September 2014 on FB

September 2: After picking our first 100 pumpkins out of the patch yesterday, we ate our first corn-on-the-cob dinner from our garden last night! Super yummy!

September 3: Since school hasn't started for us yet, we've decided to take the boys to the Eastern Idaho State Fair with us today. It's their first time going and should be a fun adventure!

September 4: One of the best things about the state fair: the food! Our favorites from yesterday: Ammon-Kangaroo stickers, Kanyon-corndog, Jonah-chocolate funnel cake, Micah-flavored caramel apple, Josh-deep fried cheese curds, Kala-chicken bullseye burger on a donut. There were so many good choices! Yum Yum Yum!

September 6: Jonah and Micah played in their very first football game today. On the drive there, I told them to try and keep a positive attitude during the game. They had some frustrations earlier this summer while playing on their soccer team, so I told them not to get angry with their teammates today. Micah says "but Mom, coach told us to be angry on the field". And Kanyon, who's 7, replied "yeah, be angry like the Water Boy!" (in reference to the Adam Sandler movie). We all burst out laughing!!!

September 7: I tried taking our family's annual fall pictures today. The photos never turn out quite like I envision--mostly because of these goofballs!!!

September 8: It's been 2 months since I started my "lose weight for Mexico" goal. I'm down 11 pounds. It was harder this month to drop the pounds, but I've been faithful about exercising every day and don't even crave soda pop anymore! 5 more months and 29 pounds to go!

September 10: I saw the movie "The 100 Foot Journey" in the theater the other day, and I keep thinking about it. It was excellent, and had a good, clean, moving story. I just love a movie that provokes good thoughts days later. (p.s. I want to try sea urchins now!)

September 11: Taking my oldest son to high school registration today. Unreal. Seriously, I remember going to my own freshman registration, and it does not feel like it was THAT long ago!

September 12: I'm going to float the Salmon River today with Idaho Adventures and the Lemhi Education Project! I've been looking forward to this little reward for myself for 2 months! It's gonna be a good day!!

September 13: Josh and I re-enacted a scene from an old commercial tonight with a friend and our cars. I rolled down my window, and asked a friend in her neighboring car: "Pardon me, do you have any Grey Poupon?". Micah, who was sitting in the back seat, said "poop-on?! what is that?". We tried to explain how it's like mustard that he puts on hot dogs, but a little different. He's all: "Oh, it's kind of like that butter in our fridge that's fake?". Josh said "Sure...it's just like 'I Can't Believe It's Not Mustard'!" The whole conversation totally cracked me up!

September 15: Heading to the grocery store, and I asked if the boys needed anything. 7-year-old Kanyon recited off the following list: "Yes. I need Nutella, frozen waffles, fruit snacks, granola bars with chocolate, bananas, pop tarts, and mini pancakes". This is why Josh has to work 3 jobs--to pay for the groceries that feed these hungry, growing boys!!!

September 16: For the first time ever, my twins are in separate classes at school. It was nice hearing them give reports to each other after school about what they did all day without me even having to ask how their days went!!

September 18: I got notified this morning that my final reports for my latest college class were accepted! That means I passed the course!!! Now I'm exactly 1/3 of the way to obtaining my degree!!

September 22: My boys Jonah and Micah turned 11 today! We celebrated this weekend by taking them and their friends to Squealers fun park in Rigby, and by eating their favorite meal of steak and mashed potatoes for dinner with family. Today they took birthday treats to share with their school class for the last time. Happy Birthday to my twin sons! I can't believe how old they are!

September 24: Just had fresh corn-on-the-cob from the garden for dinner for the last time this season! The boys picked it and shucked it before I got home from work, which delighted me. We always look forward to corn dinners in the fall, and have enjoyed having this meal once a week for the past 6 weeks. So yummy!

September 25: Don't you just love it when fall arrives and brings new tv show episodes with it?!! It's like a double bonus for happiness!

