Magic Beans and a big "I told you so"

A couple of weeks ago, I decided to get out our old humidifier because the air was getting so dry with the colder, winter weather.  I have been running the unit non-stop since I set it up.  The other day, Amber was complaining about the humidity in the house and claimed that I was running the unit way too much. 

I relented somewhat and started to shut the unit off during parts of the day.

This evening, Jace came downstairs after we had sent him up to get ready for bed.  He said, "Mom, can you come up stairs, I need to show you something".  Usually that means something bad has happened. 

Amber replied, "can you just tell me?"

Jace answered, "no, I can't, I need to show you".

Amber asked again, "well can't you just explain it?"

He insisted, "No, I don't know how to.  Can you just come up?"

Amber finally went upstairs to find Jace's amazing discovery.

Due to the large amount of moisture in the air lately, a little bean seed that had fallen to the floor and later lodged under the carpet near the humidifier has started to sprout.  I guess Amber was right.  I have been pumping a little too much water into the air lately!

A first class scout!

Last night our ward held a Court of Honor for the scouts.  As part of the event, John was asked to give a thought about scouting.  He is a natural at public speaking.  He told a funny joke about the Mayan-based "end of the world" and how it related to their recent scouting activities.  He then spoke about how Scouting has helped him prepare for his life as a young man and a future adult.  He finally praised his scout leaders for their efforts.  He did an awesome job.

At the court of honor, John received his Second Class, and First Class rank advancements.  He also brought home six merit badges.  

It is his goal to reach the Eagle rank before he turns fourteen.  We have mapped it out and if he works hard, he might just make it!

Always a Party!

Last Saturday, our family hosted about 15 families from our neighborhood to a Christmas party.  We set it up in the form of an open house so that people could come and go.  We estimate that we had about 50 people (counting the kids) coming through the house. 

Everyone brought something to snack on.  During the week, Amber had been very busy making snacks and food of our own as well.  

It was funny because the event was supposed to go from 5pm to 9pm.  Right at 5pm the kids were waiting at the door.  They after ten minutes passed, they started to think no one was going to come.  About 5:15, however, the people started to come one after the other.

Aylee helped the younger kids do Gingerbread house decorating, and Aliece built up several carnival activities in the basement.  The adults had a fun time visiting.

It was a good way to get to know some of our non-LDS neighbors as well. 

Many kudos goes to Amber for driving this.  The kids caught the excitement and really worked hard to make it go off with a bang!

Lost Innocence

Today I took John and Aylee to a fast food restaurant for lunch. We decided to pass the time by playing a game of, "which would you rather".

I would give two scenarios to the kids and they would have to pick the one they would rather do or have happen to them. They then would take turns asking as well.

On one of my turns, I asked the kids which they would rather do if they could either go to Disneyland or Hawaii.

Aylee responded that save would rather go to Disneyland as there is more to do. John chose Hawaii. Aylee started to try to convince John that Disneyland would be a better place.

John argued back that there were great things about Hawaii, including bikinis and hula dancers. That caught me off guard for a bit.

Ha ha...he is sounding more like a teenage boy now. Should I be worried?

It Sucks

The other day, Alayna approached Amber and asked, "Mom, do you know what really sucks?"

Seizing on the opportunity to rid the house of such ugly vocabulary, Amber, intercepted Alayna's conversation and said, "Alayna, that is really quite an ugly word. Why do you stop right there and ask me again when you can find another word beside 'sucks' in your question."

Alayna went silent and Amber waited for her to rephrase her question. Alayna thought for a bit and then went on with what she was doing. Now Amber was curious about what Alayna had to say, and was wondering why she hadn't tried again.

After a few minutes, Amber approached Alayna, and said, "honey, why didn't you think of a different way to ask me the question?"

Alayna replied, "I wanted to ask you about how vacuum cleaner pick up dirt, but I couldn't think of a better word than 'sucks'."

Amber stood corrected....I guess the word "sucks" does have a place in our household vocabulary after all.

Food storage bandits

Tonight, our ward hosted a food drive for the neighborhood. I'll food donations were going to our local food bank. We were doing this food drive a little differently than we have in the past.

Typically, we hand out flyers a week ahead of time announcing that we will be hosting a food drive. We encourage residents to put bags of food on their porch on a certain day and time so that we can pick them up.

Tonight, however, we decided to send one group of youth out with the flyers announcing an immediate food drive. The flyer encourage people to back up some spare food and put on their porch in the next few minutes so that a second group of you could come and pick it up.

This was a huge success for us, well, at least for most of us.

For John Jr was delivering his flyers when he got stopped by a lady in the neighborhood. She reamed him out for probably two minutes. She told him that his flyer didn't have enough appropriate information. She asked him how she could tell that he was not just with a group of friends going around stealing other people's food to fill his own food storage.

The leader that was escorting John's group, said she must have yelled at him for about two minutes. The leader was afraid to go over there for fear that she would start all over again with her rampage. John handled this very well. He just smiled and kept nodding his head as the woman let out her suspicious rants.

Afterword, we had a fun time talking to John about it. He agrees that it was good preparation for his mission in the future.

It was yet another reminder how you do not get between an Idahoan and their food storage.

Quick Impromptu Visit

Dad called yesterday and was having some problems with his Pickup, so I decided to take Jake's flatbed trailer out to to him that I had been borrowing.  When I got done with work I took Aliece and Alayna with me and we headed out for a quick trip to Arbon.  

