Paintball - August 2010

Tim and I have a new obsession...paintballing. We were able to get out a few times this year and even convinced my nearly 64 year old mother to tag along one night. She totally rocks!



Skinner refuses to wear long sleeves and then gets mad when someone makes him bleed. Cover your skin! Duh!

Some more first timers...Sue and Kim had a blast!

Squirt

One day I found Squirt asleep in Andrew's bed, like this...

I'm not sure where the rest of his body is.

Summer Fun - August 2010

I don't care who you are, that's funny right there.

Diesen Family Reunion July 2010

We had a long awaited Diesen family reunion in July. Everyone was able to make it except for Mike and Amy and their kiddos...and Lori's husband and their older, married kids. What can I say...it was amazing! We played hard on the lake, played some goofy board games, got served breakfast every morning by my dad playing chef in his new outdoor kitchen, and sat for hours talking and laughing around the camp fire.

Several people are missing from this picture but this was the night we were all first assembled in the yurt.


Joe and dad in his outdoor kitchen and some other random stuff.


Eatin'and chattin'


Grandma Sue getting bombarded by grandkids wanting a ride.


Andrew and Tim sailing on the Escape.


Timmy and some of the boys fishing.


Chillaxin' on the dock


Suzy style snorkeling.


Some of the kids got to learn how to load and fire a potato cannon.


Andrew burning ants.


Rachel


Anni


Mya


The stupid dog had a field day licking Aaron's armpit. Yummy.


Aaron and Crista's beautiful handstands...and a cool picture of Kelsey.


Tim


Aaron


You can't go to the lake and not expect some nudity. (Lilly)


My cute daddy...


...and in his kitchen again.


Finley the dog was sooo sad to see Morgan leave. He had found a new best friend!


Moi


The girls...me, Lor, Suzy, Nik


And last but not least, although my parents have had their wave runner now for several years, no one has ever actually read the warning label. It totally gave us the giggles. "Severe internal injuries can occur if water is forced into body cavities as a result of falling into water or being near jet thrust nozzle. Normal swimwear does not adequately protect against forceful water entry into lower body opening(s) of males or females." What?! I don't even want to know how something like that happens.

Dogsitting 101

A few months ago my sister and her family packed up for a big vacation over to Missouri to see some of her husbands family. They couldn't take their dog, and had just planned on leaving him at their place and have some friends check in on him daily. I was like, 'Oh that's silly...just bring him here and we'll watch him.' Uggghhh. I'm such a moron sometimes.

Finley the dog is a big time country dog. My sister lives on 5 acres, and surrounding that five acres is just more and more acres. Finley is used to running wild and free...and he's used to the attention of my sisters' 7 kids. I live in town, on a tiny lot, surrounded by other houses where dogs are either fenced in or on leashes...and I have 1 kid. We don't have a fence, so to keep him from running off...which he wanted to do badly...we had to keep him tied to the trampoline or stuck inside my house...where it became evident on my new floors that he is a constant drooler.

The very first thing he did when he got here was wander into my backyard and plant the largest, and unfortunately softest, dookie I have every seen in my entire life. I think he was nervous about his family leaving or something because he emptied the entire contents of his lower intestine onto my lawn. It was about the size of a large serving platter...not a regular plate...a serving platter...and about 8 inches high. I honestly had no idea a dog could have that much poop in him at any one time. Sorry...but it was amazing. Anyway, I paid Andrew 5 bucks to clean it up because there was no way I was going to be able to do it without losing my cookies. Andrew will do just about anything for money...but when he started dry-heaving about halfway through the job, I think he realized he got the raw end of the deal.

The first day we had him, I think Andrew took that stupid dog on about 27 walks. The novelty of having a dog! We took the dog over to one of the parks in the neighborhood that has a little hill we sled on in the winter, and Finley started running down it. Andrew held onto his leash for dear life...then he tripped...and kept holding on as Finley drug him down the hill at a full run. It was classic.

