Category Archives: A Little of Everything

the Idaho vacation

We’ve been back for a week and I’m finally feeling like I can wrap my brain around a blog post attempt.  We had fun.  Wanna see?

We got to Boise in time for Barry to race in the annual Twilight Criterium in downtown Boise.

in the lead

See him up there in the lead?  He wasn’t quite in that position at the very end, but he did really well and had a lot of fun in that mass of riders on slick skinny tires riding in circles in 102 degree weather.  It was fun for me to watch while I cast on for my vacation knitting project and visited with old friends from high school/ college.

Boise is a cool town.  Every time I’m there I wish I lived there.

Anyway, we got there and slept on the floor in my parents house for a couple of nights, then headed up to the mountains.

gravel is fun

My sister in-law’s family has a big “cabin” on lots of land with a river running through it and a natural hot spring pool.  That’s where we headed and set up camp.  I put the word cabin in parentheses because it has 9 bedrooms, each with it’s own bathroom, a big screen TV and an enormous kitchen.  It was a such a fun, comfortable place for all 22 (give or take, depending on the day) of us to stay.

bikes

horse shoes at close range

The kids rode bikes and played horse shoes with their cousins.

butterfly inspection

They caught butterflies and they swam.

he covers his eyes! how cute is that?

This is Ian’s first ever jump of a diving board.  Isn’t that too cute that he covered his eyes?  I love that kid.

digging with cousins

in the river

scoop, dump, repeat

They dug in the sand.  We all swam in the river.

what I'll look like when I grow up :)

the papa

The grandparents watched and my dad said it was impossible to take a good picture of him because his eyes are so squinty.  I have those squinty eyes too.  And I got a good picture.

slam dunk

yeah, that's my dad

We watched my dad slam dunk a basketball.  Definitely one of the highlights of the entire trip!

mummies

garbage can super hero

popped

4

My nephew had a Halloween birthday party while we were there, for which we forgot costumes.  I’m kicking myself that I can’t find a picture of Logan in the hunting outfit he scrounged out of a closet in the cabin, but the impromptu mummy costumes and Captain Garbage Can weren’t too bad either.  The mummies didn’t fare too well during the water balloon games, as you might imagine.

look! we're little piggies!

out on the squishy island

The “Squishy Islands” in the middle of the river were the favorite place for the kids to play.  My sister in-law would have freaked out had she seen the mud bath extravaganza.  The river rinsed it all off in a jiffy though.

on the bike ride

my husband's self portrait

And of course, Barry rode his bike to the top of a mountain.  Beautiful, isn’t it?

You want to see a few more pictures, don’t you?  Okay, just a few more…

water watching

...

shake, shake, shake

the grandparents

mussel shell shovel

Aahhh… I love my family.


we’re back!

on our trip

I’m still trying to recover.  Here’s what’s on my mind, in no particular order:

  • We’re getting ready to go on a pack trip with llamas next week.
  • I’m on a new diet hoping to get my hormones under control.  I’m tired of having one week a month that I feel totally out of control emotionally.  I mean, should a pile of legos or potty accidents really bring me to tears?  I struggle with hypoglycemia and IBS– apparently PMS can be related to all that digestive stuff too.  We’ll see how it goes.
  • I love the short videos on Yoga Today’s YouTube channel.
  • I missed posting about our anniversary on Sunday– our 12th anniversary to be precise.  It’s gone by so fast and seems so long all at the same time.  On our trip we stopped at the campus of Utah State and found the tree Barry and I climbed and talked and talked and talked and fell in love in the weekend we met.  It’s a big old tree– all seven of us fit in the branches.

climbing

the tree where we fell in love

out of focus smooch

swimmin’

We went swimming tonight so the kids could show off their new skills to Dad.  Just as we were heading out to the pool an evening storm rolled in, so we ended up finding a random park with a shelter to eat our picnic at and went swimming indoors at our nearby rec center.

bubbles and goggles

under

swimmin'

fun dad

Wishing you all a lovely weekend!

(Underwater photos by Barry and the kids.)

ready for take off

On Thursday when I checked our nest there were only 3 babies left.  I think they’re so funny with their beady eyes, yellow “lips”, and tufts of fluff.

3 fuzzy heads

Today there were only 2.

ready for take off

As soon as I snapped their picture one flew away.  I bet by tomorrow the nest will be empty.

It’s funny, when it was supposed to be spring here in March, and then April I was really mourning being away from the magic of our amazing yard in Ohio.  I missed feeling like the world was just teaming with life, like the earth was in celebration at the coming out of the sun.  Spring in our suburban Colorado neighborhood just can’t compare.  It’s been late in coming, but there’s also the generic feel of  our yard.  No towering maple trees with dozens of goldfinches.  No red buds.  No kid made cities of forts.

But, these little birds reminded me that nature is everywhere– even in our neighborhood of arid postage stamp yards.  It may be different here, but still the miracles abound.  I know there are millions of birds, and I know it seems silly, but I couldn’t help but feel like just when I was missing them most, the birds found me.  Their nest was built, the eggs were laid, the babies hatched, and now they’re flying away.  It all happened so quickly we had to pay attention or we would miss it.  That’s how life is.  We can live and grow and thrive in a protective grove of trees or on someone’s front door.  Really, no place is perfect. Just like I know that this house, in this neighborhood is where I need to be, our front door wreath was just where those finches needed to be.   The ins and outs of our front door certainly weren’t ideal for this little bird family, but watching them has sure brought us joy, and made me feel that connection to the natural world I so needed.

Isn’t amazing how quickly it all happened?

front door finches