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.

Halo

I sang again in the Salmon Idol contest this fall, which was my 3rd year competing in it. Remember last year? Read HERE if you missed it. I knew I wouldn't be able to pull off the song I planned to sing, and I had convinced myself not to compete again. I resigned my thoughts to "I'm too busy to do it this year" and that was that. One afternoon at the end of August, I was driving alone in the car out of town and the song "Halo" by Beyonce came on the radio. Every time I hear that song, I think of BABY ZOEY, because it used to be on her and her twin sister Ayla's blog. I thought to myself "I should sing that song" and I got tingles down my spine. My next thought was "I should sing that song and dedicate it to Baby Zoey". And I had goosebumps for a full 30 seconds. I knew at that moment that I changed my mind--that I was going to sing in the Salmon Idol competitioon, and that the song I would sing was "Halo". Auditions were the middle of September, and thankfully, I passed. The director, John, edited the song to under 3 minutes and I began practicing.

All the contestants sang a group number at the beginning of the production in October. This year it was "I Wanna Dance with Somebody" by Whitney Houston. What a fun, upbeat song to open the night with! Several of us dressed up in 80's apparel for that number, including me:I was the 5th performer in the line-up, and after the group number I changed my costume and prepared mentally for my performance. I was so grateful that Josh was able to make it back from his meetings in Sun Valley to watch, because last year he missed it. Unfortunately, our DVD recorder didn't work during the competition and for the first time, I do not have a video of my performance. So I'll have to tell you what transpired instead.

At the beginning of the song, there is some instrumental music that lasts 30 seconds. I memorized a short 20-second speech to say during that time. I said "7 months ago tomorrow, our dear friends' infant daughter passed away when she was just 24 days old, which is the same age my sister was when she died. I dedicate this song to the memory of Baby Zoey and Baby Michelle; neither of whom I've met, but both whose lives have touched my heart forever."

I was wearing all black: long black skirt, black shirt, long-sleeved black blazer jacket, and I was wearing black earrings and black toenail polish. I started singing the song kneeling down, and during the part "...it's like I've been awakened..." I stood up to sing the rest of the first verse and chorus.The second verse was cut out of my version, and there was an instrumental bridge in the music, so I sang some of the longer interim "halo's" while I walked off stage and did a quick 10-second clothes change. I took off the blazer and skirt and walked back on stage to do the final chorus in a shorter white & black skirt, the black shirt, and a white feather boa.

I wanted my clothing and my actions to symbolize what the song meant to me. I prayed and hoped that I would give the song justice for my purpose in doing it. I felt peace after my performance, and was glad that I did it.

Everyone has repeatedly asked me how Salmon Idol went. Here's my long answer: It was fun to sing in the 80's number. It was incredible to sing for my inspiration Baby Zoey and my sister Baby Michelle. It was awesome to be in the spotlight onstage and hear the crowd cheer after. Unfortunately, during my song's intro, the tech stopped the music thinking that I wanted to do my dedication before the song was supposed to start, and so it threw off the mood I was trying to set for the audience, and it got me out-of-sync as I stood there, motionless, for 60 seconds waiting for my song to start again. I did not win, or even place in the top 3. Again. I admit I was disappointed. I was sad that I didn't have a video to playback and critique myself. I was sad that something I love doing, something I have a true passion for, which is performing, I feel that I'm no longer good at. I've come up defeated for 3 years in a row in this competition, and 3 strikes later--I'm out. I want to be involved in the production again next year because I love it and it's a wonderful fundraiser for the H.S. music department, but I will not be competing in it anymore.

Some"bunny" Special

In Mrs. Casterson's Kindergarten class, each child gets to take home Huckleberry Bunny for one weekend. Along with Huckleberry comes a journal, a special book to read, and a poster to make. The child does everything with Huckleberry over the weekend, then write what happened in the journal to be read to the class on Monday. We need to read the special book once about bunnies at bedtime and we make the poster all about the special some"bunny" who got to bring Huckleberry home.

The first weekend in October, Micah was chosen to bring home Huckleberry. We had a great time with the bunny! It even came camping with us--we made sure to prop him up by a window so he could see us when we played outside. Micah helped me make his special poster by choosing what pictures to place on it, what information to write on it, and he colored his name at the top. Then we got to pick a special book of our own to read to the class on Monday and he picked me to be the special visitor to come and read it. I talked about Micah's poster and then read his favorite book "Runaway Bear" to the class. It's about a man who makes two bears just in time for his twin daughter's birthday, and one of the bears (the gold one) runs away and the other bear (the brown one) searches through the night to find it and bring it back home before the girls' birthday. After the story, Micah showed some of his stuffed bears to the class, and we treated the class to gold and brown Teddy Grahams.

On his poster, Micah wanted to put photos of some of his favorite things to do: going camping, making fires, riding 4-wheelers, riding horses, riding bikes, reading books, playing with cars, playing in the dirt pile, and playing with his brothers.

It was so fun spotlighting Micah in his class! We talked about how Jonah and Micah are twins, and some of their differences. Micah loved being the special student for the day, too!!!

first time AND last time

At the beginning of October, we went camping for the last time this year.
For the first time in our new trailer.
Coincidentally, we bought it just days before the scheduled camping trip.
We purchased our first trailer 3 years ago, and it has served us well. At that time, we only had 3 children. We conceived baby #4 in that trailer (TMI?!). We loved that trailer; it was so good for us. It was only 21' feet long, it was self-contained with a kitchen and a bathroom, and slept 6. The back end of the trailer had a room with a shutting curtain that included a unique triple bunk bed. Josh and I slept at the front of the trailer on the fold-down dining table bed. But just this year, we knew we were outgrowing the little trailer fast with our growing boys. Josh and I have looked at trailer sales throughout the years, so we would know what kind of a trailer we would graduate into. From all the "window shopping", we knew what we wanted and we knew what we liked. When a family a few miles down the road put their trailer up for sale, we knew it was meant to be ours. It's a little bit longer than the other one at 25', it has a room at the front with a shutting curtain with two sets of bunkbeds--perfect for our four boys! The back of the trailer has a pull-out queen bed, and it has a kitchen and a bathroom and a couch and a table. Ultimately, it could sleep 10 people! Definitely enough room for our family, and it is still light enough to pull with our truck. We are so glad we bought it when we did, so that we could enjoy camping in it at least once this year!!! (We are also glad that we were able to sell our old trailer!)
We camped at Twin Creek, just north of Gibbonsville (about 45 minutes away). Surprisingly, we were the only ones at the campground! It was quiet, and we loved having the large place all to ourselves! The boys participated in their usual activities:

Jonah and Micah loved finding sticks to make a larger fire,

Kanyon played golf (he carries a golf ball and a club everywhere!),

and Ammon had a blast shooting his dad's old BB gun.

Josh and I listened to General Conference on the radio, we took a family hike to explore the nearby creek, and we all enjoyed being with one another in the great outdoors. We already look forward to April, when we can start camping again in our new trailer!!!