September 27: So proud of my boys in their sporting events today! Ammon ran cross country in Boise, and his time was under 20 minutes! He's been injured the past few weeks, so this was a great comeback! Jonah and Micah's football team made their first run for a 1st down, their first touchdown, and their first extra point today, too! I was so excited for them because they've been playing hard teams from much larger schools the past month, and this was so rewarding!

September 28: At this time tomorrow night, I will be watching Katy Perry live in concert! Sooooo excited! I've been looking forward to this for 6 months!

road trip 'on the fly'

In the middle of the last week of August, I took the younger 3 boys on an unexpected trip to Boise. My friend Krissy moved there earlier this summer, but her kids' dad still lives in Salmon. Circumstances worked out that they were in Salmon with their dad for the week, and then it was their mom's turn to have them, but she was going to be bringing them back a few days later because they would be with their dad again for Labor Day weekend. So to save her a trip, I drove her kids to Boise for her. We love their family, and it was so fun for Jonah and Micah to spend some time with their friend Mason, whom they hadn't seen almost all summer. We left on Wednesday after lunch, and got to Boise that evening. We had to stop 6 times along the drive for potty breaks and to dump the puke bag frequently (Mason gets car sick, and driving along the winding river road was not good for him). I was so happy to see my friend again!!!

Krissy fed us dinner, then the kids all played together in the pool outside their apartment complex. It was so much hotter in Boise than Salmon, and the kids were happy to play and be cool at the same time. They were playing some kind of a game where one person gets out and starts saying colors, then when they say the right color, everyone starts swimming to the opposite side and the person jumps back in and tries to beat everyone else. It kept them busy for quite a while, and Krissy and I just sat in the chairs on the side relaxing as we watched them. 

Taylor was the only girl in the group--she was such a good sport. She played so good with the younger boys; Kanyon just adores her! She posed a few times for the camera, which cracked me up!

The boys have missed their best friend Mason. He is so goofy, playful, and so much fun to be around! Jonah appears to be the goofy one in this pic, though! Jonah would not settle in the water long enough to get a photo--this is the only decent one I got of him!

The swimming pool also has dumping buckets and shooting water fountains, which was fun for the boys to play in. Taylor kept trying to convince Krissy to take the ice bucket challenge using this water feature!

Micah was fascinated the most with the water fountains:

When it started getting cooler, we went inside. The boys spent the night in their sleeping bags in Krissy's living room, and I got to sleep in her bed with her. She and her kids all got up early the next morning, because her kids started their first day of school at their new schools. When they left, my boys got up and I fed them breakfast. Then we packed and cleaned up, and went school shopping. I hadn't gotten their school supplies or new clothes yet, so I thought this would be the perfect opportunity. Since most kids were in school, and it was a weekday morning, we got a lot of shopping done without the stores being busy or crowded. It was awesome! We got everything on our lists, and were all done in an hour and a half! 

We got on the freeway headed east, because Ammon was running in his first cross country meet of the season in Shelley that afternoon. As I was driving past Boise, I was thinking that since we got done shopping so quickly, we were going to arrive pretty early at the meet, and I didn't want the boys to get bored while waiting for his race, so I decided to spend more time in Boise. I took the last exit, and showed the boys where the BSU stadium was. And after that, I thought we should go to the Boise Zoo since it's in the same neighborhood, so I drove them there. The boys debated if they even wanted to go to the zoo, because they thought about going to a movie with our extra time instead. When we were looking at the entrance, we saw that the sign said Thursdays were Family Days, so the tickets are discounted, and that basically sealed the deal for me! I've taken all my boys there before, but they were younger, so none of them remembered it. 

In the interactive room we went in after we first entered, the boys tried on animal costumes:  

Kanyon the turtle

Micah the bat

Jonah the porcupine

It was a nice, warm day and we had fun wandering around looking at all the animal exhibits.

