The 4th

Independence day was wonderful. We went boating up at the lake with my family. Usually Black Canyon is just packed on the fourth of July. Emmett, Idaho has a predominately agricultural economy. As a result, durring the summer months there are a lot of migrant workers living there. Black Canyon is definitely the best park in the area, with lots of shade, lush green grass, and great swimming for the kids.

This year when we got there, the park was pretty full, but not nearly as full as last year. When our family goes boating we usually go up in the afternoon and then stay till the park closes. Most everyone who was at the park this year had come in the morning and left between 5-7pm. By 7pm the park was almost empty and we had the whole lake pretty much to ourselves. It was great! What Black Canyon use to be like before it became so popular.

Afterwards we went over and lit fireworks at my parents house.

Today I am so sore and my muscles are stiff as can be from tubing. I swear Pete was trying to kill me. Right before I went I pulled him on the tube and I guess it wasn't the most exciting ride.. I'm not use to driving the boat... I told him before he went that it was going to be either extremely boring of extremely dangerous.

After reading my friends blogs all about how grateful they are to our founding fathers for this great nation we live in, I hate to admit it, but I didn't once think about our military, or the freedoms we enjoy, our founding fathers and those who built this great nation. I feel kind of bad about that. I'm completely taking my freedom for granted.

First shoulder rides.

I can't believe my kids are old enough for this.


WOULD YOU PLEASE JUST STOP GROWING!

After prayers Andy and I stay on our knees to give everybody good night kisses. Noah is now taller than me by a bit in this position. Jennica is nipping at his heels. I thought having kids would free me from the short jokes, but I have a feeling it won't be long now.

I just want to take a moment to remind all of you tall girls (Ali mostly.. cause she's likely to give me crap) out there that I am 5' 5". I am NORMAL. I have never had a hard time at a dance because I'm taller than the boys... I've never worried about bumping my head on the ceiling... no one has ever asked me how the weather is down there... I've never worried about wearing heels on a date. I'm compact.. Like the advanced travel version of a tall person. I fit in a geo metro. I can ride in the back seat of most cars. My feet don't hang off an air mattress.

See, I have the advantage..

Baby John

My sister, Jill, and her kids came over for lunch today.

John is six weeks only now. Look at this cutie! He has some great facial expressions.

In this first one, he's not sleeping, but closed his eyes for the flash.

Ahhh, there we go!

Say what?

Jills kids are blessed with skinnyness. Look at those little arms and legs.



I'm going to call this next one the, "The monkeys throw what a people??" look.

What a doll!

Ohh! I love my new nephew.

Where I've been..

I have actually created my first acrylic album!

I know.. those of you know know me, know I've been scrapbooking for years, but I have finally created a scrapbook that I actually made for myself.. that I plan to keep... that I'm not selling..

Shocker, I know.

Well, Okay, I do have plans to duplicate it and list it for sale, But the original I'm keeping.

It's my Texas family reunion album.

I took the pictures in the evening as the sun was setting so the quality isn't the best, but I think you can get an idea.

On the front I have mounted a family picture printed on tracing paper so it's transparent. I had to spend hours on photobucket to fix the pictures so they were useable. Behind the family picture is the Texas state flag... well at least my scrapbooky version.

Here's the second set of pages. There is a lot more to the album, but my camera batteries completely died. I hate that! I was out there for a while turning the camera on and trying to snap a picture really fast before it shut off again... All the while the sun is going down.

Anyway, I'm really excited about it.

Today, in my infinate wisdom... In 102 degree heat... I decided it would be a good idea to go pick up my neices and nephews and go pick strawberries and snap peas at a U-pick farm.

It was a great place.. the directions to get there went somthing like this, " Go 8 miles and then the road you're on will turn into a new road... cross over a wooden bridge and turn right on the unmarked road.."

