Random Contest

If you are reading these words, click on comments and tell me your name.

After I have 25 names in the comments, I'll pick three names randomly by number to each win a prize.

It's been a few months since I had a contest. Here's 2 of my reasons for this one (you'll learn the rest after the contest is over): 1/I'm curious about my readership--I know I have many readers, but hardly anyone comments. 2/I'm a bit competitive--my post which was the highest commented on had 24 comments, and I want to beat that!

Help me reach my goal and enter yourself to win a "SurPRIZE" at the same time, just by typing your name!!!

Miracle Growth

Remember THIS story?: http://salmontolmanfam.blogspot.com/2009/06/beautiful-flowers-planted-by-girl-vs.html (click to refresh your mind!) It was truly a miracle, especially after the Tonka Truck Terrorism, but the flower bed not only survived, it FLOURISHED!!!I feel encouraged by the flowers' growth under the care of my previous "black thumbs", and I think maybe next year I will try my luck at flowers again!

Costumes, Characters, & Candy

I LOVE Halloween! I love dressing up, I love seeing all the kids in different costumes, I love all the excitement, I love the chocolate and the candy, I love the pumpkin carving, I love the colorful and spooky decorations--there's nothing about Halloween that I don't like! With all the different parties this year, the kids dressed up in costumes FOUR times!!! Which is pure awesomeness for me, and pure agony for Josh!!!

At the ward party, we were the SpongeBob clan. We've been planning on being the crew from the cartoon show ever since last fall! I did our homemade costumes, which is so fun for me! Josh was Squidward (you can't see his four blue legs in the photo), I was Sandy (as she dresses in her dome home), Ammon was Mr. Krabs, Jonah was SpongeBob, Micah was Patrick, and Kanyon was Plankton (he refused to take his backpack and red hat off for the photo).

For the class party/costume parade at school, Jonah and Micah were identical Spidermen and Ammon was a Zombie.

For the town merchant's trick-or-treating and the school carnival, the twins were their SpongeBob & Patrick Star duo once more, Ammon was a zombie again, and Kanyon was Superman.

For Halloween night and neighborhood trick-or-treating, the boys were all superheroes: the twins were Spiderman again, and Ammon joined Kanyon as an identical Superman! (I love the photo--they were all touching each other like a big circle of love with no prompting from me to do so!)

Josh has just one request at Halloween-time, "only buy candy to hand out that I would eat as leftovers if we don't get any trick-or-treaters". I'll never say no to chocolate--so I was more than thrilled to fill our giveaway bowl with lots of Snickers, Reese's and Kit-Kats!

By the end of Halloween night, after all the celebrations were over, the boys' buckets were super full! Their very first and favorite thing they ate was popcorn balls, followed by giant candy bars and glow sticks, all of which came from some of our neighbors. The boys sorted through their buckets, and Ammon got everything that the twins said they wouldn't eat. His bucket was overflowing!

We had a great Halloween! The boys were happy for all the goodies they got. Josh was happy because we only had a handful of trick-or-treaters so he got to have a bowl full of chocolates! And I was so happy to see the kids' buckets' contents emptied, as the wrappers were all over the floors of the house, rather than the garbage can, for over a week!! Can't wait 'til Halloween next year already!!!

Pumpkin Perfection

We had a wonderful time picking our own pumpkins out of the patch. Even though none of our original picks were left, there were still plenty of great pumpkins to choose from! Ammon was all about having the biggest one, and he got the biggest one left, which was 36 pounds. Each year, we try to get pumpkins for the boys that range from biggest to smallest according to their place in the family from oldest to youngest. After everyone picked their pumpkins, we weighed them all and surprisingly it worked that way again this year! Kanyon's was the littlest and it weighed 18 pounds. The Monday before Halloween, Josh had a school board meeting, but we chose to carve pumpkins that night as a FHE activity without him. Of course, the first step is de-gutting and each boy scooped out their own pumpkin. We all thought it was hilarious AND disgusting that Kanyon kept eating his pumpkins' guts. I was the unlucky one, with the pumpkin FULL of massive thick spiderweb guts. After the pumpkins were cleaned out, each boy told me what they wanted carved. Jonah and Ammon drew their designs on paper so I would get it right. Micah wanted a horse, and I'm not artistic in any way, so I looked up online how to draw a simple horse and went from there. Kanyon called his pumpkin "Oh Toodles", the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse magical assistant.

