Fish and Horses

Our fishing expedition to the pond was very sucessful, I'd say.

The longest fish was about 14 inches. Dear Glenn got to clean the fish after all his work setting up fishing poles removing fish from hooks. What a great Father's day for him!

Before the Kaufman kiddos had an It's-Time-For-A-Nap meltdown, I quickly saddled my horse for a good old-fashioned horsie-ride. They were both very enthusiastic. I led them around for a few minutes and they were all smiles. It's so fun to share our horses with appreciative little riders.

Row Your Boat

A while back, the Kaufman family brought an aluminum row boat to the pond and left it there. It's pretty fun, but rowing is harder than it looks.

Nicole really likes rowing around in it and I tried it out with her on Father's day. It was especially nice that the hubby was willing to remove our fish from our hooks if we would just row to the shore. What a guy.

Sam and Morgan wanted a trip around the pond, too. Neither of us really wanted to row anymore, but Nicole volunteered. What a good sport she is. Notice the boys are wearing life vests, but they happen to be Adult Large. We figured they were better than nothing!

Not Too Close, Please.

It took some experimenting, but we managed to discover what the fish in our pond were interested in biting at this year. The magic ingredient was Power Bait. Jen caught 6 fish in a row after she switched bait. It didn't matter where her hook landed. She'd wait about 45 seconds, and then announce, "I got one." Then, my darling hubby, would remove her hook and she'd do it again. That's the kind of fishing for me! Some of us aren't very patient fishermen/women!



Andie was pretty skeptical about those fish.

Look at that face!

She touched it. Begrudingly.

Okay, okay. I'll be in a picture with the fish, so long as Glenn holds it....

Just don't think about getting that thing too close to me!

Kid Magnet

That Ellea sure likes the kiddos. The Kaufman family came and visited on Father's Day and Ellea and little Andie got along famously all afternoon.

Sometimes Andie seems a little particular about who she'll hang around with. She warmed right up to Ellea this time.

She sat with Ellea a lot while we were at the pond fishing, but she wasn't interested in smiling for me.

So I told Ellea to give me the stink eye, instead. She's a little too good at it!

Bear Food

Grandma and I took the kiddos to the circus a couple weeks ago. It was fun for all ages! The weather was beautiful (almost too hot, but I'm NOT complaining!).

One of my favorite things was the bear that was available to have your picture taken with during intermission. (There was a plexiglass divider, in case he felt like eating the innocent picture-takers.) There was no way I was going to pay $10 to have our picture taken with him, but I enjoyed watching him eat his bag of potato chips!

I asked the guy feeding him (who also happened to be the ring master) if Sour Cream and Onion were his favorite flavor, and he said he likes them all. The guy would feed himself one and then feed the bear. His name was Teddy. The bear, not the ring master. Who cares what the ring master's name is? Teddy. As in Teddy Bear. Clever. Or not. You decide.

Then they brought him an ice cream bar. He ate it very daintily by holding it against his leg with his paw and taking bites. He even ate the stick when he was done! This was one well-fed bear.

Homemade raft

After our fun time playing at the river in Elk City, Glenn drove us to a nearby hot springs. This place is waaaay off the beaten path, and we were lucky enough to have the entire facility all to ourselves.

Ellea and Nicole decided to put their industrious natures to work. They tried (repeatedly!) to build a "raft" out of noodles held together with life vests. It was entertaining to watch them try to climb on and keep from tipping over.

I'm not sure they ever were successful, but they had fun trying!

Boondocks

Glenn invited the kids and I to tag along when he drove up to the remote town of Elk City, Idaho for a meeting. It's a two hour drive on a scenic, windy road along the beautiful Southfork of the Clearwater River. I have a couple of kids who tend towards car sickness, so it was a little iffy for awhile, but we made it just fine. Glenn dropped us off at a beautiful campsite along a creek and we settled in to play and enjoy the sunshine for a couple of hours while he went to his meeting. Not many board room-type meetings for this lucky guy. Most of his meetings are out in the woods!

There was a great little sandbar in the creek, but it was an island a few feet from the bank. The kids were not going to be deterred by a little water. But this isn't just any water: this is icy, cold mountain stream water. As in, it was snow not long before it landed in the stream!