The little family that runs the farm were good wholesome down to earth people. The husband, ran for public office once and they would not let him put his middle name on the ballot because it "brought issues to the ballot". He said he could have sued because it really is his legal middle name that his parents gave him when he was born, but instead he went through the process of changing his name.. He dropped his first and last name so now his middle name is his ONLY name... his name is now Pro-Life. Bit unusual, but whatever floats your boat..

Really friendly guy. Stayed in the field with me almost the entire time helping me pick. U-pick usually means they are giving you a deal on price because you are providing the labor. I planned on taking pictures while we picked, but Pro-life was a bit distracting and I completely forgot!

The strawberries were so thick. I've never seen such productive plants.

It was so hot out that the kids spent most of the time relaxing in the shade of the van, eating strawberries and snap peas, and drinking all my water. In all we picked about 15 lbs of strawberries. How could I not at $1.00 per pound! If the kids weren't complaining I would have stayed longer. This Saturday, I'll be making strawberry jam.

Thanks Jessie, for referring me to the apparently Pro-life Richardson Farm. It was great!

I've been trying to do a better job of watching what I eat and getting excercise. Tonight was a bit of a slip. At young womens (church youth program) there were all sorts of brownies and cookies and chocolate... I managed to avoid it all. Then the girls made ice cream in a bag.. basically you put the ice cream ingredients in a quart size ziplock bag, then in a gallon size ziplock you add ice, rock salt, and the quart size bag of ice cream ingredients. Then you shake, shake, shake, till it freezes into ice cream.

It was such a warm day that the girls who went outside to shake, shake, shake, had their ice melt before the ice cream was frozen, and we were running out of ice. One of the girls gave up on her ice cream so I ended up taking it home.

Tonight, after I took pictures of the strawberries, I didn't have much of a choice... I had to make this:

It was so good! ((Sorry Ali.)) It is kind of healthy.. strawberries, nuts, milk.. all organic and completely free of preservatives, or additives... It shouldn't even count as cheating!

At least that's what I'm telling myself...

Smorgasboard

I am signed up for google ads on my blog. How it works is ads are places on my blog that related to the words in my posts. For example when I was pregnant, I always had pregnancy related posts, and pregnancy related ads. Today I just happened to notice the ad, and this is what it said:


Camille
Huge selection, great deals on Camille items.
Yahoo.com



I'm imagining little bobble head dolls with my head on them, and keychains, plates with my face and blog address printed on... That would just be great! I think I'll make some of these items and use them for blog giveaways. Sweet.





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Today Andy and I were cleaning the garage and we found this old girls bike basket. Andy was messing with the kids by trying to attach it to his motorcycle. Then we decided it would be so awsome if we could get it on our neighbors motocycle...





...He's a motorcylce police officer.

So we peek over and their garage is open and no one is outside.

Perfect.

So we snuck over and put it on, and then snuck back home and got the camera.. then snuck back over and took pictures.

Here's now cool my neighboor is... He comes out and sees the basket and gets a bunch of snacks and puts them in! Then he calls us and tells the kids thank you, he's been looking for something to carry snacks and candy in. (I think he thought the kids put it on his bike, not Andy and I.) Hehe..

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Aaron has a new key phrase that we're all using now. It's this:

"Snap it out" with an emphasis on the 'p'.

Nobody knows what it means, but it's fun to say.




Snap it out...

My Crazy Cat

I know I've already posted a novel today, but I have to add this.

This is what happens when the cat is outside and I turn on the sprinklers and she wants to come in, but doesn't want to walk through the water to get to the door.

Crappy family pictures by The Picture People NE Mall.

While we were in Texas we had family picture taken. They really did a pretty bad job. The contrast is just a mess and some of the poses...


Everything pretty much speaks for it's self, but I just want to make it clear that Spencer, who is Jason's 13 yr old son, is NOT Dave and Jason's love child, nor is he the reason we were all gathered together. Also, I did not crop the pictures at all... This is how the 'professionals' cropped the pictures.


Don't ask me what the photographer was thinking...