Summer Evenings

We sure do enjoy our summer evenings here in Idaho. Unlike some climates, evenings cool off bringing welcome respite from the heat of the day. If you can spray on a thick layer of bug repellent you can even go out and enjoy the lovely evening. Last week our landlord got his riding lawn mower fixed and had it brought over for us. Tadd says he feels like his summer has been given back to him.

The kids love taking rides on it. With those levers for turning rather than a steering wheel, I think that I'll be waiting until no one is around to even attempt mowing. Tadd mastered the art pretty quickly.

Nothing like time with Daddy.

Ezra always manages to find the biggest stick on the property. Thankfully this one was more like a bamboo reed and hollow and not as dangerous as the clubs he was bringing out of the pine grove last night at volleyball at Neil and Beth's house.

Everything gets a mellow feel as the sun begins to sink.

One of my favorite herbs. We enjoyed some lavender lemonade with dinner last night. Yum!

My piddly little garden is limping along.

Haha, she got quite comfortable.

We don't have as good of a view of the sunset as we do of the sunrise, but I tried my best to capture some of the colors. This particular evening the sunset was quite brilliant. The normally mellow oranges and yellows were fire red from the clouds.

Lord willing, tomorrow we will be headed out to Morning Star camp for a couple of nights. I'm not sure I'll get a chance to blog about it anytime soon because the very next day the kids and I will be leaving for Lassen Pines. Time for some summer time fun!

Aberdeen Daze

No, I did not spell the title wrong. Last week was Aberdeen Daze and on Saturday we ventured over to shop their sidewalk sales, look at the antique car show and watch the parade. The kids were only along for that last item. Although, they did enjoy playing at the park while mommy and Miss Ginger shopped.

Waiting for the parade to start. A local man buzzed main street with his plane several times while we were waiting.

Rather than fight the crowds on main street, we went to Aunt Avy's house. The parade comes right by at the beginning. We had all the space we could want, grass to sit on, shade trees to cool us and great company. Dave and Ginger were visiting Grandpa and Grandma Idaho for the weekend and Grandma and Miss Ginger came with us while the men took a looooooong motorcycle ride.

You might just recognize some of the folks in this parade. We did : )

Getting their baskets ready for all the loot. Thanks for letting us use your baskets (and yard), Aunt Alice!

Quick! Pick it all up!

The Diesel Depot gang.

Look at all that candy! It filled up a gallon size Ziploc bag. Of course the kids tried to stuff their cheeks with as much as they could before parents could monitor. What a fun day!

Cookies Anyone?

Here in our new assembly preparations for Morning Star Camp are at a fever pitch. Morning Star takes place about three hours or so from here near Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Morning Star can be a real "roughing it" experience while at the same time a leisurely treat. Someone to drive you to the river, guides to take you down a white water adventure, the same guides to lead you along a scenic float filled with the absolute beauty of God's outdoors, the campfire is made for you, the FOOD is cooked for you, the dishes are cleaned...I could go on and on. I spent several happy days and nights at Morning Star as a young person. And I usually spent a Sunday before or after in the Aberdeen meeting. This Sunday I'm sure we'll have lots of visitors to enjoy.

But on to the heart of the matter. The women here make cookies for Morning Star. "Oh, that's nice" you think, "a dozen cookies per family adds up to quite a few cookies." HA! If you only knew. I sure didn't. Today we gathered at the Fairview Inn for a delicious lunch cooked up by Aunt Esther. After filling our bellies so as not to rip into the cookies meant for camp, packaging and counting the cookies began.

Helpers came in all ages.

Yep, you read correctly, those numbers say "13 dozen" and "15 dozen".

Our local bean counting expert sat down to tally the cookies.

Can you read what that says? If not, the final number is "4,584 cookies." Whoa Nellie!

After all the cookies were counted and packaged it was time to go home. But where was Ezra? I found him out back sitting quietly chatting with one of his cute little cousins. They were so into their conversation that they didn't even notice me watching and taking pictures.








Just a little aside: There is a tractor driving by the window right now. Yep, one of those green things Mr. John Deere makes. For those of you who happen to be friends of mine from Seattle, this is totally normal, not a reason for me to freak out(there is a field full of french fries growing adjacent to our house). And yesterday a spray plane was trying to land on my roof. Okay, maybe not, but it sure looked like it. By the time I realized what that awful noise was and ran out to the kitchen and saw the freckled face of the pilot through my kitchen window I was too late to get pictorial evidence. Another day. I'm pretty sure it'll happen again.

The weather has turned warm, but as you can see the kids are still used to putting on rain boots : )

This is what the sky looked like for the past month. Can you say "menacing"?

And finally, Ezra got his hairs cut again.

Psychedelic Tea Party & Good Bye Dinner

Lately Ezra has been singing his alphabet song, minus a few letters and adding a few I've never heard of before, but overall pretty well. The end sounds like this "x, y, z, now I know my ABC's, good-bye, see ya later!" To which Caroline parrots "a, x, z, see ya lata." You can see my teaching abilities are far reaching : ) Back to the post at hand, however. On Aunt Megan's last day here, the kids and I showed up at Grandpa and Grandma's house just in time for a lunch time tea party. Aunt Megan always has lots of good tea party ideas and on this day she was mixing up all different colored frostings for the kids to decorate graham crackers with. Yum! We had all the food groups covered, crackers, licorice, graham crackers, frosting and lemonade.

I just love this picture of Lucas and Ella. It shows off so much of their personality! These two are pretty tight friends.

These are the darling purses that Grandma Idaho made for each of her girls. They belong to Heather, Megan and Brooke. Aren't they cute?

That night we headed over to Uncle Alan and Aunt Heather's lovely abode for one last chaotic dinner with everyone. After dinner we had a hymn sing complete with dancing : ) Lucas and Ella sobbed their eyes out when it came time to say good bye. They had to be torn apart. The other 5 kids were blissfully unaware. Someday they're all gonna get it and then we'll be in for a real tear storm. We sure did have fun with you Aunt Megan, Lucas, Jill and Mia! Thanks for coming back with us and spending some time here in Hide-a-do!

The five year-olds and the three-year olds got to sit near each other for dinner.

Look at that perfect little face! I want to eat her cheeks off!

What does it take for six kids to sit quietly in a row? "The Pink Panther", of course.

Excuse the pictures of me, it's Miss Mia I'm really trying to show off here. I had to squeeze in one last holding session before her mama carted this little cutie home to California.

The kids took turns picking out their favorite Sunday School songs and Uncle Alan played the guitar to keep us all singing the same tune.

Ahhh, a Grandpa and his little granddaughter. And that about wraps up Aunt Megan's trip here. Now we're all caught up to the here and now...which hasn't been too terribly exciting, so I'm gonna have to dig deep to find more to blog about, I'm afraid.