On our way out there, we stopped at Jake and Shantell's to take a look at the new baby.  He-who-must-not-be-named was definitely a cute little guy.  The three of us got the opportunity to hold the newest addition to the family.  It was a lot of fun.

I can't believe that he is already over a week old, having been born on November 6.  I am sure he has grown in that short amount of time from his 20.25 inches and 7lbs 3oz birth weight, but he still looked tiny. I always forget how small these kids are when they arrive.  (I included a picture Jake sent out when he was born, as I didn't think to snap a picture myself while we were there).

Ryker was really cute around his new brother.  He would sit next to the girls as they held the baby.  He would rub its head and give it kisses.  He had a very proud and excited look on his face the whole time.  He is going to love having a brother tagging along with him in the future.

After our visit to Jake and Shantell's, we headed off to Mom and Dad's place to visit and share some pizza together.  We couldn't stay but a couple of hours, but had a good chat.  Aliece and Alayna had a great time of course as well.

First snow

The kids were excited to wake up to our first blanket of snow for the season. Aliece was awake at least thirty minutes early telling us about the white snowfall.

Amber, Avary, and Jace made sure to get out the snow clothes and play in the winter wonderland. The had snow ball fights, built a mini snow man (jace built it by himself), and did some sledding.

Later in the afternoon we headed out into the storm to drive up to Spokane where we will spend the weekend. The driving was slow between Dillon and Missoula with steady snow, but luckily the mountain passes were all clean and dry for the most part.

Mother Gothel

Amber took Aliece and Alayna on a date last night while Aylee and I went out on a date of our own.  Amber, Aliece, and Alayna have been working on reading a book together, "The Ordinary Princess".  There is a mother, daughter book club that assigned that as the reading for the month. They have sat on the couch at nights to read the book out loud as a threesome.  It has been fun seeing them.

Last night was the book club meeting at the Shelley Library.  They had some fun crafts and such at the meeting.  The girls had a great time.  The highlight of the meeting, however, was having a local Shelley lady talk to the girls and do some reading.  

She told the girls that she had gone to a writers convention (or some similar event) several years ago.  She was sitting at a table with a group of people that were together.  She asked them what they all did and they all mentioned that they were Disney Animators and that they were working on a project.  They said that they couldn't be specific to her, but that it had to do with the story of Rapunzel.  She asked them how it was going.  They said it was going well, but they were having a hard time visualizing the witch character for the story.

She then told them about the book, "The Ordinary Princess" because it had a fantastic witch character that they should use.  She also explained to them that they needed to do a film on that book.  She spent some time talking about the book and why it would be a great story to develop in the Disney way for today's children.  The more insistent she became about how they should do a movie about that particular book, the more excited they got and they seemed to watch her every move and whisper together.  It even looked like someone was taking notes under the table or something.  

After the event was over she really didn't think much about the chance meeting.  When the movie, Tangled, came out, her daughters got the movie and they were watching it at home.  When they saw Mother Gothel, the daughters called out and told their mom to check out Mother Gothel...sure enough, the animated character was the spitting image of this lady.  In one of the scenes, Gothel wears the same dress that this lady wore to that event. 

I don't think this gal ever hoped to be the inspiration for a witch in a Disney movie, but nonetheless, it is fun to know that a disney character was designed after a local Shelley woman!

Library Confusion

Aylee and I went on a Dad/Daughter date last night. One of our stops was to the Idaho Falls Public Library. We were checking out a few movies at the checkout counter. As we were doing so, the lady checking out our movies said to Aylee, "Has anyone told you that you have the most beautiful eyes? I could just look at them all day".

There was no visible or audible response from Aylee, so I looked at her and she was looking down at the counter fiddling with a paper. I softly nudged her and whispered that it would be polite to respond. Aylee then gave the appropriate thank you response and we finished checking out.

As we were walking out of the library, Aylee felt she needed to redeem herself for me. She told me that she didn't realize the lady was talking to her. She said, "I thought that lady was talking to you and saying YOUR eyes were beautiful, Dad, and all I could think was, AWKWARD!!"

Ha ha...we had a good laugh about that.

Annual Halloween Party

On Friday, October 19, Jen and Dave held their annual Halloween party for the adults in the family. Joe even came up from California for the event. Since he was good to be there for the weekend, Amber and I brought our kids that we could stay the weekend as well and spent time with him. Since we have our kids, Jan and Dave set up a separate party in another room for the kids to watch movies and have treats as well.

As always, this party was exceptional. There was way too much food. It was all so good that I feel like I just engorged myself with such a variety as to make my stomach churn in the light but later regret the various flavors that I stuffed it in such a short amount of time.

We had a great time sitting around visiting about things have been going on. We played a couple of games also. One game, we stood in a circle with small balls of yarn in each of our hands. We are then supposed to toss the ball of yarn to partner on the opposite side of the circle. Once we caught the yarn, we were supposed to wrap it around ourselves once and throw it back. We are supposed to do this as fast as we could. The first partnership to finished with their ball of yarn was the winner. It was fun because in the end there was one big giant spider web that was formed between all of us.

Amber led a game as well. We played this game at the Reed family reunion. Everybody wrote down three games of people, real or fictitious, that everyone would know. We put them in a hat. We went around the room and everyone had a minute to help the room guess the name. For the first round of all the names, we could say whatever we wanted in sentences to help the people guess the name. On the second round, we can only say one word and everyone had to try to guess the names. On the third round, we could only use actions to help the group guess. It was a lot of fun.