(see evidence of the pumpkin's guts around Kanyon's mouth?!)

Josh and I gutted and carved our own pumpkins on Halloween night just in time for the first trick-or-treaters. We both chose to carve self-portraits into our pumpkins, can you tell?!!I'm quite proud of all our Pumpkin Creations! We had such a great time together carving them this year! Even though I'm not artistic, I AM a perfectionist, and I like carving and getting everyone's design's "just right". It's usually not a very peaceful activity when Josh is involved because he doesn't particulary enjoy it! But it was so delightful this year and the boys loved seeing each other's designs take shape:

Seeing our jack-o-lanterns lighted up on the porch was the perfect finale to the fun activity!

Leaves

Raking the leaves into giant piles and jumping in them is a favorite fall pastime of ours! This year, the boys did it twice, and both times with different cousins!!! There's no better way to spend a fall day than having fun outside with people we love!

In Tremonton, the boys played in the leaves with the Perkins cousins in Grandma Perkins' backyard:

In Salmon, the boys raked and jumped in the leaves with the Forsgren cousins in our backyard and Grandma Tolman's backyard:

The Family is of God

I recently heard this song: The Family is of God and I love it.
(To hear the song, pause my blog music at the bottom of this page, then click the song name link.)

God gave us families

to help us become

what He wants us to be--

This is how He shares His love,

for the family is of God.

Funeral begins with F-U-N

Spokane is just over 5 hours from Salmon, and going to my Grandma's funeral was going to be a 24-hour trip for me. I chose to go without Josh and the boys, but worried about driving alone for the long distance in such a short time. The road from here to there goes over multiple mountain passes, with no cell phone or radio reception in several places, and I was afraid of falling asleep. So I asked my friend KIMI to come along. After we got to the hotel, she asked me "Why does Funeral start with FUN?" And it took me a minute to figure out what she meant!

We decided to make the most of the road trip. On Sunday night, I visited with my Grandpa while she worked on homework at the hotel. Then we ate dinner together at Denny's. We ate our hungry hearts out!! And got super bloated and overly full in the process. So, we decided to go swimming back at the hotel to burn off all the calories. We were the only ones in the pool that late at night, and we enjoyed it! We laughed and soaked in the hot tub until exhaustion set in.

The next morning was the funeral, and she came with me and recorded the program for the rest of my family. After we left Spokane, we stopped at a really neat park in Couer d'Alene that is dedicated as a 9/11 memorial playground.

We played on all the cool "Fire-Truck" themed toys. My favorite was the giant Firemans Hat, with a pole on one end and a slide on the other.

Then we looked at the 9/11 memorial model of the WTC. There was a diagram of all the buildings surrounding the twin towers in New York, listing the name of each building, and how much damage was done to each one because of the collapse of the towers. It was amazing to me.
There was also a plaque listing all the firefighters in Idaho who had lost their lives while serving. I checked to make sure Jeff Allen was on the list, a firefighter from Salmon who died in 2003. There was some really neat re-bar sculptures of Firefighters and Police Officers surrounding the memorial area. They were larger than life, and really made an impression on me.

We got back in the car, and drove for quite a while before our next stop: the Cataldo Mission. We got there just minutes before 5:00, which is their closing time, so we didn't tour it inside. But we did take some photos of the place.

We also got a few photos of a dead squirrel lying in the road by the parking lot (we got a few strange looks from drivers passing us by, too)!!!

We stopped again in Missoula for a little bit of shopping and eating, and drove over the last mountain pass before Salmon. We tried to take a self-portrait with the Idaho sign in the background at the top of the summit, but all you can see of it is a little blue blur above my head. But you can definitely see the snow we encountered (the two white circles)!

We were so ready to be back in our hometown! We had a good time and I was SO glad Kimi came with me, but I was physically and emotionally beat by the time I got home at midnight.

the Man Cave

I visited my Grandpa at his house in Spokane the day before my Grandma's funeral. I loved listening to him talk of his experiences during WWII and his memories of life. He talked me to about places they lived, about building their old house, about life after war, about his younger years. It was absolutely delightful, and I definitely learned a lot about his life in just 2 hours! My Grandpa's basement is the only true Man Cave I've ever been in. He's so proud of everything in that room; he surrounds himself with items that represent good times of his life. He can point to any one thing and has a story to go along with it. I love that for as long as I've lived, his room has remained almost unchanged. When they built their new house, they had it patterned after the old one on the Lake, so it feels very familiar to be in.

