Fair Week

I hate the fair. It was great fun when I was younger but now it does absolutely nothing except give me a giant headache. And now I don't even have to ride the rides to feel like I'm going to throw up. Just watching them spinning around does enough damage. Especially when it's 98 degrees and muggy and everybody stinks.
I will admit I did have a little fun despite the giant headache. Andrew begged and begged to go to our fair this year (the last several years we've skipped ours and gone up to the little po-dunk county fair in Plains with my sisters family). This year was more fun I suppose because Tim was able to come along beings that we stayed in town. He impressed all the kids in the fun house by spinning into a handstand in the big spinning barrel. Andrew thought his dad was 'the man'. The funnest part was the ridiculously huge lightning storm that rolled in and sent everyone into a frenzy. Andrew was freaked out and I was disappointed because I had just bought some fry bread that ended up getting soaked in the rain. I haven't seen a lightning storm like that in a while. It was a great way to end the day! We managed to get on the shuttle bus alive which was a huge relief for Andrew. We were soaked through - fry bread and all - but I have to admit we did have a great time.

Me & Andy on the Ferris Wheel
Go Timmy go! 1/4 of the way there...use those muscles!

almost there - hang on!

Glad to be out of the rain & lightning and on our way home!

More Summer Vacation

Okay - to be honest I am quite pooped! After Hemlock Lake we came home for one night and then went up to my sisters house in Plains the next day. We spent one night there and then packed up in the car again with her family and drove another hour or so to another lake that was a bugger to get to (about 19 miles on a very dusty dirt road once off the highway). We spent about 4 hours there, packed up and headed back to Plains. Unfortunately my camera decided not to work so I have no pictures of that little excursion. We spent another night in Plains and went to church with my sister and her family on Sunday and then headed off to Flathead Lake Sunday evening. The next day at Flathead some friends of ours showed up unexpectedly and we decided to go back to their place and load up their boat and drive it around the lake to my parents place. Andrew had tons of fun. He's only been on my parents' wave runner so this was his first real boat ride.

We are finally home for a while now and Tim is back at work after 7 days off. Boy did he need that vacation badly but we are both glad to be home! My lawn desperately needs to be mowed though and I've got lots of laundry to do. I don't care though, anything to keep me out of the car for a while.

Hemlock Lake Hike

We got back today from a great hike in the Mission Mountains. Tim and I realized that after 9 1/2 years of marriage we had yet to do a real, honest to goodness overnight backpack trip together as a family. With my parents having their home on Flathead Lake, that has pretty much become our recreation spot. But I married a true outdoorsman and that just doesn't quite quench all of his outdoorsy desires. Tim grew up hiking in the Missions and he tells Andrew stories all the time about his trips. He still goes at least once a year but we've just never gotten around to doing it together. Andrew has been dying to go hiking in the Missions like his daddy and catch some fish. So that's just what we did - finally! We camped at the trail head to Hemlock Lake and hiked in the next day. We spent about 5 hours on the lake - Tim and Andrew caught a couple of yummy fish that became our lunch and Andrew and I were kept entertained by a very curious deer. We hiked out that evening and camped another night. Andrew is quite the little trooper. Hiking 8 miles in a day in the mountains is nothing to sneeze at and this was just his maiden voyage. It was fantastic fun but I am soooo looking forward to my memory foam mattress tonight!

Oh thou blessed huckleberries
Reaching the wilderness boundary (a huge fire went through this area a couple years ago)
Oh so pretty
Chugging along

We made it!
These boys love to fish!
This silly deer kept coming around to check us out.
(she's next to Andy's right hip in the picture)
Mom & Andrew

4th of July!

We are back from 6 days on Flathead Lake and are completely wiped out! We had planned a huge (100 plus people) family reunion up there over the 4th but most everyone cancelled at the last minute because of gas. I don't blame them as most were coming up from Arizona. My brother Aaron came over from Seattle so of course we had lots of fun with him. Andrew just adores him! Actually everybody does. (Any nice chicks out there looking for a good catch - he's single!) And my sis, Nikole, made it over for one day with her 7 kids. My Uncle Fred and two of his grandkids were able to come up for a few days also. And beings that we weren't going to have a hundred people, we invited Tim's parents up along with his grandma. Tim's grandma is not a huge fan of water but he conviced her to go on the wave runner with him! The weather was beautiful and the lake was fantastic! I'm a little sore from wakeboarding yesterday and having my head banged around while being drug on the tube. (Once you get past 30, stuff like this just hurts more.) Aaron is by far the best tubing partner as he gets the giggles and you can't help but laughing the entire time. Andrew had a blast driving the wave runner and getting a little more brave on the tube. But he is definately worn out! He was so ready to get home and play with his best friend, Ben. Thanks mom and dad for letting us raid your lake property!

Lexie, Wiley, Bailey & Andrew
Andrew
Andy & Grandma Sue
Sending Aaron back off to Seattle.
Thanks for the giggly tube rides Aar!

Fatness

This is a fine example of something that Tim and I call 'fatness'. We use this terminology for many things, mainly our own body parts, but in this case it works perfectly for our cat Squirt. He loves to sit on this end table and spread his fatness across to the window. That hangy down stuff is not fur, it is true fatness.

My Pants!

These are my favorite pants in the whole wide world. I even bought two of them so I can wear one pair while the others are in the wash. I work out in them, I lounge in them, I work in the yard and garden in them, etc, etc. They are ultra comfy, lightweight, and versatile for my day to day projecting. The other day we decided to go for a family bike ride. I put on my favorite pants. A few blocks behind our house is a big field currently being developed. Right now it's mainly just a big field of dirt hills that the neighborhood kids have carved a bunch of dirt bike jumps into. Somehow that's where we ended up after riding around the neighborhood for a while. Being of a certain age now, I'm not nearly as daring as I used to be. But Tim insisted that I go up and over this one hill. I had watched him do it a bunch of times so I couldn't let him think I was a total weeny. It was pretty steep and narrow and pointy at the top and left very little room for error. So I started peddling as fast as I could to get to the top and then I don't know what happened. Just when I got to the top, the bike decided it wanted to veer off to the right and send me plummeting down the hill towards a giant rock. I had to bail. As I was flying through the air all I could think of was, "MY PANTS". I raspberried both elbows, and scraped and bruised my knee. But I was really worried to assess the damage to my pants. I brushed off the dirt as best I could - not a single tiny tear in those darn pants. They truly are the best in the whole wide world.

Projecting

I inherited this sometimes irritating trait from my parents of always needing to be projecting on something. I've had people ask me, when Andy's in school and me not working out of the home, don't I get bored? Are you kidding me!! There is always something to do. The reason this trait can be a little irritating is I tend to get sidetracked before one project is done and I get started on a new one. I was in the process of making new curtains for Andy's room (they are mostly done) and decided to build him a climbing wall. We actually decided last Christmas to do a wall and even got him some jug holds and t-nuts from Santa but they've sat in his closet ever since. (He begged us for this stuff!) One wall in his bedroom is 11 feet high so it's perfect. Don't worry, we plan on being safe with ropes and harnesses and all that stuff. I had Andy help me paint on some primer and then we'll paint it with some sand paint for extra grip. If I don't follow up this post with pictures of the finished product you can assume it turned out stupid. (I was also projecting on getting the garage cleaned up but you can see I haven't gotten far). Sorry the picture quality isn't great but I can blame that on Tim since he took it.