Pumpkin Time

Last night, we spent some time designing faces and carving them into our pumpkins for the Halloween season. This is a little early for us, however, with their upcoming trip to Spokane and other activities, there is no other night that we could carve pumpkins. We are hoping that they'll last until Halloween.

It was really fun to carve pumpkins this year because everyone really got into it. I was surprised by how much ownership Jace took with his pumpkin. He wanted to make sure that he was the one to clean out all of the insides in the picked the seeds out to save them. I hardly had to my hands dirty!

Amber had started some Halloween music in the background. Avary helped us with the pumpkins for a little while. However, the upbeat and ghoulish sounds from the stereo finally took over and she was dancing around the kitchen floor to the Halloween tunes.

Test Drive

Yesterday, we had a friend of ours give us a call to tell us that they were losing their pasture for their horses and cows. They knew that we had talked about having a horse for our kids. They have a 20-year-old horse that has been a roping horse all of its life. He is getting old enough now, however, that they have turned him into simply being the family horse for their younger kids.

They wanted to know if we were interested in buying the horse. Otherwise, they will be putting him up for sale. They expect to get around $700-$800 for the horse.

This is an expense we hadn't planned on, but it is a good opportunity to get a horse from someone you trust and know would be good for the kids.

They offered to let us keep the horse at our house for a couple of weeks to get a good feel for the horse and decide if it is something we want to do.

Our friend brought the horse over to our house last night. Everyone got a chance to ride the horse in our circle pen. Even little Avary sat with a big grin on her face as I let her around in a circle on top of this large horse.

The name of the horse is Bugsy Blue. He is a gentle horse, albeit quite tall. He has a soft gait and reacts well to even the smallest motion on the reigns. He did hurt his foot many years ago. He favors the right front hoof a little bit, but has still been able to continue as a roping horse and later as simply riding horse.

After a few days of a trial run, I guess we will need to decide whether or not to fork over the extra money to keep the horse. I don't know, maybe we would be better cattle farmers if we owned a horse? :-)

I am a poor farmer

We got our check from the sale of the cattle on Monday. I eagerly tore open the envelope to see what our winnings would be. needless to say I was shocked by the outcome of the sale.

We had sold seven of the 13 cows that were remaining. The check for those seven cows was less than the check that I received when I sold the four cows last year.

The average cattle price for Holsteins that went at the sale that day was just under a dollar a pound. The price I got for our cows was about $.50 per pound. I guess I learned a very important lesson this year. One, look at the cows before you buy them. Two, don't buy a jersey cross breed. The Jersey cows do not sell well in this area.

Now I just need to decide what to do with the remaining six calves. Is it worth it to take them to the sale and cut our losses and run? Or do we hang onto them longer to fatten them up and hope to recoup some of our costs.

Once again I am grateful that my family's livelihood is not dependent on my ever fallible agricultural skills!

Boise Temple open house visit

This weekend our family made a special trip to Twin Falls and then to Boise for the Boise Idaho Temple open house. On Friday night we stayed with Adee and Adam at their home in Twin Falls. Our kids had a great time playing with their cousins late into the evening.

The next morning, after some delicious breakfast burritos and a breakfast cake, we loaded everybody up into the car and headed to Boise.

Adee and Adam took their kids, we went to the temple with them at our appointed time. Of course, it was a beautiful building and we all felt the spirit of peace and tranquility there.

It was nice to pause in one of the ceiling rooms and look through the double mirrors with our entire family and see our family go on forever.

It made a good impression upon me and upon the kids. I hope that one day our family will be able to stand together through eternity in the life to come.

Cowfolk

Today was the day that I took seven of our 13 calves to the Blackfoot livestock auction. Amber, Avary, Jace, and I worked on getting the calves separated and into the horse trailer.

Avary and Jace especially thought it was cool to be able to wear their cowboy boots and go out into the corral to work with the calves.

Once we got them loaded, I took Jace with me to drop off the calves. He wanted to find his cowboy hat and cowboy vest to come along. I decided to get in the spirit and I donned my cowboy hat as well.

While we were driving and talking, Jace said that he was so grateful that he was a cowboy and lived on a farm. It sure made me smile.

He even went as far as saying, that he is probably more of a cowboy then he is a ninja. :-)

Freaky Hawaiian Intimacy

Today, Jace was looking at a photo album of Amber and I from our anniversary trip to Hawaii this spring. One of the pages has a photo, or rather several photos, of Amber and I kissing on one of the beaches on the island.

As Jace looked at this page, he turned at Amber and exclaimed:

"This page is freaking me out!"

A cold triathlon gets news coverage

A few weeks ago when the carters were visiting, they all participated in a triathlon sponsored by Shelley City.  They called it the "Build Better Spuds" triathlon.  I may have already posted about the event here, but last week there were three pictures in the Shelley Pioneer newspaper with captions.  

It was pretty fun that all three groups of kids got their pictures in the paper as well as how they did.

A snake in the rocks

Have you ever had that experience where you are hiking on the trail and go to step on a rock only to find a snake slither between the rocks right under your feet where you were going to step? That always gives me a frightened start.

This morning, I had the same type of experience. I was making our bed. I had the covers and sheets all straightened up nicely on the bed and I went for the pile of pillows on the floor. As I picked up the first pillow in the pile, I jumped back as there was something else nestled in between all of the pillows.