Aside from the poop, Andrew had a lot of fun with Finley. Andrew's best friend has a beagle, so the boys had a great time walking the dogs together.



Finley is a ridiculously sweet dog but I wore out fast. My new floors were covered in dog hair and drool. When he was outside he had to be chained to the trampoline as we don't have a tree in the back. If you've ever chained a stupid dog to a trampoline you know that they are constantly getting tangled in the many trampoline legs. To let us know that he didn't like being chained he was more than happy to share his annoying high pitched squeaky style bark...nonstop.

On day 3, we were all going a little stir crazy. For Andrew, the novelty of entertaining Finley was starting to wear off, and poor Finley was feeling cramped in town. So we packed up in the car, and drove up to Rock Creek for some fishing and swimming. It was glorious. The only snafu was when the dog decided to swim directly into our friends' fishing lure and get his leg hooked. He was oblivious though. I don't think he felt it because he just wanted to keep swimming.



The original plan was to dogsit for a week and then take him up to the lake and let my mom watch him the following week, after which my sister and other siblings would be showing up at the lake for a family reunion which I'll get to in another post. I couldn't last another minute. So, four days into it, I grabbed Andrew and his friend Ben and Finley and we headed up to Flathead. We spent the day swimming, canoeing and visiting with my parents and then I quite happily went home dogless. That silly dog loved being at the lake...no barking problems...no running away problems...and my parents have no idea where he was pooping because they have yet to find so much as a pebble.

Grandma

My grandma turned the big 9-0 on May 1st. Woohoo! We had tried planning a huge blowout with tons of family coming in from all over but it just didn't materialize. Some family came up and spent her actual birthday with her. Andrew and I made it up with my sister and her family and my parents over mothers day weekend.

Because there were so many of us...mostly my sister's small, screaming children, we were in no way going to all be able to fit in grandma's house to spend the night. One of my uncles was already staying over with grandma as it was. So my uncle Roger loaned us his very cute, very small, very rustic, true Montana style lake cabin. It was pouring rain outside and crazy cold. We had a great time. We stuffed some of the kids up in the loft, scattered some on the floor, and the adults stayed up into the wee hours of the morning playing the train game...and a few of us didn't smell so good, if you know what I mean...not a good thing when you're all crammed in a small space.

Grandma with her four kids, including my cute mommy.



Random pics...unfortunately I didn't take many pictures.



Going to church with grams. She loves taking family to church with her.
(What little sun there was, was sure blinding all of us. Look at poor Turner!)



On the way home, we came upon this rainbow over the lake. It was a true double rainbow...which you can't really see here. It's not a great picture. It was raining hard and I was trying to not get hit by a car so I just snapped quick. It was so close...just sitting there in the water right off the shore. As we rounded the corner it moved with us for a while and then we drove right through it and it disappeared over the top of the car. Rainbows are cool but rainbows over Flathead Lake are fabulous.

And grandmas are especially fabulous.

Spring Ski 2010

We are a ski family. Unfortunately we didn't get nearly as much skiing in last season as we would have liked...not because we couldn't go but because there was just so darn little snow. Did that just rhyme? Anyway, we always have a blast when we do get out and we're always sure to do at least one spring ski. We did a trip last March...the three of us, Andrew's cousin Jackson, and a friend of Tim's came along as well. We had a lot of fun. I think they were having Hawaiian Days or something if I remember correctly. Down one of the runs, they had a big bbq going on with hot dogs, hamburgers and chips and drinks. Most of the liftees and ski patrol were in hoola skirts, coconut bras, that type of stuff.

It was a seriously gorgeous day.



Below is Jackson's 'yard sale'. Tim let the boys take turns with the GPS so they could see how fast they were skiing. If I know anything about boys...you give them any opportunity for competition, especially involving speed, they're going to get a little crazy.

28.9 mph and crash.



And then there was this guy.



Ahhh, wuv...twuu wuv.



Rumor has it we're going to have a good snow year...fingers crossed!