You want to know what our September was spent doing?
Picking and preserving peaches, peaches and more peaches.
Next time I will remember there are probably more than I think there are while we are picking.
With all this next time won't happen for 2 years!
Strawberry peach jam
Good thing they are SOOOOOO yummy!
The church has an amazing orchard here in ID where you go pick for the church and then you can pick all you want for yourself for $.23 a pound! This year, volunteers picked 630,000 pounds of peaches for the church cannery! It's a pretty amazing system. We had a great time. I didn't take a camera to the orchard, so I stole a picture off their site. Next up is apples but I think I am too spent to do anymore of those!
Saturday, September 25, 2010
Peaches
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Swan Falls
Our friends, the Hills, invited us to go to Swan Falls with them for family night this week. Swan Falls is a canyon where the Snake River flows with a dam about 20 minutes south of where we live and apparently there are a ton of lizards to try and catch. The kids had a blast. Their oldest is in Rex's class and is who he has decided is his girlfriend so they had a great time. There are huge boulders with little lizards everywhere. We spent the first little while chasing lizards and climbing boulders. About a half hour after we got there, we came across a barn owl. It was about 5-10 feet away from us at one point and was HUGE! The kids had great fun trying to see how close they could get to it. That lasted until our dog Abby noticed it and chased it off. It was so neat to see. Everyone had a blast including Abby who got to run free and swim in the river until she was entirely pooped out. Thanks Hills!
Can you spot the owl?
Flying away
Abby just noticing it and taking chase!
1st day of school!
I can not believe I have a Kindergartner and a Preschooler. I remember when my kids were little thinking that once they were in school, life would calm down. Totally not true. Things just get more scheduled and busy! I have two mornings a week where I have 3 hours to myself. Before school started I imagined all the things I could get accomplished. Hasn't worked out that way so far! I am grateful for that time but boy it goes fast and doesn't seem to be enough to really get very much accomplished. At the same time, it's been hard to let my kids grow up. I never thought I would feel this way, but I am so nervous about what Rex will be exposed to, if he will be safe and if he will be picked on. So far, the 3rd week in and things have been good. His teacher does a clip system where if they get in trouble they have to move their clip down. If it moves 3 spaces they have to stay in for recess and the parent would be notified. Luckily, I have had no phone calls! And he has only had to move his clip a couple of times to the first space.
He has had a rough time adjusting to having to get out the door early every morning but once we get to the bus stop he is happy and always comes home happy. His favorite thing of course is recess. There is a girl in his class that also goes to church with us and the first week he decided that she would be his girlfriend. She had to ask her mom what that meant and then told him she would rather be friends! He seemed fine with that but we spent some time with their family the other night and he said she was his girlfriend again. When I pointed out that she wanted to just be friends he said, nope she's my girlfriend. He then said, "I told Lainy (preschool girlfriend) on the last day of Preschool that I was moving on and I have." I about died laughing. This kid loves girls!
Sam was so extremely happy his first day in Miss Cindy's class. He has come with me to take Rex to Preschool for the last two years so he was so ready for his turn. His smile did not shut off the entire day. He is having a great time and loves being with the other kids. He finds it really unfair that Rex gets to go to school every day and he only gets to go two days a week. The best part is whenever I leave him there he says, "I love you mommy!" Such a sweet kid.
Here are pictures of the big first day.
22 weeks
I am now 25 weeks but this was taken at 22 weeks. Everything looks great with the little guy and he is really starting to go crazy in my tummy. It's fun to watch the acrobats every night! I love it.
Swimming lessons
The boys both took swimming lessons together this year. We found a great place where a woman and her two boys teach a class of 6 kids. With the 2 on 1 ratio, they get a ton of one on one time.
This was Sam's first time with swimming lessons and he did amazing. He wouldn't put his face in before but now he can dive down in the shallow to get something at the bottom. He can also back float and by next year should be swimming face first unattended.
Rex has had a few years of swimming lessons and had to get over some fear from a near drowning experience. This year he blossomed! I can't believe how good he got. He can now do a handstand in the shallow, jump off the diving board and swim to the side unassisted and swim the entire length of the pool on his own! I was so proud of him.
Can't wait until next year!
Backyard camping
We had so much going on this summer that we never had the opportunity to do some actual camping. To compromise, we decided to have a "camp-out" in our backyard one night. We set up the tent, borrowed the neighbors firepit, ate tin foil dinners and played games. It was a lot of fun. The best part was that after the boys and Mark went to bed, I came back inside and got to sleep in my own bed! That's called pregnant girl camping folks.
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
Island Park- canoeing, trestle and West
Our last full day in Island park was awesome! We started off by doing the canoe ride down the river from the trestle to Mack's Inn. My kids are at a perfect age for this and it was a lot of fun! My mom, Mark and Rex were in the canoe and we tied the blow up raft to the back and Sam and I were in that. I have to say that we got the better end of the deal. We had paddles but most the time we just laid back and relaxed while they did the work! It was awesome. When we were done the boys wanted to go back to the trestle and jump off. Their cousins Jaxon and Josselyn had been up here the week before and jumped off and I showed then the pictures. They are younger than both my boys and I think that Rex didn't want to be show up by a couple of 3 year olds. I wasn't sure they would do it but they surprised me! Unfortunately Mark left the camera so I didn't get any pictures! I was so dissapointed because it was amazing! They both did it with Daddy in the water to catch them. It's about 14 feet from the point they jumped off of to the water. Crazy thing is they both wanted to do it again, even though the water is 56 degrees! So, they both jumped twice and were so proud of themselves, as was I. I added a picture of the trestle so you can see just what a feat this was.
After we got cleaned up we headed over to West Yellowstone to walk around and get some dinner. Such a fun town and the boys each got to pick a souvenir from grandma. Such a fun trip as always! Can't wait until next year!
Island Park- Wade Lake
Wade Lake has become one of our favorite destinations when we go to Island Park. It's about 45 minutes from Island Park, in Montana. You drive on a dirt road in the middle of sagebrush for 15 minutes and suddenly you come to a canyon with huge pine trees and two lakes. Wade and Cliff Lake. Mark made up a story for the boys about two friends made Wade and Cliff, who came upon the first lake and both wanted to name the lake after himself. They got in a fight and Cliff walked off and came to the next lake. He ran back and told Wade and they were happy because they both got a lake to name after themselves! I love it.
The lake is absolutely gorgeous and there is never very many people there since it is a bit out of the way. The best part for the boys is that there are crawdads all around the lake you can catch. We managed to catch 4 this time and kept them until we left. We also saw a bald eagle fly over the lake. It's one of my favorite places.
Island Park- Day 1
About 10 days after we got back from California we headed for our annual cabin trip to Island Park. I absolutely adore Island Park and it is a little boys paradise so they had a great time as usual. The first day we just hung around Mack's Inn and kind of relaxed. It was really nice. The boys did some fishing at the bridge and Mark was kind enough to lower himself to bait fishing so he could spend some quality time with the boys. They even caught a fish! That night we did tin foil dinners and hung out around the campfire. It was so nice except for the masses of mosquitoes! I guess the chilly Spring made them stick around longer. 
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