Summer.....

Summer….

I think summer is my favorite time of year. I love being outside and playing. BBQ’s, cookouts, fishing, camping, swimming are all things I love to do.

Me and the kids went fishing with dad, Jarom & Dakota, Shanna & Jason & kids on Saturday, June 11^th. It was free fishing day in Idaho. We went to Deep Creek reservoir and caught 5 fish and then towards the end of the day headed to Devil’s creek, but didn’t catch anything. It was slow catching, but it was nice to just sit and relax. The kids had fun reeling in the fish. Parker was a little freaked out and refused to take a picture with the fish.

We went camping with Mark, Cheryl, and Jeannie again up North Canyon (by Camp Bartlett).  We had a lot of fun as always.  Got on a kick of singing old campfire songs. Eric thought we were crazy and rolled his eyes, but I couldn’t stop laughing.

Maisie & Katie play really well together. They have quite the little imaginations. They were cooking, shopping, working, all in the woods. They pretended to have a house with a kitchen & bedrooms. They make their food with leaves and sticks.

Parker wanted a mustache like Mark’s so bad. Eric took a little piece of ash and painted one on his face. He was so excited to have a mustache.

We ended up leaving our trailer up there. Mark’s family and friends are having a camping reunion June 22 through July 4 and we are planning on going up for a few days. We were a little nervous about leaving our trailer, but figured since there would be someone there most of the time, it should be okay. I am having a hard time focusing on work, I just want to be camping. 

Timber.....

This last weekend we went camping with some friends, Mark & Cheryl, to help cut firewood. We didn't get to our campsite until about 9:00 since we had to wait for everyone to get off work. We tried building a fire, but everything was so wet, it ended up being a small Indian fire. We eventually bagged the whole fire idea and went to bed.

Cutting down trees...... I have to say this was my first time witnessing a large falling tree. I was scared for my life and my children. As they were cutting the first tree I prepared the kids to run. Of course, it fell in the opposite direction they were hoping. Right across the road. The boys started right away with their chain saws and axes to get it off the road. Luckily no cars came. It was a fun and busy weekend. The first tree was so big that the chain saws had a hard time keeping up. They cut it down at 9:30 and finished probably about 4:00. With a few repairs and two trips to Montpelier for blades, it was finished. They then cut down two more by the end of the day.

Oh, and don't send women to town. We parked the truck at the True Value hardware store, went and got our chainsaw blades. Decided to walk across the street to the grocery store. Some nice gentleman came up to us and gave us a ticket for a free vegetable peeler if we listened to a demonstration. Well of course we got suckered into buying the mandolin slicer. It worked really well for our tinfoil dinners that night. Then we walked across the street again to Maverik to get some sodas. We got back to the truck with all our bags and drinks and then Cheryl spilled one drink all over the floor of the truck, so she headed back to Maverik to refill it. Then we were on our way back. Well after all that, the blades ended up being the wrong size even though they said they would fit. Mark decided to go the next time, but ended up clear in Soda Springs because everything was closed in Montpelier.

Parker played in stick piles, collecting stick antlers. By the time he was done he had the perfect fire stack, but wouldn't let me burn it. He could tell you what each antler was. Antelope, elk, moose, deer, caribou. You name it, he found it. Parker could live in the mountains. He loves camping.

Maisie went with the girls to town and then when Cheryl's little sister showed up later that night, she had a lot of fun playing with her. They are really close in age and play really well together. They cooked up some concoction with leaves and sticks and pine cones. To be a kid again.

It was a fast camping trip, but we enjoyed our first trip with no rain. It was perfect weather in the 70's.

Yet another update

My how time flies by, I need to get in a better habit of writing more often. The last couple of months have been busy. In April, we took the plunge and bought a new camp trailer and a used truck that could fit the four of us. We ended up with a 1999 Ford f350. It is very nice and roomy. We have used it a lot more than we thought we would. It is fun to jump in and go for Sunday or evening rides up the canyon. The weather has been really wet this year. Here it is the first of June and we haven’t had too many sunny days yet. The rivers are flooding and it just keeps raining. We have managed to get a few camping trips in. For Easter, we went to Daniels reservoir in Idaho by Malad. It was cold, but we had a nice toasty trailer to stay in and still managed to have fun.

My photogenic boy. It will pose for me anytime.

Hunting for Easter eggs.

CHEESE!!!!

"I'm a Princess"

The Easter Bunny sure does spoil my kids.

May 7^th, I had my first wedding photo shoot. The bride was one of my sister-in-law’s cousin. Misty came along and helped me. It was nice to have a side kick. I could not have done it without her. I was so nervous the whole time, but they turned out really good.