I guess sometime in the night or the morning, Avary must have come into our room and found a nice soft spot to finish off her sleep.

Gearing up for winter

Tonight our family went over to a widow's home that I home teach. My home teaching companion and I met up today so that we could work on prepping her yard for firewood for this winter.

She had spent the summer gathering dead limbs that had broken off of trees during windstorms, and also gathering construction debris from a nearby remodel to try to scavenge any firewood that she could get.

Our family worked on sorting out the usable wood from the painted and treated wood. We then cut the logs and wood to the proper size and stacked it.

The kids had a great time and were awesome workers. She was very impressed with how well they were working. Amber and I love these times with the kids when we all work together on a project. The kids love it and we feel great inside. We feel very blessed to have the children that we do.

Missing the dot

The other day, I discovered that our pet rabbit, Dot, was missing from her cage. The lid had been left off the top of the cage. She took advantage of the opening and had escaped when no one was looking.

I decided to not tell all of the kids immediately. I thought we would wait a few days until the busy, fun weekend was over.

Tonight, I took Aliece and Alayna a into the barn and explained to them that Dot was missing.

There were a lot of tears shed on the rabbit's behalf. Amber and I explained to them and tried to comfort them by saying that the rabbit was probably happy to be out free roaming the farm. We also tried to excite them by telling them to keep their eyes open to see if they ever see Dot running around.

Well, tonight I had to go out to the pasture to fix a major leak that was causing flooding in the field. It was just getting dark and I was walking back through the corrals to get back to the house. Something in the corner of my eye caught my attention. I saw a rabbit running around in the corral. Sure enough, after having been absent for about four days, there was our rabbit.

I chased it into the barn and finally was able to corner it and grab it. I was able to put it back into its cage. I took this picture and sent a text to Amber so that she could show the girls the prize that I had just caught. Needless to say there was much elation and rejoicing in the household tonight.

Something Dad would do

This sign near a field outside of Blackfoot during the fair week reminds me of something dad would do. Sad was the day when the toilet thieves stole dad's rest stop just off of the Arbon Valley Highway.

The "build better spuds" triathlon

We started our morning today by getting up to frigid 40° temperature for the kids to run in a triathlon. To make matters worse, the Shelley city pool had its heater breakdown earlier this week. So not only was it cold outside, but the water was only about 70°.

The kids all had great attitudes, however, each did their race with a smile on their face.

This was the first year that Shelley hosted a triathlon for kids. Our family, along with Ashlee and Brett and their family, made up probably about 60% of the contestants for the race.

The kids all had a great time swimming, biking, and running. And to sweeten the pot, Shelley city brought all these leftover medals, T-shirts, and toys from events that have been held previously. They were trying to get rid of it all so the kids pretty much were able to take whatever they wanted.

Those that participated in the triathlon were: John, Aliece, Alayna, Jace, Elyvia, and Gretchyn.

First day of preschool

Today was the first day of preschool for both Avary and Jace. Both have been very excited to join the ranks of school goers in our household. They have been talking about it for several weeks. Jace has even been concerned that he doesn't know how to write his name. He was sure he would need to have that skill mastered before his first day.

They let Amber drop them off at preschool and they ran inside with hardly a look back.

Although they are only gone for a few hours three times a week, it is going to be weird to have official time in our house with all of the kids in school.

Times are moving fast!

The magic of the P-trap

Over the past six weeks or so we have experienced a weird smell in our basement and throughout the house when we had the blower on circulating the air.

Without the blower on, the furnace room would stink really badly.

Amber and I first thought that it was a gas leak. I shut off the gas to the furnace unit to see if it would help. However, the smell was still there. So I then shut off the gas to the entire house. To my dismay the smell still did not go away.

I wondered if we were having septic tank issues again. However, the drain closest to the septic tank is on the other side of the house. There were no weird smells there.

We have had a number of people stay at our house over the past few weeks, and we have had to circulate the air and use fans to try to dispel the smell throughout the house. It has been quite embarrassing.

This weekend, I was asking my good old plumber brother-in-law if he had any ideas for me. Dave asked me if there was a drain in the furnace room. I explained to him that there was.

He then told me that he thought that he knew what the problem was. He said that every drain in the floor has a P-trap. This nifty device will hold water trapped inside of the pipe. This blocks the smells from the sewer from coming into the house. He explained that occasionally that water will dry up and allow room for smells to come through the drain from the sewer.

As soon as we got home this weekend, I put a bucket full of water down the drain. That solved our problem! I am so relieved for Dave's help. With Alayna's baptism coming up this weekend and with a funeral on the Reed family side, we will have a very big house full of people. I am so grateful that that smell has now been taking care of.

Hats off to Dave! I owe you one!

We've come of age

On Monday night, amber and I did some negotiation and purchased a ski boat from a couple that were moving to Arizona.

This afternoon I got off work at 3:00pm an we headed to Gem Lake that is literally two miles from our house. Given the time of day we had the lake to ourselves. It was the perfect opportunity to get comfortable with our boat.

We got all of the kids onto the tube at different points and feeling more comfortable with it. They all had a blast. amber had a sore mouth from smiling.

Ours is definitely at starter boat. It is a 17.5 foot inboard/outboard open bow boat. It has a four cylinder 3 liter engine. Not a power horse per se but gets good gas mileage out of it.

