Heather & Travis Visit

Heather and Travis came to visit so that she could run the 10k in the Teton Dam Marathon. Lander was ecstatic to have his "little buddy" aka Travis here to visit.

Heather crossing the finish line

Travis loved her medal. He calls it the Piston Cup. Can you tell that he is in love with Cars?

 Lander was so excited to be at the race. He has asked that we run the 5k together next year. 

 self portrait by Lander

Lander saw this dog at the race. He fell in love with it because it reminds him of "Frenchie", the dog on Nintendogs+cats, his favorite game.

Lander helping Travis. You can't see it in the picture, but Travis has a thigh-length cast on his other leg from a little trampoline incident. Now Travis is banned from all trampolines.

On the last night of the trip, the girls went out for a girls night out. Josh had Lander put Travis to bed. Lander read to him until he (apparently I should say "they") fell asleep. When we got home close to midnight, we found the boys asleep in the bed, sharing a pillow. I love this picture.

Photography by Jake

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Jake experimented with the camera today. This is the result.

Two Thumbs UP

Jake made his first dinner of chicken and rice. It earned a definite TWO THUMBS UP! 

Good job, buddy!

The Mighty Hunter Jr.

Disclaimer: 

I can't believe that I'm posting this, but I have a young man who is very proud of his accomplishment.

Jake went "hunting" this weekend with Josh and shot a ground 

squirrel that was digging up the yard. He posthumously named it Reggie.

another week in the life of an under-acheiver

I was thinking about this week and all that I had accomplished. I've made jars and jars of jam and syrup. I've taken the boys on a vigorous hike with their friends. I've babysat for a friend.  I've worked a few hours. We've rearranged and dejunked. I even finished (mostly) planting my garden. And it's only Wednesday. As I was patting myself on my back and reflecting this week's accomplishments, I started thinking about that darn garden a.k.a. The Bane of my Existance (at least this week) and a sad reality hit. All of my "great" accomplishments were really quite mediocre and I thought, "why not blog about it?" That way, I will have documented proof of my own mediocrity. 

But then I realized, that no one wants to look at pictures of the garden that has been mostly weeded and mostly planted, I've already posted about our hike, and those jars of jam are already tucked away on the shelf. So I thought I would post pictures of our bedrooms instead. Grams gave us her old bedroom furniture (which is why we've been rearranging and dejunking). The dresser and headboard were purchased when she married Gramps in 1959. 

I wasn't sure if I really wanted this furniture. Josh was positively sure that he did, and I'm so glad. The pictures don't do it justice, but it looks really, really nice. I couldn't be more pleased.

I love the handles on the dresser. I don't love all of the electronics surrounding the dresser. I call them the "necessary evils".

I know that this picture could have been staged a bit better, but sigghhh....After all of the moving things around, it's nice not to have a bed piled high with crap that needs to be sorted. I love our headboard. It is so handy to hide all of our books and crap. Gramps made the side tables because they weren't able to purchase the matching pieces.

I had to work for a few hours today. I was very nervous about leaving the boys alone (over-protective, I know) so I left the boys with a list of chores to do to keep themselves busy, and (hopefully) out of trouble. Wow, they went above and beyond. The concept of a "clean" room is foreign to our boys, but they worked hard to make their rooms presentable. This is what I found. Oh, and I should mention that Jake has named his room "The Man Cave".

This is a bookshelf that Grams was throwing out. We decided to put it in Jake's room. Jake organized it himself.

And I guess, I might as well show the other shelf in his room. He now has a place to store his lego creations and other collections. What is it with boys and their "collections"? I try to avoid looking in this general direction, unless I am looking at Jeff's painting of the Tetons and Mormon Row in Jackson.

This is Lander's room. When I saw this, I nearly fainted. Messy is the only word that I would use to describe his room. I'm not sure what got into him, but I like it! I should also mention the beds. Grandma Nala made the boys these bedspreads and pillowcases last year. They love them. They look really nice!

Lander has a little drawing station sitting next to the green chair. It looks like their are only 15 sheets of paper left. Not sure why, but I couldn't help but chuckle when I saw this.

This is Lander's "Kitty Fort". (Don't ask.) He always seems to have some sort of fort or project set up in his room. This is one of the main reasons that we separated Jake and Lander into different bedrooms. Jake didn't always appreciate the plethora of projects.