Jonah & Micah looking at prairie dogs through tunnel windows

Jonah & Kanyon pointing out the nearby prairie dogs

you're gonna hear me roar!

anteaters have such unique body shapes

zebra stripes intrigue me

I like all the little facts about specific animals that are placed by animal molds that kids can play in/on:

Micah the tortoise

Jonah on the gila monster

Kanyon with giant ears (I can't even remember what real animal has these!)

There's a petting zoo that has some hungry goats (and other animals) in it! We got some food and the boys fed the animals out of their hands. Kanyon thought the goat's tongues didn't feel good on his hand, but the other boys thought it kind of tickled the way they ate out of their palms. 

Zoo Boise is larger than I remember it being; they've added a few exhibits since the last time we were there a few years ago. I loved seeing the variation in animals!

giraffes are my favorite

we all loved the sloth bear! it was like a cross between a big
dog and a bear. he was super cute and likes seeing people!

monkeys and gorillas are so captivating!

One of the new parts they had this summer was a butterfly house. We walked into this gated area and butterflies were EVERYWHERE! We weren't supposed to touch them, but it was so funny when they landed on us! I've never seen so many different kinds and colors of butterflies. I was fascinated! The boys received an information page with photos and names of all the breeds of butterflies in it, and they tried to find each one. When one would land on one of us, they would look on their diagram and figure out which kind it was.  

this one has the Salmon Savages colors!

a group of butterflies eating oranges for lunch!

When we finally left the zoo, the boys were hungry for lunch. We stopped at Sonic and drove through their ginormous drive-thru line. I didn't realize until it was our time to order that they were having a special that day for 50 cent corn dogs! By the time we made it back to the freeway, it was 1:30. I was thinking Shelley was about 3 hours away, and Ammon's race was at 5:00, so I thought we'd get there with extra time still. But as we drove out of Boise, and I saw the first city/mileage sign, I panicked. It was 120 miles JUST to Twin Falls! I got out my Idaho road map, and found that Pocatello was another 120 miles past Twin Falls, and Shelley is 25 miles past that! I was freaking out that we wouldn't make it in time. Thankfully, the Idaho Interstate MPH was increased to 80 (I seriously had no idea!). I started doing math on my cell phone calculator to figure out the mileage vs. the time to see if it would work. I figured out if I drove 84 miles an hour, I would get there exactly on time. But I still had to make a pit stop somewhere along the way to get gas. So, I drove 85, stopped once for 10 minutes to get a few gallons, and we made it to Shelley at EXACTLY 5:00!!! I had been sweating and was so nervous for the previous hour of driving that I wouldn't see his whole race, but lucky for me, Ammon's race didn't start until 5:10, so I had enough time to see him before his race started! Whew! 

We watched him run his first high school race! I was so glad that we actually made it!

When his race was over, I took the younger 3 boys with me again. We went to Idaho Falls to do some grocery shopping, then we drove home. We got home around 10:00 that night, after driving over 750 miles in 2 days. It had been a lot of time spent in the car, but it was worth it to spend time with our friends, get our school shopping done, and watch Ammon run! It was a good last-minute road trip at the end of our summer!

Facial Features

One night I walked into my bedroom and found Josh reading a book in bed. The light on his nightstand table was on, and it illuminated a silhouette of his face onto the far wall. I froze as I entered the room, staring at the face that was projected on the wall. Josh was wondering what I was doing, and I told him I was admiring his profile on the wall, but when he turned to look at the wall, the profile disappeared (of course). So I took a picture--in order for him to see what I saw. 

But, unfortunately, he never sees what I see when I look at him. When he looks at himself in the mirror, or sees himself in pictures, he sees something totally different than I do. He sees all the things he doesn't like about himself; he views the imperfections. But when I look at him, I see the face of the man that I love and adore. I love everything about his face: I like his crooked nose (it's been broken one too many times), his thick eyebrows, his jaw line, his luscious lips, his dark brown eyes. I enjoy looking at him and admiring his facial features. Truthfully, sometimes when I stare at him, I simply can't believe that I'm married to such a handsome man!  Even after all these years, I still think this. I never get tired of looking at his face, that, somehow with age, just gets better looking! I'm so glad that I'm married to this good-looking fellow!