To Bone and Back

Today, Amber is in a race called from bone to back. She and some girls from our neighborhood decided several months ago to do this relay race. They are five-mile segments that take them through a course of about 40 miles to bone, Idaho and back to Idaho falls.

Amber is running two legs of the course in a row. That means she'll be running 10 miles overall.

I am on my motorcycle following her along the route. She is almost to the halfway point and is looking really good.

Prepare for John Jr's Ordination

I just wanted to let everyone know that we are hoping to have John be ordained a Deacon on July 8. Our church starts at 11am here in Woodville. I imagine the bishop will have him be ordained right after church at 2pm.

You all are welcome to come and join John on this special occasion. I'm sure we'll also have some food to feed you all as well. :-)

We would love to see you there if you can make it!

Ambushing an Elder

The other day we had the missionaries over for some pizza and breadsticks. The dinner was not quite ready when they arrived, so I sat down with them in the family room to chat. As we sat, one of the missionaries picked up a photo album from our coffee table. He commented on how creative the cover was and asked if he could thumb through it. Without thinking, I told him that was fine.

I kept talking with his companion, but in the corner of my eye, I noticed that after a page or two of turning in the album, the missionary quickly, but quietly set the album back on the coffee table and joined the conversation. I thought it odd at first, but then realization set in.

I apologized to the missionary. I didn't think about that album being our Hawaii photo album. It was chock full of photos of a beautiful Amber Andersen in her swim suit. The missionary had obeyed the rules as soon as he saw the pictures and had quickly closed the book.

Way to obey the rules, Elder! We had a good laugh about it together. But I was impressed that he closed the album so soon.

Ninja shirts

jace continues to be on a ninja kick. Over the past three weeks he has been wearing his shirts on backwards. It doesn't matter whether it his his regular day shirt or his pajama shirt.

He gets this idea from the ninja Lego people that he plays with. They all have plain colored shirts in the front to help them hide.

I thought this was something that would pass in just a few days. But after several weeks of this, I wonder how long he is going to insist on wearing his shirts backwards.

At least we have him convinced that he needs to wear his church shirt the right way.

Yellowstone with the Kosmicki's

Ken and Ellen Kosmicki spent the weekend with us. On Saturday, we went up to Yellowstone National Park. ken had never been there before.

We got to the park at around noon. We visited the traditional sites of Old Faithful and the various hot pots and geysers. We then went up the north side of the park and saw some very cool things that we have never seen before. One such place was Mammoth Hot Springs.

We spent all day at the park and got home at around 130 in the morning that night.

It was fun to spend some time with them and their two little dogs. We all had a great time hiking around and seeing the sights. We saw more wildlife on this trip to Yellowstone park then we have ever seen in prior visits to the place.

Ken and Ellen will leave later today. We will miss having them around. It was very good to see them and enjoyed our conversations with them.

Hair gel makes me horny

I was in the bathroom putting hair gel in my hair and combing it. Alayna and Jace were both in the bathroom with me as well. Alayna said, dad did you put hair gel in your hair?

Jace responded quickly, "I know when Dad puts hair gel in his hair."

I asked him how he could tell when I had hair gel in.

He responded, "because when you have hair gel and it is all horny. "

Amber started to laugh in the other room, and I quickly corrected Jace by saying, "you probably mean my hair gets spiky."

"oh, yeah", Jace responded.

So if Jace happens to tell anyone that I know that dad gets horny when he has hair gel, you can all understand what he really means.

Sent from my iPhone

New trailer for the four wheeler

Last week Amber and I went hunting for a good quality trailer for our four wheeler. I had the experience of using a variety of trailers a few weeks ago for a service project. I noticed very quickly that there was a large difference in quality between the different types of trailers.

Amber and I found a trailer that we thought would work and be really tough. However, the trailer was not in stock and we had to order it and wait for a week for it to come.

Tonight, Amber and the little ones went to Sears to pick up the trailer. When the older kids and I got home from shooting with our neighbors, we all got together and assembled the trailer.

We are excited to put the kids to work gathering up sticks, logs, and other debris to help clean up our area. I think the best part about it, is the fact that the kids will probably have a good time driving the four wheeler and picking everything up as well. I call that a win-win situation!

New Job

For the summer I wanted Aylee and John to have the opportunity to have a job. I didn't have enough money to pay them for their work, however, we figured out a good way to do this.

They are each required to work for me for about two hours each day. We meet at about 7:30 AM to get their assignments.

They get paid eight dollars an hour which is the going rate for farm hands of high school kids around here.

Instead of getting money directly, their money gets applied directly to the purchase of the calves that we bought earlier this year.

By the time we sell the calves in the fall, they will get a percentage of the profits equivalent to the percentage of ownership that they have in the calves through their work during the summer.

They have done a lot of good work for me so far this first week of this arrangement. Today their job was to paint the cement collars around our buried sprinkler heads in the pasture. I am hoping that we can get our little ranch looking spiffy and organized with their help.

Half Marathon

Yesterday morning, Amber got up bright and early to head up to Idaho Falls to inflict pain on her body.  She and her friend, Tia Rickabaugh, were excited and set to run their very first Half Marathon.  

The race was called the "Personal Best Half Marathon".  The course was near the airport and was sandwiched in between rolling green fields.

Amber and Tia ran the race together most of the way.  Amber finished the race with a great time for her first half marathon:  2 hours 17 minutes and 43 seconds.  Tia was announced as the third place winner. Amber had two runners between her and Tia so it looks like Amber came in 6th place overall for the women runners.