Nicole was the first brave soul. She strolled across the creek like it was nothing! Not really. She gasped and made it clear to all that this was COLD water!

And that girl was tough enough to come back across to accompany her sister! Ellea decided she would run across when it got to cold for her to bear!

And then, Nicole went back across to help her brother. Only her brother wimped out and didn't want to walk across, because he was going to "freeze his legs off!" Nicole generously allowed him to make the trip on her back.

Ellea suggested that I come across and join them. She was smart enough not to be too surprised when I said no!

Mom Likes Sleeping

My mother's day present from Morgan was a book filled with pages just like this one where the all the First graders filled in the blanks about their moms.

My favorite part?

My mom likes to sleep. Check it out . . .

Mother's Day from Morgan 2012

Not she likes to read. Or ride horses. Or work on her blog. Sleep. She likes to sleep.

Well? If the shoe fits. . . .

Willing Subjects

There is a beautiful water feature in downtown Grangeville.

We ate ice cream by it the other day and then the kids wanted pennies to "make a wish" with. I saw them exploring the waterfall and immediately thought, "photos!" Of course!

My kids are such good sports!

My mom is too!

Tickle Me Nicole

Nicole play-slapped Ellea the other day and Ellea wanted to know how she was supposed to get even. I told her she could tickle Nicole for 10 seconds and Nicole wasn't allowed to defend herself.
Nicole held it together pretty well for the first couple seconds.

But her resolve began to crumble after about the 6 second mark. . .

Until she collapsed on the couch and couldn't take it any more!

Going in Reverse

The girls have really been enjoying the mini four-wheeler. They have gotten the hang of shifting the gears and seem to enjoy the independence of being able to hop on and go for a ride.


Sadly, it doesn't have reverse. Good thing it's light enough to easily turn around by pushing it!

Zip enjoys going for rides with them, too. Zoey doesn't like riding on the four-wheeler, but she loves running next to it! (As a side note, don't you wish you could lick your nose as well as Zip can?!!)

Cold Toes

The kids were determined to play in the water at Grandma's house on one of our warmer days in June. It was nice out, but the water was COLD!

Ellea thought just jumping in was the thing to do, but it was a bit of a shock! Needless to say, nothing but the feet enjoyed the water!

The best part was just soaking up the rays, though!

Logger Boy

When we went out and *helped* Glenn fixed fence, Morgan discovered the joys of attacking a helpless, fallen tree with the claws of a hammer. He may not be able to pound a staple in a fence post, but he's you're man if you need a tree hacked to death! Boys are so descructive.

Such determination. He worked diligently on this project for a long time. We might have a junior logger on our hands.

Sittin' Around

The kids and I went out and "helped" Glenn fix fence over the weekend. I say we helped (wink, wink), because, in situations like this, really Glenn does all the work. I helped a teensy-tiny bit, but mostly he did all the work. It takes me about 30 hits to hammer a staple into the fence. Takes him like three. I think he may have enjoyed our company. That's about all we're good for!



But I learned something new. When you're working on the bottom wire of the fence, sit yourself down.

Good to know, eh? You never know when that information might come in handy.

Girl's Day

The girls and I went and had our hair done together last week. And then we had milkshakes and went shopping a cute "purse, etc," store. Morgan had been invited to go play at a friend's house so we took advantage of our girl-only time.

Don't they look fabulous? Now if only our hair dresser would move in with us so she can curl their hair to look like that every day! I tried to do Ellea's hair the other day and it didn't turn out quite like this!

Nicole took a wonderful picture of me getting my hair highlighted. I was going to post it only out of fairness of all the pictures I've posted of my kids, but that's the beauty of this being my blog. I get to post (or not post) whatever I want!! Sorry kids. Life's not fair!

Wool Blankie

It was SOOOO cold last Saturday at the annual spring show for 4-H. Thankfully, I had bundled up well. When Glenn says, "Yes, long johns would be a good idea," I know I better go with it. He normally says, "NO, you'll be fine." And I freeze. One might hope that in early June a person shouldn't need long johns, but this is Idaho.

I was a little jealous of Nicole cuddling with her lamb. Nothing like a wool blanket on a cold day.