And just in case you aren't bored enough, here's a little self portrait that I took. What great photography. Do I detect a career change? :)

hiking the Menan buttes

What a glorious day to take a hike!

Lander, Brian H, Jake, Caleb H

love notes

I came home after work to this sweet note today. It totally warmed the tired cockles of my heart!

a day in the life of a miner

Jake had many wonderful learning opportunities at school this year. For his last book report, the class put together a history museum. Jake's group was assigned the progressive era. Each group had to dress in costume for the museum. Jake chose to portray a young miner and then he taught his fellow classmates about the harsh and dangerous conditions that these miners faced every day. One interesting thing that I learned was that if you were caught in a cave in, either you dug yourself out...or you didn't.  

Miners were often left to die.

Jake's group

(Braxton, Jake, Devyn, Cassidee, Eden, Natalie)

Solar Eclipse

 We used Josh's spotting scope to track the progress of the eclipse until it reached its max. Unfortunately, the clouds covered the sun for the 10 minutes that the eclipse was as its best. The boys eventually lost interest and decided to play a rousing game of monkey in the middle. We were able to snag a couple of photos as the sun peaked out of the clouds.

Jake, Keaton L and Lander

Riding to the Tunnel

Lately our days have centered around work, work, work and then when that work was done, more work. We decided that the work could take a break, and that our family needed a bit of fun so we took our boys on a bike ride up the old railroad grade that starts at the Warm River campground (on the way to Mesa Falls). In 1908 a train would pick up passengers in Ashton, Idaho and take them to West Yellowstone, Montana so that they could tour Yellowstone. After the train was no longer needed, the tracks were removed leaving a nice trail.

 This tunnel is about 3 miles up the trail. It was built because slides kept blocking the train.

 Overlooking the Warm River near the tunnel. It is very beautiful. We love living in Idaho!!

 Of course, the boys had to all throw rocks off the cliff and into the river.

We started a tradition when the boys were little. When Dixie would take the boys on trips to visit grandparents and cousins, she would always take a self portrait when we stopped for our little "adventures" along the way. This seemed like a fitting time to renew that tradition.

 Who are these hooligans??

Lander soaking after our 6 mile ride. You should see the gynormous trout that were 

swimming around. They looked like the huge ones that you see at the fish hatchery!

Spring Cleanup

It seems like we've had an unusual amount of yard work this spring, most of it caused by my lack of "Preening" last summer. I love Preen. I live by Preen. Preen saves my life. And when I get too busy to use it like I should, Preen makes me pay. Oh, Preen, couldn't we have had a bit of mercy this year? No? I didn't think so. 

Because I didn't use Preen (a pre-emergent), we have had zillions of little weeds, mostly a from few of my overly zealous perennials, to pull from our flower beds and the garden. It's been a mess. And then there are those raspberries. My plants were quite proliferate, and this is just one batch of canes that I stuffed into the garbage can. Josh was betting that the garbage company wouldn't take it. I was crossing my fingers that they would...and they did!

Then came the 10 yards of bark that we finally put down in our beds. It looks so pretty. It's like Christmas in the Spring. Seriously. I could almost bow down to the bark. Almost. But first, we had to shovel it into place, which took a bit of work. Work that, as usual, I underestimated.

Jake, Keaton L and Lander helped us out a bit. They thought it was fun, silly boys! And check out "the island", all barked up and pretty.....sigh...

Jake Brake

Josh teaching Jake how to change the brakes on the car

Sprinklers

We turned the sprinklers on this weekend. With 70 and 80 degree weather, 

the boys couldn't help but play in the water. I love how they are such good buddies.

Bus Stop Blues

Josh has had a weird month. First he got a call out of the blue asking if he wanted a new job. A new job? And in this economy where jobs are really hard to come by?? Crazy! He was hired to be a Fire Protection Engineer by the same company that he currently worked for. Then, he was told by his old boss that he needed to cover his old job, indefinitely. We are not exactly sure what job title Josh will end up with, but just glad that amidst the rumors of impending layoffs, that he has a good job. And, in the meantime, Josh just takes it day by day, not knowing which position he will be covering. Each job is located at a completely different facility that each require a different bus route to get to work. One is an hour from our home. The other requires an almost 2 hour bus ride, each way. Several days in a row, Josh got on one bus, and then was required (without his knowing in advance), to ride the other bus home. This left him waiting for Dixie to pick him up. Josh took this picture one day while he waited for a ride home.