Lemhi County Fair 2014

The fair was the last full week of August. The boys entered a few items of produce from our garden, but other than that, we weren't overly involved with it. We enjoyed visiting the fair 3 times during the week while it was here, though.

On Wednesday night, they have Family Fun Night, with additional activities and alcohol-free zones for families to bring their kids and have a cheap or free experience. It was the easiest Family Fun Night I've ever been to: Ammon was at cross country practice, Jonah and Micah were at football practice, so Josh and I took just Kanyon to the event. We were there right when it started, so he got to do all the inflatables he wanted without any lines.

He also tried shooting the target, and so did Josh and I. Josh was the only one to actually hit the target, though!

The firemen were there, and Kanyon got to hold and aim the fire hose as it sprayed water.

He also did the petting zoo, threw a pie at a cheerleader's face, and played a ring toss game. He and I got our pictures taken together at the photo booth with the fair theme:

Josh drove a golf cart with beer goggles on, and only drove over one cone. I totally aced that activity last year!

We walked around looking at all the animals and the exhibits. We discovered that Micah got 2 purple ribbons with his two different potato entries.

The other boys got red and blue ribbons with their potatoes, and all blue ribbons with their pumpkins.

On Friday afternoon, we took the boys out to go ride the rides. The weather was cold, but it wasn't raining, so not a lot of people were there. Last year, we bought the boys each a few tickets so they could all go on two rides a piece. They wanted to ride more, though, so we decided to get wristbands this year. The wristbands were $20 each, but they could ride as much as they wanted. Unfortunately, there were only 3 rides that the older boys could even go on, and only 7 rides total. They ended up riding the same 3 rides over and over for 2 hours. It was kind of a rip-off, but they had fun.

the mini rollercoaster

they're in the 2nd and 3rd cars

Jonah and Kanyon on the Scrambler

Micah on the Scrambler

Kanyon on the "baby car rides". He wasn't too happy that I made him try it.

Jonah and Micah were brave to try the Rocket.
It took them a while to work up the guts to do it, but they loved it!

They are in the middle right one. 

After they were done riding, we ate some fair food. We tried scones, scone nuggets, and waffle cones. Kanyon wanted food out of the carnie's booth: he ate cotton candy and a corn dog.

On Saturday night, we all went to the rodeo. It was cold and rainy again, so not a whole lot of people were there, but it was a great show. I thought it was even better than last year's rodeo! It lasted about 2 hours, and there were some awesome bronc riders, and a few bull riders. And the half-time show was amazing! A special act was performed by "The One-Armed Bandit". Without using his one hand & arm, he rode a horse around the arena using just his legs to guide it. Then he was able to direct some appaloosa horses to get up onto the top of his trailer, and he joined them on the top of his trailer, also without ever touching his mule with his hand as it climbed up & down. It was so incredible to see! This is a photo of his act going down Main Street for the rodeo parade:  

The boys all got fair food again while we were at the rodeo. They wanted warm food because it was so cold outside. Ammon got scone nuggets, Jonah got fresh donut holes, and Micah got hot chocolate (unfortunately the line for it was so long that he missed seeing the Bandit's show). Kanyon wanted to eat food from the carnie's booth once again, and he got a caramel apple.  

We like going to the fair. It was weird that it was so cold during fair week, but that didn't discourage us from going! 

it's my party and i'll do what I want to

My birthday is August 14. This year, for my 35th birthday, I decided to make my birthday celebration last a week. And it was a glorious week indeed! 

On Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, we went on a family vacation to the Rexburg water park and to Yellowstone. I'm so glad we did! I had such a great time with my family enjoying God's creations!

