Welcome to the Mike South family website. We just started this new site, so I will be posting some new articles, and also re-posting some of the more fun articles from before. Enjoy!
This is the pizza by Evie. Very nice.
We had our first pizza night with the new oven this weekend. Kids each were able to make their own pizzas. The new oven did great, I think we need to light it a bit earlier next time, but over all it was excellent!
The oven is now close to finish. I still need to paint the smoke stack, seal the top holes, and build a new door for the oven.
Pizza oven construction really did take a lot longer than I expected. After about 3 months of research, and 2 months of late evening construction, I’m done. These pictures show a short step by step of what we did.
Dinner!
Tessa and I got a chance to fly to Nova Scotia and work on a Monolithic Dome project there. While we were there, we also got a chance to visit Lunenburg. Attached are some pictures of the spot we were at. Video of the whale is also cool.
Kids lined up and ready to go. Day 1!
We went to Disney World this summer. Drove for 22 hours to Orlando, stayed in an awesome resort that Tessa lined up, spent two days in Disney World, and one day at Siesta Key Beach.
Started off as a few rows of pumpkin, and now has taken over the whole garden.
Pictures from our first pumpkin patch.
Girls are planting onions.
Tessa has been wanting to plant a garden for years, and this year we started it. First garden for our family, and it has been fun. I learned that tilling is NOT as easy as walking behind the tiller, I haven’t been this sore in years.
Tessa lights her candles, the kids wait anxiously. I seem to remember Mikey’s blowing some out while she was lighting them.
We had a party for Tessa’s 31st birthday party last week. We had it at the Training Center with all the family and the kids. Everyone had a good time.
Frankie found his pumpkin.
Tessa took us to a pumpkin patch yesterday, and besides picking up some awesome pumpkins, the kids got to pose for some really cool fall pictures.
Three and a half feet long.
A sad day today. Our 30 lb triploid carp died. Triploid carp are cleaning fish, that live off the green vegetation in ponds like ours. The heat here has dried our pond up so much, that they are all having a hard time living.
The Chameleon cake that Tessa made was a huge hit. Catie was very excited to have mom make another fun cake.
Catie had her 8th birthday party yesterday! We had the family over to celebrate with cake, ice cream, and pizza. Everyone got to see Catie’s birthday gift, her Chameleon named Pascal. Silly string and confetti wars went on outside, even though most of still found itself inside the house.
The Memorial
Nanette Clark
Nan and Gary have a dog named Harley. Harley, a black lab, is a very rambunctious, but good dog. But when Harley is left alone, without friends to play with, he “plays” with our chickens.
Kids celebrate the arrival at Sea World
This year, we went to San Antonio for spring break. We rented a big hotel room, went to sea worlds, The Alamo, and played hard.
Mikey, Catie, and Evie’s Snowman — Here is the snowman that the kids built by them selves. They were very proud.
I can’t believe we’ve had this kind of snow two years in a row. It was a lot of fun this year for all of us to go out and play in the snow. We built a snowman, had snowball fights, and they didn’t even cancel school.
The three amigos — Tessa make all three of these costumes. The kids were very proud, and look great.
No, its not halloween. All the talk and attention on the school plays got Mikey into action. He pulled out the lion suit that he wore when he was in 1st grade, then Catie put on the monkey suit, then Evie the elephant costume. Well here is a picture or two.
Our Americana Rooster
I was telling mom about how many chickens we had, and decided to take some pictures and show them off. We started this about a year ago with six hens, now with a few added on here and there and us hatching some of our own, we are up to 24 chickens.
Four of the Five Hatched so far
We have new baby chickens! After one bad incubating batch, Tessa started another one with a new strategy. 21 days later, 5 baby chicks hatched out perfectly. These chicks were laid right here from our chickens.
Catie is marching to the stage
Pat Tovar
Catie and the first grade class at Stafford Elementary put on the Deep in the Jungle production. Catie got the prestigious part of Monkey number 1. She really blew everyone away with her performance.
Mikey, Catie, and Evie — Mikey, Catie, and Evie standing in front of the sand pit.
This spring break we went to the Science Place in Dallas. Its one of the best place to take kids during vacation since most of it is geared towards children. Click on the pictures and read the descriptions for more story.
Happy girl — She was so proud.
Evie’s class had a school play this year. Evie’s got to play the elephant. Tessa mad a really cool costume for her, although it proved to be very hot. They had a circus program here all the kids were dressed up as different animals. They also had motorcycles ( big wheels ) and other things riding through.
The Rocket — The rocket named Skyfire won first place.
We had our first space derby with Mikey and the scout troop. The actual event snuck up on us, so Tessa had to make most of the rocket with a little help from Mikey. Long story short, we came home with 1st place.
Trying to feed the birds — We had some seed sticks, but it was tough to get those birds on the sticks.
Here are some pictures from our trip to the Zoo this last spring break. The kids had a lot of fun.
Our incubating has been having a tough time, but we couldn’t wait to get some baby chicks in our brooder. We went down to the feed store and bought 6 Baby Rhode Island Red chicks.