The middle of May, Eric had a week off of work, so him and Parker headed up Blacksmith Fork Canyon, yes right next to the flooding river. I threatened both Parker and Eric that they were not allowed to go next to the river. Parker is such a good boy, he didn’t go by the water without asking dad. He would say, “Dad, let’s go look at the water.” It rained on them most of the week, but they still had fun, watching movies, reading books, and a little bit of fishing when the sun managed to come out. The other thing Parker got on a kick about is what do "Good Ol' Boys" do. Parker, "Dad, do Good Ol' Boys wear their hat backwards?" Dad, "yep". Parker, "We're good ol' boys aren't we dad". He proceeded to ask if Good Ol' Boys go fishing, hunting, and several other things. He just wants to be a good ol' boy with his dad. Maisie and I went up a couple of nights and had dinner with them. Wednesday night we stayed the night and got up and went to school and work from there.

Friday, May 20^th, Maisie and I were on our way to work and got in a little fender bender. Nothing serious, but it still was scary. I was turning onto the highway by Cox Honey. There was a truck that was behind me and to the left a little. Apparently he was turning right too. He turned right into my back end because he didn’t see me. He got the citation, but is probably going to fight it. He claims he was there before me and that I pulled up to the side of him. I honestly don’t know, but I do know that if he was there, he wasn’t in the turn lane and he didn’t have his signal on because I wouldn’t have pulled up next to him if he did. We will see how that pans out. I was able to take my car in Monday morning and it was fixed by Tuesday after work. It looks like a brand new car. It was almost worth paying the $100 deductible to have the nice car wash.

Friday, May 20^th, after work I went to my sister’s to watch her kids for the weekend while my parents, Shanna and Jason, and Josh & Kirsten were in Hawaii. Saturday, May 21^st, Kyle and Misty brought their kids to Shanna’s house for me to watch while they helped Misty’s parents move cows. It was amazing how well 9 kids behaved. There were a few times that I had no idea there were so many kids there. They were really good. We went to the park for a little while and I had to keep counting heads to make sure I didn’t lose anyone. Later that night, when Kyle and Misty where finished with the cows, we loaded the kids and headed up to Eric’s camp and roasted hot dogs. It was nice to get the kids out of the house for a little while. They had a good time.

Memorial weekend – I was a brave woman and drove the kids with truck and trailer to Grace, Idaho to camp with a co-worker, Shannon, and her family and friends. It was a little scary driving. The truck likes to wander and I had a hard time keeping it on the freeway, so I didn’t go over 65 mph. I made it though. Kyle & Misty and their kids joined us. It was fun for the kids to have someone to play with. They played on the playground and road their bikes around. Again, it was rainy and cold. The sun did shine on Saturday though. We took the kids to Lava Hot Springs. We only went to the hot spots, and man were they hot. We were there for a couple of hours swimming and ate lunch. Afterwards, we went for a drive. We were trying to find Black Canyon. Well we headed west of Grace, Id, like we were supposed to, we drove over a bridge and remembered looking at the river below thinking, wow that looks cool. Well we drove around some old farm roads, up the mountain a ways, turned around, drove around some more farm roads, and ended up right back where we started. The Bridge, with a landmark sign, “Black Canyon Gorge”. So apparently that is what we were looking for. I think there are several places to see Black Canyon. Where we were it was straight down the black, rocky, ledges to the river. It was beautiful though. Of course, I forgot the camera. After that we drove back to camp. Sunday, it rained most of the day. We drove out to Chesterfield. Just as I was leaving camp, Eric’s truck’s overdrive light was blinking. It freaked me out a little and that is all I could think about. Chesterfield is a little ghost town with houses and buildings from the late 1800’s. We then drove to the reservoir. We decided that it would be a fun place to camp sometime. Then we drove to the “Last Chance Canal” which is east of Grace.

This site is the point on the Bear River where water was first diverted by Mormon settlers to develop an agriculture industry in Gem Valley. Features at the site include diversion dams, hand excavated basalt rock tunnels, flumes, pipelines, and ditches to move the water to the dry plain. Several previous attempts to capture the Bear River waters had failed. This became the settlers "last chance." It epitomizes the 

development of the agriculture industry in the dry west.

When we got back to camp, I talked Eric into coming up and taking a look at his truck. He drove up and fiddled with a few things and finally got the light to go off. It seems to be driving fine, so hopefully it was just a fluke. He stayed for dinner and then went home so he could work on Monday. We woke up to snow Monday morning. We ate breakfast and packed up and headed home. After doing loads and loads of laundry, my parents had a luau at their house. My dad cooked shish kabobs, we had a yummy coconut cake. It is always nice to get together as a family. I am glad we all live close enough that we can get together.