On Thursday morning (my actual birth date), I woke up to find this:

I had previously told Josh that I either wanted a new pair of nice flip-flop sandals or a ukulele for my birthday. I wasn't sure if he'd remember from the first time I told him in June, so I reminded him again at the beginning of August. I'm so, so glad he remembered! And I just loved the way he gifted it to me! Because Josh leaves to work so early in the morning during the summer, he was long gone before I woke up. I got up to go to the bathroom, and I was hoping to find some kind of surprise note waiting for me there (I did that for him on his last birthday), but there was nothing. I went back to bed for a while and slept in (a gift to myself!) and when I got up the 2nd time, I was so surprised to find this note and gift on my recliner in our bedroom. Seeing it laying there made me so happy! 

I relaxed and celebrated my actual birth day the way I wanted. I slept in, wore pajamas all day, deep cleaned and rearranged. All of these things make me happy! I loved staying home in my cozy pajama pants while cleaning out cupboards and moving furniture!

I also got around to hooking up the new computer and started to get all the photos off of the old computer. After the new computer was up and running, both computers were side-by-side for a while until I was able to finish putting years and years of photos onto flash drives, then I took apart the old computer that had been dying for some time (the cd drive no longer worked, and when we got a new printer earlier in the month, it wouldn't recognize it). The old computer was about 10 years old, and it was time for a new one. 

We love the new one! It has a bigger screen, the computer brain is built into the back of the screen freeing up more counter space, and the computer has so much more memory so it isn't slow like the other one. We used to have to put a shelf next to the computer station to hold the computer brain and the printer, but now the printer can fit on the counter, so we moved a chest freezer next to the counter instead. The area feels so much more open now!

For my birthday dinner, I made myself my favorite meal of ham, cheesy potatoes, and garlic toast. Yummy! And after dinner, I invited a whole bunch of ladies to join me at water aerobics. That was my birthday wish--I thought it would be fun to exercise with a whole gaggle of fun people. Only 2 of my friends showed up, though: Gina and Amanda. I still had a great time! I love these two friends of mine, and I love water aerobics!

On Friday, I opened the presents that my mom had sent me in the mail. She gave me a new nightgown, some new dish towels that she crocheted, and a birthday banner that my sister-in-law Jen made. My parents and Josh's parents also gifted me some money, and I bought myself a new camera with it (the other camera accidentally got dropped the previous month and the zoom lens no longer works). 

On Saturday morning, I got pampered at Amanda's salon. She permed my hair and re-dyed my bangs pink. I'm trying to grow out the front side of my hair, and it was getting to the awkward stage, so we decided that perming it was the best solution for the time. I am loving it! And she tried a new line of pink on my hair. It's much more pink and less purple, which I really like!

Look how tight the curls were when she first pulled the curl rods off!!!

 Isn't this flashy?!!

 I just love the final product! I have really liked having a perm--it is so easy to do! And I like this shade of pink so much better!

On Saturday night, I went on a date with Josh and my friends John and Amanda. We went to the Broken Arrow Mexican Restaurant in Gibbonsville. None of them had ever been there before. It's a 45 minute drive from Salmon, but worth it! We enjoyed the conversation in the car ride, and we loved the atmosphere of the restaurant at dinner. We had a good time out with our friends.

I even splurged from my healthy lifestyles diet and ate my favorite pie for dessert: Strawberry Rhubarb. I haven't eaten ice cream since starting my new diet in July except for one scoop on my birthday pie. It was soooo good! Jill, the owner, even brought out the pie with a candle in it, and she had me wear the sombrero as they sang to me. I felt so giddy!

On Sunday afternoon, Gina's family and Amanda's family came over for games and snacks. We had so much fun playing, eating, talking, and laughing! We had a good time with our friends, and it was an excellent way to end my week-long birthday celebration!!! I pampered myself, I spent time with my family, I went out with my husband and friends, and I gifted myself some good gifts in addition to those that I received from my loved ones. 35 is gonna be a good year, I can just feel it!