just a normal spring day in Idaho

Beautiful, isn't it?

Composting = Happy Wife

Good Hubby Award goes to Josh when he helps Dixie build a compost bin

Airsoft Wars

Spring and warmer weather means that little warriors emerge at our house

Lander D.A.R.E.'s you!

Lander graduated from the D.A.R.E. program, designed to help kids choose to stay away from drugs, alcohol and cigarettes. I "dare" you to find him in the crowd.

Sorry.

Couldn't help myself.

He's third row from the bottom, third kid from the right

 Lander and Kaiden Stowell, one of his best friends this year

J.J. Designs

 Josh has been busy coming up with more knife designs

a little friendly competition

Jake and Lander performed at the Friendship Open, a tae kwan do tournament and demonstration in West Jordan, Utah. They "competed" in two events, the demo team and a bow staff demonstration.

Lander and Jake perform the bow staff routine that they created

It was so much fun to watch them perform!

Lander jumps off of Master Laderman and breaks a board during the demo

 the demo team

 Jake & Lander show off the team trophy

 and their medals

shooting it up at Front Site

We spent a long weekend at Front Site, the gun training school in Puhrump, Nevada, known for it's brothel and shooting club. 

We do what we can to expose our children to the world, apparently.

And when that isn't enough, we head to Wal-Mart. 

The boys did a 4-day kids course. They hiked, learned survival techniques, and even experimented on ways to purify water. Jake refused to try the ropes course (it is pretty gynormous). Both boys got to shoot an oozi. 

Josh and Dixie spent those four days in the Defensive Handgun course. The normally pleasant weather was frigid, and wet.

Score!

Okay, maybe not a score, but the sun eventually came out, and the four layers of coats did too.

It took a day or two for Dixie to start to gain good trigger control (frozen fingers didn't help!), but she was *starting* to get the hang of it by the last day, enough that she earned "graduate". Too bad she wasn't good enough to win the competition at the end. 

Oh well.

Guess you win some, and you lose some, right?