more...Idaho

We had a good 4th of July. We spent the morning up in Midway with Josh's entire family, where we had the annual family picture, ate the most delicious scones, and hung out chatting with brothers, sisters and playing with their kids! There are lots and lots and lots.........25 I believe, with 2 on the way and Ethan, 11 yrs, the oldest!! It was fun and good to see everyone. (I forgot my camera so I didn't even get any pics grrr)

Next we came back home and had a picnic with our wonderful neighbors. Where we ate yummy yummy food! And let the older boys lite our own fireworks in the circle. Again, fun hanging out and chatting with such great friends!
After that Josh headed out to good old Atlanta for a couple of weeks and I headed up to Idaho to see my mom and dad who are again serving a mission at the West Piney Lodge as caretakers. And to see my sister Beth, and her new baby girl Zoey (who I didn't get a picture of, but is sooo cute) so we could make cards.

We hung out at the lodge with just my mom, dad, me and the kids. We saw a moose, went on a couple of little hikes, roasted hot dogs, played in the creek, and of course went down the famous slide! I think that lodge is one of the kids favorite places! They ask every year if they can go there again.

The moose walked right next to the lodge window and had gotten all the way to the bottom before we could get out our cameras.


The first night the kids slept in a different room where they each had their own 2 bunks, the next night they switched and slept like this. It's fun having a huge lodge to yourself!!

This poor little thing is TERRIFIED of heights! Every time we come it takes her until the last day to go down on her own, but this time she wanted to do it sooooo bad. You can see how hard it is for her to do this..... But once she went the first time we could hardly get her off.

Even my dad (71 yrs old) has fun on the slide.

The kids thought they heard mice in the walls and got really scared and didn't want to go anywhere, until they found out it was just a bird's nest. (little do they know that place is crawling with mice)

The water was FREEZING! We found these rubber boots and they played in the creek for hours, trying to build a dam.

Idaho

When we went to Banff last month, my mom watched my kids and my brother's kids. And while they were there it just happened to be Nate's birthday. (yes I have a small amount of guilt being on vacation on his birthday) My mom did a good job of giving him a birthday party.

Nate's Birthday party with lots of cousins!

treasure hunt

This pic was so funny, she looks like she was photo-shopped in that tree!

Banff

This past week, Josh and I went to Canada with my brother, sister and their spouses. We dropped the kids off at my parent's house and all 6 of us hopped in our car and headed north. My brother in-law is Canadian, and since seeing pictures of their trips to Banff, Josh has been dying to go.

It was probably the most beautiful place I have been to. The mountains are spectacular! The forests are nothing like I've ever seen before! Idaho's small potatoes (he he he) compared to the Canadian Rockies. It rained most of the time we were there. Which we didn't mind at all, in fact it made the mountains even more amazing and everything GREEN! It was kinda fun hiking in the pouring rain :) And the days we needed it to be sunny for photos, it was!

We checked all the boxes of wildlife we wanted to see, Elk, big horned sheep, deer and yes even a few bears!! We witnessed a couple of massive avalanches, beautiful blue lakes and water falls and lots of glaciers.

We had fun exploring the towns and even went Canadian bowling (They only have five pins and use very small bowling balls)

It was so much fun, and I would LOVE to live there! Eh? ;)

Lake Moraine
I love the mountains!

Soaking wet on one of our hikes!

Lake Louise Fairmont hotel
(no we didn't stay at this hotel)


Lake Louise view from the hotel

Luckily our one sunny day! We hiked way up behind the hills above the tree line where we saw a couple of MASSIVE avalanches, to the Tea House.

Tea House hike.

You can kinda see the tail end of an avalanche.

Peyto Lake
The water looks fake, and I kid you not it is bluer than this! And it was pouring rain. It is that blue because of the glacial silt.

Canmore, the town we stayed in, means big head.

Johnston Canyon
A beautiful canyon with 2 huge waterfalls that you can stand right next to.

The first bear we saw was HUGE!! We saw 2 more much smaller bears. All were right off the side of the road! I'm just glad we didn't run into this guy while hiking.
*looking at other pictures of this bear....he may have been a grizzly!! He had a very distinctive hump on his back! (...I specifically remember saying "It's a grizzly! It's a grizzly!" so I will go on record as calling that one. hehehe)

This is the smaller one, and this one had a cute little baby.

