then we went to Church, which was great (Kevin gave a talk in Sacrament meeting) and uplifting. After Church we drove up to Mom and Dad's with the Molloy family for Easter dinner and another super-duper egg hunt! All seven kids were out searching for nearly 200 eggs. It was so much fun to watch their excitement! (Katrina blew everyone out of the water, finding nearly 50 eggs just by herself, and with all the change that was in most of the eggs she found, she ended up with $8.40!) Not bad for a two-year-old! The kids played all over the place, on the swings and on the rocks (as evidenced by the scrape and bruise on Katie's leg and the cut and bruise on Jacob's head! Ouch!), until the mosquitoes chased them inside at dusk.

We had a lot of fun and enjoyed the beauty of the earth at this time of rebirth and renewal. Happy Easter!

See Saturday's pictures HERE.
See Sunday's pictures HERE and HERE.

The Jaws of Life

We went up to Mom and Dad's for Sunday dinner and as we passed the Auberry Volunteer Fire Station, we saw that they were all VERY busy today! The Auberry fire fighters and a few from some other nearby stations were practicing with the Jaws of Life and the Spreaders. They had several old cars that had been donated and they were in various stages of being cut apart. There were a few CPR dummies in the cars and the firefighters were practicing cutting the doors and the tops of the cars off to get them out.

We only mention this because Kevin's dad, David, is one of those fire fighters. He has been on the Auberry Volunteer Fire Department for nearly five years now.

It was interesting to watch the fire fighters and to see what those machines are capable of. It is always comforting to know that when someone comes to cut you out of a car, they know what they are doing!

See all of the pictures HERE.

Fearless Hummingbirds

Mom & Dad in Auberry have been feeding the Hummingbirds for a while. They've become used to people changing the water in the feeders; fearless may be a better word. Kevin went to change on of the feeders and the birds were all over it before he got it hung up. They were busy eating, but were continually watching Kevin too. In the picture, you can see one bird looking Kevin right in the eye. Lora took this pic through the kitchen window.

Our own episode of COPS

We were on our way up to Mom and Dad's in Auberry this Sunday, and as we were nearing the town of Prather, we came up behind a Sheriff's SUV that was traveling behind an RV that was driving very slowly. As we came up behind them, we could see that the right side of the RV was completely torn up, as though it had hit a guard rail and scraped along it for quite a ways.

Just then, two other Sheriff SUVs came from the opposite direction and did a u-turn in front of us and began to follow the RV as well. Suddenly the SUVs swerved and we soon saw that a glass beer bottle had come out of the RV and had smashed on the road. Now we knew for sure that the driver of the RV had to be VERY drunk! As the RV drove slowly up the mountain, it bounced up onto the berm on the edge of the road and wobbled as it made it's way up the road.

A few minutes later the drunk RV driver pulled off the side of the road (or perhaps accidently drove off the side of the road) and the Sheriff's SUVs fanned out, blocking the road. The deputies got out, guns drawn, and approached the vehicle. A short time later it appeared that the driver literally fell out of the RV, and the deputies helped him up, cuffed him and took him to one of the SUVs. Then, the deputies cleared the road and off we went.

It was very lucky that the RV driver seems to have only damaged his own vehicle, as he could have easily crossed the center line on the winding mountain roads and hit another car, or gone off the side of the road and down the mountain.

See all the pics here.