Catie, Mikey, and Evie — We just got in the park, and we had to take a picture of the excited kids in front of the fountain.
Yesterday we went to Sea World. It was a long day, but well worth it. We got to see the killer whales, all kinds of dolphins, and had the opportunity to walk a couple miles. Then to top it off, we got to hit rush our traffic in San Antonio and Austin, what more could you ask for.
We had a very exciting trip to the Fossil Rim Animal Park on our first day of spring break vacation. It included a giraffe eating out of our hands, and a crazy ostrich that decided, “where are they trowing that food from, there must be a crap load in there” and came in after it. You’ll have to watch the video for more than that.
Catie’s Group Picture
We got our basketball picture that the kids took scanned finally. Here they are, take a look.
Catie’s new shades — Do these come with prescription lenses?
Last week, we made a visit to the party store to buy supplies for Evie’s class party. Its was fun to take pictures of the kids will all of the crazy things that they put on. So here are some more fun pictures.
Tessa and I found the solution to our bobcat troubles. It includes a cute fluffy white bunny, and a steel trap. Don’t worry, this trap is designed to keep the bunny safe.
Eggs in incubator — We have 17 eggs in the incubator. They are sitting in an egg turner that keeps the embryos healthy.
This year, we are trying our first shot at incubating chicken eggs. These eggs were home grown in our coop, and should be exciting to see hatch. Stay tuned, we have about 15 of the 21 days left before hatching.
The trap – I took a picture of the trap this morning. I didn’t stick around last night to pick up my tools.
I found some broken eggs this morning while walking between my house and Mom’s house. I just assumed it was an opossum or something so I set a trap, only to find my self face to face with a skunk.
Catie at School
It was Dr. Seuss birthday yesterday. The school had various activities. Tessa made a huge cat in the hat cake for the Pre-K, and Catie’s class make their own Dr. Seuss books.
Bobcat — She was a beautiful cat, one of the healthiest the taxidermist had ever seen.
About 6 months ago, Mrs. Riddle, our neighbor called and said that a bobcat had attacked her chickens. Now, we finally have got one of the bobcats, but there is still another one.
Check out this video of the kids having fun on the historical snow day in Italy, Texas. Mikey, Catie, Evie, Sydney and Frankie had a lot of fun making snowballs, snowmen, and the start of a snow fort.
February is a really busy month our family. We have Tessa’s Birthday, Dad’s Birthday, Mom and Dad’s Anniversary, and Gary and Nan’s Birthday. The kids helped blow out the candles, and dad had a little too much fun with my son’s sugar addiction.
Kids in the Coop — It was fun to bring home the chickens for the first time. The kids did really good with them, they weren’t afraid at all.
Tessa South
Today we bought six chickens. The kids are really excited about getting eggs and taking care of the chickens. We drove to Waxahachie, to the Boyd Feed Store and purchased a mix of different breeds. We got 2 Americanas, 2 Brown Leghorns (in Texas it pronounced Legerns), and 2 Rhode Island Reds.
Painting the coop — Tessa had all the kids helping in the construction of the coop.
Tessa South
When Tessa came up with the idea of building a chicken coop, we didn’t know how to start. So we went to visit the only people we knew that have chickens, the Johnson family in Milford. They had made two chicken coops using hog panels, and we loved it.
Evie with snow in hair — Evie loved playing in the snow. She was having fun when I picked her up from school because of all the snow flakes that were falling in her hair.
Thursday morning, it started to sleet. Then, by around noon, it started to snow. Over the next 24 hours, it would lay down 5 inches of snow in Italy, and twice that much in the DFW metroplex.
One of the first things we did today was visit Sodimac, the local “Home Depot”. We went there to look for prices for materials. I’m telling you, these people aren’t missing a thing. They have stores with everything just like the US.
Evie’s Shades
Evie took my sunglasses during one of Mikey’s basketball practices. Once I turned on the camera, she started cheesing for the camera.
Carlos and Linda had a meeting in the morning, so we went out. First was to a Honda shop where we could look at some motorcycles. Most all motorcycles here are 125cc or 90cc, they have bigger ones, but not very many people have them. You can buy a nice 125 for about $3,000. The 250s were available on special order, but you could get them for about double the 125s.
Today was business. We went and talked to Segundo, the man that was in charge of the association that was helping get the land. We went out to the job site to see the land, and it looks like it will be a very nice place to build. We talked to various building supply people, a contractor or two, and an engineer that can help with the utilities.
We made it to Lima about 8:00am, got through customs, located the bag in Miami, got it scheduled to be shipped to Chiclayo (our final destination), checked in and ditched Andrews bags for the flight to Chiclayo. The Chiclayo flight wasn’t until about 6:00pm that night, so Linda had lined up for a niece of Carlos’ to meet us there and show us the sights.
Catie and Evie — This is a picture of Catie and Evie at the kids’ basketball game the day I left.
I left DFW airport on a flight to Miami at around 8:00pm, even though the flight was scheduled for 6:20pm. So the first day was already late. The flight was around 3 hours, and was just like you would imagine.
Evie is wired up
Over Thanksgiving, Evie got really sick with Pneumonia. This is the story of her ordeal.