The kids and I waited at the finish line and were excited to see Amber cross over.  She looked strong and had a great time.  She has been worried about IT-Band issues with her knee lately as well as some foot problems, but her body held it together for the race.

Way to go Amber!

Early Mother's Day

We ended up celebrating Mother's Day a week early this year due to the fact that this Sunday afternoon I fly off to New Orleans for our annual conference for ServiceNow.  

We all worked together and created a fun meal Sunday afternoon.  We marinated some steaks for half the day.  They were so tender and delicious.   We also gave Amber her gifts.  It was a Running mother's day as most of Amber's presents were to deal with her new running addiction.

Amber has her half marathon coming up in less than two weeks and already she is starting to study up on running a full marathon.  It is pretty amazing, especially at her age! ;-)

Rube Goldberg Show

Aylee and her lab partner, Mark Crandall, have been spending their time in their GT (Gifted and Talented) Solutions Science class building a Rube Goldberg machine.  These types of machines use gravity and other objects to perform unique functions that all contribute to an end goal.

For their machine, they had a marble roll down a foam tube where it landed on a plane of dominoes.  The dominoes would knock each other over successively until one would fall into a weighted box.  This would cause the box to fall and alternatively raise up the other end of the string that had caused a switch to touch a sprocket.  The switch allowed electricity to flow from a battery that caused the sprocket to turn.  The turning sprocket would light up a small light builb.  She then had part of our NXT (lego robot kit) positioned such that its light sensor would react to the lit light bulb.  The light from the light bulb would signal the NXT to turn on it's motor which then would pull a toy fish out of a small tank of water.  It was a pretty amazing machine!

They had a science fair at the middle school.  We took all of the kids to look at the various booths.  Mom had wanted to come but has been sick for quite some time, so Dad made a special trip up to see the science fair.  We enjoyed all of the booths and cool demonstrations.  Even the youngest of the kids thought it was an amazing event.

New herd of calves

On Thursday, for better or worse, I made some phone calls and ended up purchasing 18 holstein-jersey calves (with a few beef mix as well).  I ended up paying more per calf this year than I did last year, and these calves are a bit smaller as well.   We are getting in earlier than last year, though, so hopefully we can make it up with a couple more months of feeding.

I made a gamble and bought a lot more calves than last year.  We are hoping to fence off a neighbor's 22 acre field for some extra feed this year.  I had hoped to use the pasture on the other side of our property, but the people that kept their horses at our place last year beat us to the punch and got their horses in the other pasture before we approached our neighbors about doing the same.

Aylee and John have the responsibility of keeping the calves watered.  They also work together to grain the calves as well.  They have each put some money into the investment.  We are hoping for a decent return when we sell the small herd this fall/winter.

Our Last Supper (Day 7)

For the last evening of our 15-year anniversary getaway, Amber had hoped that we could do a moonlit picnic on the beach. I wasn't convinced this would be the funnest activity, but I was willing to give it a try.

We grabbed the lantern, some towels, and jackets at the apartment. We then went to a nearby deli and purchased some food and walked out onto the quiet Kailua Beach. The environment was fabulous. We didn't see anyone else on the beach. It felt like we had the peaceful scene to ourselves. We spread out our beach towels, turned on the lanterns, and laid out our little feast in front of us.

We had a great time sitting next to each other and sharing the food while talking and enjoying the constant sound of the surf as it washed up within a few feet of us with its never-ending, calm rhythm that makes the ocean beach such an amazing destination.

It was the perfect way to conclude our vacation together.

I'm so lucky to have Amber as my wife. With her at my side, I feel like I can take on the world. It was so good for us to spend that week together in Hawaii.

We are grateful to Jen and her family for taking care of things at home so that we could spend this much needed time together.

Mahalo and Aloha!

Lighthouse Hike (Day 7)

On our last day in Hawaii, we decided that we had had enough laying around and soaking up sun. We got our tennis shoes and donned the backpack and took up a nearby hike that overlooked an old lighthouse on the shore.

On the way up, we had to make sure to grab a geo-cache so that we could count Hawaii as one of the states in which we have found the hidden treasures. There were a number of them along this hike, but we only took the time to find a few of them. Earlier in the week, I climbed out on a rocky ridge above a wild shore and got yelled at by Amber as I retreived the cache. I figured that we should probably do a more calm geo-cache so that the memory would be a nice one rather than a more violent one ;-), so we grabbed these together on the hike.

Once we got to the top, Amber was a bit weary about the height of it all.  We decided to snap some pictures of the two of us on the summit. We were able to see a lot of different sites from the island from this vantage point. It was a beautiful perspective and were glad that we did the hike.

After the hike, we started to head back to our apartment but decided to stop off at a beach that is informally known as "from here to eternity beach".  The beach actually has an official name, however, many of the locals call it this as a famous movie scene was filmed on this beach for the movie, "From Here to Eternity".  The mid-20th century movie involved a steamy love scene of the stars rolling around and kissing on a small sandy shore of wild beach where the surf pounds the nearby rocks with its fury.

Amber and I had the beach to ourselves. So we took about 20 to 30 minutes setting the camera on auto shoot mode and doing some fun "From Here to Eternity" poses at the beach. I guess we were not the only ones having a good time, as after a while we looked up on the rocky cliff above us and found several people at the Lookout watching us set our camera and run into position to create comically steamy shots of two lovers on a wild shore.

