More pictures from the farm!

There is an Irish Setter here who plays with frisbees and balls all day long that the kids throw for her. Erin and Jennifer, your kids now all want an Irish Setter!!

At the Farm!!!

We got to the farm yesterday afternoon about 2:00 in the afternoon, and it has been one adventure after another ever since the moment we arrived! More and more family members have been arriving by the hour, most we haven't seen in about 30 years. There are lots of 2nd cousins and grandkids here and they are all having a ball. Most people brought dogs too, there is quite a varied group of small, medium, and large dogs cruising around. Some of our excitement yesterday: We went on a hayride on a flatbed trailer loaded with hay bales pulled by Uncle David on a tractor. He rides on the tractor with a fly swatter in his hand and smashes every fly that lands on the tractor then leaves it there. The whole hood of the tractor is covered with dead smashed flies, quite attractive decor! So, he pulled us through all the pens with the buffalo in them and the buffalo chips, the smell was quite distinct! We chased the buffalo with the hayride tractor and trailer, caused them to stampede from one pen to another, and had a ringside seat for two males trying to prove who was boss! Then as the finale to the hayride he took us up a stream, till the tractor fell in a hole and the trailer we were riding on was underwater at a quite precarious angle. We had to climb off and walk through the stream until we were rescued by a cousin in a pickup who saw his dad head up the stream and knew what was going to happen! When Cami got off the trailer into the stream she looked at me and said, "Grandma, are we having a bad day?" I said no, we are having an adventure, but Uncle David is having a bad day!! She said oh, okay and we went on with our adventure.
There is a huge tree in the yard of the farmhouse with a rope hanging down from a branch that is probably 80 feet high. There is a loop in the rope with a stack of hay bales, the kids climb a step ladder to the top of the hay bales, put a foot in the loop of the rope, and swing and swing and swing. There are at least 8 of them at any given time swinging and jumping and crashing, it is quite the hit! They were out till after dark last night on the rope having so much fun, and first thing this morning they were right back at it.
There are also a couple mini burros who roam the yard and the kids can pet them, have tried sitting on them, but that is not real popular with the burros! There is a little old dog who lost an eye due to abuse and is so sweet, the kids all just sit and pet her.
There is an old buffalo named Tilly who Cami just loves to talk about and look at. Tilly was orphaned as a calf and was hand raised. Her horns were removed so she couldn't hurt those who raised her, and is now back with the herd, but they shun her because she isn't real adept at the wild life. She just roams the pen by herself, and Cami is just fascinated with her and her story.
Don't know what the schedule is today, but I am sure it will be equally as exciting as yesterday, although Cami does not think another hayride is a good idea!

Road Trip (Day 2)

We have arrived at our destination on day 2, we are in an rv campground (a real one) in Rupert Idaho! It is called "Village of Trees" and is really very nice. When we pulled in a grandpa type man met us to lead us in his golf cart to our camp spot. When he saw the kids he yelled to them, hey kids, come with me. David, Cami and Carter took him up on his offer, jumped onto the golf cart and rode with him to our campspot. He put us next to the playground so the kids could run free, (Chris thinks he put us here so we wouldn't be next to him, but I prefer to think he is a very nice grandpa type!). The campsite has a nice picnic table, cable tv hookup, water, power and dump tank for the rv. I'm posting pictures of Ed hooking things up, dump hose and all, but alas, everything worked great, no sewage explosion all over him like the movie! This place has a pool, a stocked trout pond (catch and release) for the kids, and a little store where if you order pizza, they will deliver it to your rv!! What else could you ask for? Right now the boys are riding their scooters and Poppa and Cami are on a hike looking for geocaches. Interesting, the boys don't want to do that, and Cami is thrilled with it.

Road Trip (Day 1)

We left yesterday afternoon with Cade, Carter, David and Cami on our Oregon/Washington road trip. We rented a 31 foot motor home, loaded it with food and stuff, and headed out. We pulled into an rv campground outside of Beaver, Utah, or so we thought, to spend the night, only to discover it was more like an rv park where people live in their rv's full time. They had little gardens and everything. Oh well. We had a little firepit where we cooked hamburgers for dinner, they had a grass field with a box full of balls, etc, so the kids played ball, ran around yelling and totally disrupting all the old people's peace and quiet! Only minor malfunction was Ed backing the motor home into a pole and breaking a reflector light on the rv!! We have now christened it on this trip, it has been christened by others as well from the appearance of the bumper!! Keep checking back, we will be blogging as we go. Kids are doing great and think this is the greatest adventure ever!!! Esp. late last night when Poppa tried to get up to quiet them down in their beds, missed a step and went crashing to the front of the motorhome and nearly ended up head first in the drivers seat! More adventures to come from the most awesome road trip ever!!

Ring a ling.....

Can you hear the bell? it's the first gift of Christmas, and I have just wrapped it!!! (or them to be more accurate!)

Solar Cooking

Check out the solar cooker I built this morning! In 45 min the temp was over 200 degrees at the cooking surface and my water was beginning to boil!

Happy Birthday Dad!!

Today is my Dad's 86th birthday. I am so grateful for the influence and support and presence he has been throughout my life! I came across his "baby book", apparently given to me at some point by my Grandmother (his mother), and I totally didn't even know I had, and thought it would be fun to share and compare, then and now.

His first photograph:


My Dad's first grade class, his face is circled, hope you can pick him out of that huge class of 6 year olds!! Bottom picture is Charles Henry School he attended.



My Dad a couple weeks ago with his 6 great grandchildren!



Happy Birthday Dad, hope you have a great day!