Another addition to our family!!!

Shawn popped the question today!!! Kim said "yes"! Even though I knew it was coming when Shawn called this morning and put Kim on the phone to tell me that they were engaged I was so excited I started crying. We are so happy for Shawn and Kim. We love Kim and are so happy that she will be a member of our family. Kim told me that Shawn came over this morning to her house, they were going to the water slides together becasue they both had the day off. When Shawn got there he put a blind fold on her. He took her out to the back yard and put her on a chair on the grass and handed her what was 2 dozen red roses. He then took off her blindfold and he was on one knee with rose pedals around him. He told her how he felt about her, and asked her to marry him. They are both so excited. I know they will be very happy with this new chapter in their life!

Congratulations Shawn and Kim!!!!

Save the date....September 4,2009

Coming soon....January 2,2010 (or thereabouts!)

Just in case you didn't check our Kristal's and Cory's blog...we are going to be grandparents again!!! Congratulations Cory and Kristal! Can't wait. We are hoping for a girl...we are seriously outnumbered by the boys...but we will accept a boy too, the ones we have are pretty fantastic!

Working on our yards!

Just wanted to show off our new front lawn! We mowed it for the first time this Saturday. It is so nice to have such a plush green lawn. We hired a guy who really went to work on the yard. We had rock put around the edges and under the trees. He is going to come back with some large landscape rocks to decorate the front. Then we will have to plant a few things. It is really nice and we are enjoying the "no weed" yard.

We are still working on the back yard. We have all the old grass dug up and now we are waiting on Mike to get the sprinklers fixed. Meanwhile we are still waging the war against the gophers. Our neighbor on one side of us has a yard full and he isn't doing anything about it. We are trying our hardest to get rid of the ones that move onto our property. Just about the time we think we have killed them all a few more holes turn up. Mike made an invention called the gophanator...actually I think he read about it online. He tried that a couple of times...he puts some propane and oxygen down the hole and then I think he sets it on fire. The first time he did it he set the fence on fire...just a small one I was told...I was shopping at the time. The second time he did it it made such an explosion that it sent the neighbor flying from her house to see where the bomb landed! The explosion also damaged Mikes ears. He decided he didn't use the right proportions! Now I have him just sticking to using poison. We have had a mishap with that too. A gopher pushed it out of the hole and Butters(our puppy) got it. After a $200 vet bill Butters is doing fine...we figured after they made her throw up and tested her blood etc. that she probably didn't get much if any in her. Now Mike puts the poison in the holes, puts a brick over the hole and then puts up a little flag so we know where the poison is. Then every morning Mike walks the yard checking the holes to make sure no poison is pushed out, and that there are not any more fresh holes. So with all that you can imagine our pleasure when this morning Mike found this! If you can't tell what it is...it is a gopher in a hole he dug coming under the fence to our yard. He was dead as a door nail! I guess he ate some poison and dug his way out of the hole. So today gopher's -0 Patten's-1 !! Working on our yard

Happy Father's Day

We had a great Father's Day. Cory and his family came over to help celebrate!

Everyone got to give Grandpa a big hug, a present and a card that they made.

A Father since 1975~!

A hug from the guy that made Mike a dad!

A hug from Ethan! A hug from Jonathan! A hug from Jimmy!

A hug from Megan!

(notice the difference between a guy hug and a girl hug!)

A hug from Christy!

Cory gets to unwrap his father's day gifts!

Cory and Jonathan with his gift to Cory...what Jonathan called some sacrament bread!

He tore up some bread put it in a baggie and then put it in a box. He poked holes in the box (he said so you could smell the bread) and wrapped it up for Cory!

Thanks to all the wonderful dads in our life!!!