Sunrise, Sunset (Day 5)

We wanted to make sure that while we were in Hawaii we would catch at least one sunrise and one sunset. On one of our days, we got both ends of the spectrum.

During our stay on Oahu we rented a small apartment in a small town called Kailua. He was a quiet town that had a beautiful long sandy beach that was not overcrowded. In the morning, we got up and rode bicycles provided by the apartment to the beach. There we walked along the shore talking and waiting for the sun to rise above the ocean horizon.

It was beautiful to see the sunrise above the water and to have the two of us on the beach with few other people.

We were the only ones on the beach, however, as it had been a windy morning several man-of-war jelly-type fish had washed up on the beach. Unknowingly, as we walked with her feet in the water one of them was washed across the top of Amber's feet. He gave her a good sting and left some welts on the top of her foot. Luckily it subsided after 10 or 15 minutes. However, we decided we would walk higher on the beach for the rest of the morning.

Later that day, we were on the North Shore of Oahu.  As the day drew to a close, we parked at Sunset Beach to watch the sunset. It had been difficult throughout the week to find a good sunset because at night we had several clouds come in and it would cover the sun. This was probably the best sunset we had on the beach. We wanted to make sure that we had a picture of the two of us at Sunset on Sunset Beach. We grabbed a passerby and asked them to take her picture in the waning sunlight.

Sea Turtle Visit - (Day 5)

Before we had left for Hawaii John asked us to take a picture of a sea turtle if we encountered one while we were there. Our fifth day in Hawaii we decided it was time to search out the elusive sea turtle. We got out our tour book and found some of the best beaches for sea turtles. We hit this beach on the North Shore and we were lucky enough to have a visit by an old sea turtle within 15 minutes of our stopping the beach.

It was fun to see this turtle swam up to shore and then climb up on the beach and just rest in the sun. There were some biologists are on the beach the rope had often talked a little bit about this particular sea turtle as well as the sea turtles in general. It was fun to learn a bit about them.

Snorkeling in Oahu (Day 2)

Our second real day in Oahu and make sure that we got some snorkeling in. The apartment we stayed at had snorkeling gear there that we could use. We threw it into the convertible and headed off to the nearby Hanauma Bay that is a nature reserve dedicated for snorkeling enthusiasts. It is a nice place to snorkel. There are tons of reef and fish. The only downside to this day was the number of people that were there. The good thing about snorkeling, however, is when you're inside the water everything is peaceful and quiet. It is amazing how the fish are so used to people swimming by them. We will swim right next to you at often follow you as you go along looking for the different varieties of life under the water.

This was our first time snorkeling in many years. We are both a little nervous so we thought it would be fun to hold hands under the water. If one of us started to swallow water or otherwise need to resurface we could squeeze each other's hand and pop up out of the water. This worked for a little while, however, as we got our bearings and felt comfortable with the masks were able to do this without keeping so close to each other.

One downside to snorkeling trip is that I lost my wedding band. I wore in the water because I have never had it slip off of my finger in the almost 15 years we've been married. The only thing that I can figure, is that while Amber and I were holding hands under the water swimming that maybe one of us yanked our hands free in order to maneuver and it must've pulled the ring off. I was quite bummed about losing my wedding band.

Snorkeling ended up being one of our favorite activities while we were on the island.

Lost

At the beginning of the year, Amber let me talk her into getting started with the TV series, "Lost".  We have really gotten into it and have enjoyed the series. For those of you familiar with the TV series, it is about a group of people that are involved in a plane wreck in crash on a deserted island. Some people thought it was a little funny when they saw us watching movies on the airplane about people who crashed while in flight. But it sure helped pass the six-hour flight between LA and Oahu.

We had read that the series was filmed on Oahu and we wanted to find at least one of the sites were some of the major scenes were filmed. We did a little research and found that the beach where most scenes take place on the TV series were filmed on a secluded beach on the North Shore of the island. In order to get to the speech, we had to park a ways down at a public park and walk along a rocky beach line to get to the popular scene.

On our way Amber and I were talking and I was ahead and she was behind me. While we were chatting, Amber screamed all of a sudden. I stopped dead in my tracks wondering what the world went wrong. She then indicated to me that within a few feet before I was walking there was a large seal resting in the sand. We had originally mistaken it for a piece of large driftwood, and I probably would've walked right up to it or even stepped on it. I was glad the Amber realized what was before we found out what it feels like to run away from an angry seal but was woken up from its nap.

We found the beach and took some pictures of it and the surrounding area. We had fun messing with the time delay function on our camera and we took some shots of the two of us.

As we started walking back to our car, Amber asked me to stop for a moment. She said that she had purchased a gift for me that she wanted to give to me on our trip to Hawaii. She had purchased it a few months ago and was waiting to give it to me while we were on the island. I open the small block house that she put into my hand and found a brand-new wedding band. She has wanted to give me a new wedding band for quite some time. 

I had lost my wedding ring a couple of days earlier when we had been snorkeling at Hanauma Bay. She thought that was quite ironic that I would lose our wedding band on the same trip that she had planned to give me a new one.  For added emphasis, or irony, she waited until we are on the beach where they filmed "lost" to give me my new wedding band to replace my lost one.

Perl Harbor

One of the things that Amber and I wanted to do while we were in Hawaii was to visit the Pearl Harbor Memorial. We've talked to several people that have done that before and they mentioned that the worst part about it was getting there early and standing in lines in order to get tickets that were at assigned for a certain time later that day. It really tied you up to be in that part of Hawaii for most of the day.