Spring Show, 2012

Every year, the goat, sheep and beef 4-H projects have a mini-fair in early June. They show their animals in Fitting and Showing (the showing ability of the child and cleaniness & behavior of the animal is judged) and Quality (the quality of the animal is judged) classes. The pigs aren't included because they're more prone to diseases.


So this was our first year showing an animal at the Idaho County Spring Show. Nicole was beside herself with delight. She kept looking at me with a big grin and saying, "I have a lamb." As you know, that is a miracle in so many ways being as the silly thing was MIA for a couple days last week!

When you're showing your animal in Fitting and Showing, you're supposed to make eye contact with the judge and smile. She had no trouble with that. She was grinning ear-to-ear all day long!

Sun Day

Happy Sunday!

I've decided to take Sundays off from blogging, although I'll often be writing Monday's blogs on Sunday. You know what I mean. I'd like to try 6 blogs a week.

Hopefully the sun is out wherever you are. I hope it is here, but I'll believe it when I see it!

God bless.

C'mon, mom . . .

I was excited for an excuse to use my new camera when we took Nicole to pick out her lamb last weekend. Her only rule? Don't be crazy camera mom. Okay, okay. I'll try.

I thought I did okay, I wasn't being too conspicuous about my desire to take dozens of photos. Just standing back using my handy dandy zoom lens (thank goodness for zoom).

These photos look remarkably similar, but I just had to take one more....

This one, too, looks very similar to the others, but I received the slightest "look" right before I took it. The look said to me, "Mom, you're on the verge of being crazy camera mom." Not that it made me cut back on my photo taking at that point, but I did make a mental note to not be so obnoxious about taking lots of posed photos. We'll see if the mental note sticks!

Lamb Business

We are officially in the lamb business. In 4-H, that is. Poor Nicole's pig died just a few weeks after we got it, and she opted to switch to a lamb project. Boy is she happy about it; she's wanted to take a lamb project for the past few years. She was nearly giddy with excitement on the way to the ranch where we picked him up.

And then we got there and realized it was going to be a free-for-all. Literally. Fifty baby lambs and about 30 kids all running around trying to pick their animal. Nicole did surprisingly well for a first-timer. She calmly walked in there and waited for a couple animals to walk near her. She nabbed this one and seemed happy with her capture. We asked the breeder what he thought of him, and he said it was one of the best lambs out there. Of course, he probably says that about all his animals, but we took it and ran!

In other news, less than 48 hours after bringing him home, he got out of his pen somehow. (We've since learned that this phenomenon is more common than we had imagined. Sheep are good jumpers!) He is now running free in the wilds of Keuterville. We've spent hours and hours looking for him, but at this point he could be anywhere.

He's been spotted a couple of times by confused Keutervillites ("Why is there a lamb in my front yard?"). The latest sighting was about 4 miles from here. We have high hopes that we'll find him, but she has to take her lamb to the weigh-in scheduled for Saturday or she can't show him or sell him at the fair.

Hmm. Do we buy yet another animal? Third time's the charm, right?

Fun times. Could this girl have a little more trouble with 4-H project animals this year?

Scratch that. I'm sure she could.

Exciting Update: WE FOUND HIM! We were convinced after two days on the lam (pun intended), he was never to be contained again. He was cornered last night by some farmers who spotted him near their cows. Glenn was contacted and he RACED out to where they were. It took five grown men 30 minutes to catch him, and it was touch and go for awhile. We are overjoyed to have him back!! Yippee!

Smiley

We have now had a couple of 4-H riding meetings this year. Hopefully it doesn't rain so much during June that we can't ride. The 4-H horse show will take place in July, and it's always nice to actually get some arena time in before then. But, June is notoriously wet around here, so who knows?!!!
It was drizzling when they rode last week. But do you think that fazed little-miss-horse-crazy? Nope. It takes more than a couple of raindrops to put a damper on her horse fun!

This girl can even smile while she's loping.

Mini Man

Morgan got his first lesson at driving the four-wheeler recently.

He did very well. He wasn't too excited about driving by himself, but his dad insisted.

And away we go.

Before we know it, my baby will be driving cars and tractors and all kinds of grown-up things. I may just have to refuse to let that happen. But then, I guess I'll have to chauffeur him around, so I might be rethinking that plan.