Is summer comming?

School is almost out and our weather hasn't been the greatest. We had one or two good days and then it snowed, breaking branches on our tree, and killing my garden that I had just planted. (I know, silly me, I should have covered it) I sure hope that we start getting better weather, I don't know if I can handle a summer where the kids don't want to go outside..... :)

On our one good day, the kids played outside all day! In our neighbors back yard, riding bikes and in the sandbox.

oh and I'm really getting lazy, I don't even take pictures of my kids anymore, I let Ethan do it! ;)

After they played in the sandbox, they came in and all climbed in my bed to watch a movie (the family room was still in the garage from the flood) so I'm sure you can guess why we would be upset when we went to bed that night..........
Yep! SAND!!! Nothing is worse than climbing into bed and finding sand or crumbs (yes they've done that too) in your bed.

Tragedy & Comedy

Tragedy:

Well.....Sunday afternoon, after thinking we could enjoy a relaxing sabbath, Ethan came running upstairs telling us that our family room floor was soaking wet. We ran downstairs splashing on the carpet and opened the washroom/utility room door, to find about 2 inches of water covering the floor and water draining out of the water heater's overflow.

Comedy:

There really isn't a comedic side. I think it is one of those things that you just have to laugh at. And there are a couple of "polite chuckles" that go along with something like this.

As we were cleaning up; dumping dirty, soggy laundry on our back lawn (trying hard not to look too much like white trash), slicing up furniture so it will fit out the door (a couch we have been wanting an excuse to get rid of).....etc. Josh picks up a brand new full box of laundry soap that had been sitting on the floor, and the bottom falls out, dumping powder everywhere...in water.....Just standing there looking at the mess and still holding the empty box by the handle, he says...."Well at least the room will smell nice" I really don't know why this was so funny to me. I guess it's just one of those moments.

The other thing is, it is forcing us to do some much needed spring cleaning! We've apparently lived here WAY too long and have collected WAY too many things (that are now piled in the garage).

And sitting here, in my stench, having not showered in two days because we have no hot water, (yes I am beginning to mold) I really don't care that my house is a disaster, we have piles of dirty laundry trying to dry so it won't stink, sitting on my deck, and that we may or may not have to buy a new water heater. I'm just so happy that Josh is home for this tragedy.

But we are quietly waiting for another to follow, such as a trip to the er, a car breaking down, or something in that realm of things. (Ours always come in 3's!)

SURPRISE!!

We had told Emery she wasn't going to have a birthday party this year, since she had one last year. I think it may have broken her heart. So about a month ago I decided to give in and give her another party, but I hadn't told her about it yet (maybe hoping that my guilt would go away and I could avoid another party) :(

I always do BIG parties, with a theme...you know, the works. So as I was thinking of a theme and kind of what she's been into lately. She always runs around with her little notebook searching for clues to a real mystery. So I thought about doing a detective/spy party. Then I thought...I haven't told her she can have a party yet.....why not make it a SECRET spy surprise party!

So then I came up with these adorable invites. It was tons of fun. The girls were so cute about keeping it a secret, even some of the parents had fun with the TOP SECRET surprise, and left really cute r.s.v.p.s.I didn't tell my younger boys, for fear they would let it slip (Will mostly) but Ethan had to be in on it. He was able to sneakily get the invites to a couple of the girls at school that I didn't know.

It was a lot of fun! The girls had a blast, and I really don't think Em had a clue!!

I made the cutest cake that looked way cuter in person (or so I will have you believe) Played some super fun games. (the girls wanted more)
The girls were adorable and so much fun to have at a party. (9 is a great age) What a good group of girls!! I loved them all!

Finally something to blog about! Since my kitchen was finished, I haven't done a single thing. It's been kinda nice.

Kitchen

Well, we did it! We're done! And we love it!

In case you don't remember or haven't seen our kitchen before......


This is when we first moved in....I had already painted the lovely green cabinets, white.
baby steps..
demolition...
Josh, laying on the floor... after laying the floor!!
TA DA!....Of course as always with us, we still need a few things done, a microwave, baseboards, more lights, curtains, decorations, towels.... etc.

And thankfully it only took 3 years.