Grandpa in his chair

the fireplace--a close replica to the one in the old house

the giant rug--still in great condition after all these years

the bear (thanks Trina for the photo)

the wolf

the bobcats and the badger

the ferret

"Clyde" the Caribou

the hand-made cukoo clock

the old phone I used to play with as a child

some of his collections:

After the funeral, I went to his house to tell him goodbye, and he took me into his war room and showed me several things in there. I sure love my Grandpa. I'm very proud of the things he's accomplished during his lifetime of 92 years. I look forward to visiting him again this coming weekend.

men are that they might have JOY

In Sunday School this past week, we discussed the differences between happiness and joy. To me, happiness is a state of mind, and joy is a state of being; happiness is something you feel in your heart and mind, while joy is something you feel in your heart, mind, and SOUL. Joy is happiness on a deeper, greater level. One afternoon in October, I experienced the feeling of true joy for 15 minutes, and happiness and peace lingered in my heart, mind, and soul the rest of the day.

The first day we sold pumpkins, it was a gorgeous day. Our patch was open for 6 hours, and even though the boys took breaks from it, I was always sitting there. Just sitting there enjoying the beauty that surrounded me, and I loved taking in the sights and sounds and smells of being outdoors on such a beautiful fall day. I felt happiness in the simplicity of the day and grateful for the time to ponder things in my mind. After the sale was over, we went to pick up the directional signs that were placed by two intersections down the road. We decided to take the 4-wheeler to pick them up; Josh drove it, and I sat behind him with my arms wrapped around his chest. We attached a little trailer behind it, and the kids wanted to ride in that. As we drove down the road, I could hear the boys laughing, I could feel the wind in my hair, I could smell Josh's aroma, and I could see the beautiful landscape of grass and colored trees and water. I experienced pure joy right then. It filled me to the core. In Galations 5:22 it says "...the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace..." and I felt all of it. It was absolutely incredible, and hard to describe.

It reminds of me of a primary song, "My Heavenly Father Loves Me":
Whenever I hear the song of a bird, or look at the blue, blue sky,

Whenever I feel the rain on my face, or the wind as it rushes by,

Whenever I touch a velvet rose, or walk by a lilac tree,

I'm glad that I live in this beautiful world Heavenly Father created for me.

He gave me my eyes that I might see the color of butterfly wings.

He gave me my ears that I might hear the magical sound of things.

He gave my my life, my mind, my heart, I thank him reverently

For all his creations of which I'm a part. Yes, I know Heavenly Father loves me.

Pumpkins Make Cents

Our boys loved doing the pumpkin patch this year! It was a wonderful family project: we worked on it together, we weeded it together, we pulled the pumpkins together, and we sold the pumpkins together. Overall, it was fun and rewarding. Our little 1/4 acre produced almost 500 pumpkins! We had three different varieties: big, small, and white. We sold the pumpkins 2 Saturdays in October. Because we live out of town, I made 2 directional signs to place by intersections, and a large sign to put by our road in front of the patch. We lined the driveway with 20 pumpkin-face leaf bags, which we worked together filling. We put 2 benches in spots by the patch that had beautiful backgrounds in case anyone wanted to take photos with their pumpkins.Then we worked on laying out all the pumpkins into the field that we'd previously picked. During the sale, we sat under a portable pop-up that protects from sunlight and rain with our table and weight scale. We sold the pumpkins for just 15 cents a pound, and if you guessed the right weight within one pound, you got 50 cents off! The biggest pumpkin we had was 55 pounds!!! This is a photo of our second biggest one, at 43 pounds: During slow parts of the sale, our family chose our favorite pumpkins, but I informed the boys that they weren't allowed to take them until after the sale was over. Of course, by that time, all of our favorites were sold!!!

We sold about half our pumpkins, and all the profit went to Jonah and Micah's savings accounts. It was a great way to earn money: they worked all summer long on it and they helped the customers by carrying the pumpkins to their cars in wheelbarrows and wagons. Some of their very favorite customers came on the last day at the end:We have the perfect spot for a pumpkin patch, and I'm so glad we did it! We are already making plans for next year's patch, with exciting changes that will add to its attractiveness!!! BUT we are glad this year's pumpkin patch has come to an END.