On the Saturday that we were there, we were nearby Pearl Harbor and so we decided to take a gamble. It was in the later part of the afternoon so we had no idea what to expect as far as crowds. When we went to the desk they told us that there were no more tickets for the day and that this was the last session that they were allowing through in the Memorial. They suggested that we come early the next day or go online and order tickets a couple days in advance.

We were turning around to leave when Amber suggested that we just try to make our way in with the last group regardless to see if they would let us get in. The last group had just gotten into the auditorium so we had to run to get over there. When we got there we asked the park rangers if there were any extra spaces and they said that there was. So we were able to hop right in without getting any tickets or without having to wait in line to do so.

They showed a good film about the events surrounding Pearl Harbor in the attack. And then they put you on a boat and ferry you off to the Memorial that they have erected above the sunken ship, the USS Arizona.

It was a good thing to do, and we were glad that we are able to get it for that day. We were especially glad that they were able to fit us in at the last moment.

Being a Big Helper can really Suck!

Amber had a neighbor coming over to our house today to work with her on some wood working.  The neighbor, a friend of ours, had just bought some tools and was wanting to learn how to use them.  We had the same tools, so she asked Amber if she could come over and help her with a project so that our friend could learn how to use the same tools.

In preparation for the visit, Amber was tidying up the garage so that they could have plenty of room to work.  Jace wanted to help, so he got out the ear muffs and the shop vac and went right to work.  It was funny...he took his job very seriously and did a tremendous job!

Family Home Shooting

John and I had a scout campout over Friday and Saturday. The scout master is a good friend of mine. We got to talking and decided it would be fun to have their family over for FHE on Monday night. Jared said he could bring some clay pigeons and his thrower. He only had a 12 gauge shotgun, so it was my repsonsibility to find a good shotgun for the kids.

On Saturday, Amber and I shopped for guns and found a 500 Bantam Mossberg 20 gauge shotgun that was cut for youth. It is a fun little gun.

On Monday night, their family showed up. We built a fire by the barn and roasted hotdogs and smores. We set up the thrower and shot skeet for a good portion of the time. Aylee and John really enjoyed shooting the gun.

We also had Aylee's bow and arrow in use in another section of the field for the kids. John let us borrow his BB gun and we set up targets for the smallest kids and helped them shoot as well.

We had just a little rain and wind just as we got started, but it cleared off nicely and we all had a great time.

Polynesian Cultural Center

On the same day as our trip to the temple, Amber and I spent the second part of that day at the Polynesian Cultural Center.

It was really an amazing place. We went to just about every show provided by the center. They had a number of island systems represented at the center and each one had shows and presentations as well as hands on workshops. We only were able to do a few workshops, but spent most of our time viewing the different cultural shows.

We ended the evening first with a Lu'au dinner at the center and then a big finale type presentation. At the dinner we sat next to a small family from Wisconsin. We found out they were LDS just near the end of our time together. We mentioned to them that we were planning on going to Nauvoo in this fall with the kids. They had friends that own a house in Nauvoo. For most of the year it is empty and they rent it out for free with a request that you donate a specific amount of money to Fast Offerings. Pretty interesting concept. We'll have to check it out if our Nauvoo plans involve an overnight stay.

Hukilau Cafe

Our first lunch in Hawaii was held at a place we found quite by accident.  After our temple session in La'ie, we opened up the urbanspoon app on the iphone and chose an authentic Hawaiian place called the Hukilau Cafe.  It was funny, this really was like a hole in the ground, but you could truly say it was authentic.  We ordered the "Loco Moco" meal and shared it between the two of us.  We discovered that we really probably didn't care much for authentic Hawaiian :)  

The Loco Moco is a dish of white rice with a hamburger patty and an egg on top and then smothered with brown gravy.  It wasn't terrible, but was just bland and a little greasy.

We saw a poster of the movie, "Fifty first dates".  We could tell there was some significance there.  We looked it up and found out that the Hukilau Cafe was featured in the movie, however, it was only featured in name, not actual location.  They purchased rights to use the name in their movie, but chose to have a fake set of a more glamorous restaurant than the corner, five-tabled shack of its namesake.

La'ie Temple Visit

On Thursday morning, our first day in Hawaii, Amber and I decided to get up early in the morning and head to the La'ie Temple to do a session. We wanted to hit an early session which wouldn't be a problem since our internal clocks were still set to Mountain time. So, getting up at 6:00 in Oahu, is like getting up at 10am in Idaho.

We traveled the hour drive up the east coast of Oahu to get to the temple. It was fun to do so with our convertible's top down! It was a beautiful drive.

We hit the 8am session, and knowing the Polynesian Cultural Center wouldn't be open for another 90 minutes when the session was over, we did a sealing session as well. We were the only couple on the sealing session. It was just us and the sealer and witnesses. It was cozy and nice. The Hawaii temple has small comfortable rooms that you moved to throughout the session similar to the Idaho Falls temple. It was a great experience and a wonderful way to kick off the week together.

Race Day

A few weeks ago, Amber found that there was going to be a race in Kailua where we are staying here in hawaii. She signed up for the race to say she went to hawaii to run a race :).

When we picked up her packet we saw that she was runner number one! She must have been the first person to register for the race.

I'm sitting on a park bench blogging about our trip as she runs the race. I'm looking forward to her strong hawaiian finish!