Redneck BBQ

What do you do when the bottom of your BBQ rusts out??

Cook your steak on a rock of course!

We tested out our new little fire pit and used a piece of slate to cook our steak :) way to be resourcefull, Scott
Lane thought it was pretty fun, and then remembered that on Shrek, they cooked an egg on a rock and he wanted to try it....so he and scott cooked an egg on the rock...

Good times :) the steaks turned out pretty good!

Make the best of it

It all started like this:

Innocent enough
do you see the mischeivious grin??

Then she got Lane into the action

good thing they were clean,.... I guess....

So why was my laundry hanging out to dry anyways, you ask?? Well i was trying to go "green" of course.....RIGHT!!!! My dryer decided it was done with it's earthly mission...no problem....i can hang clothes out to dry....well that was cool until the next day my WASHING machine decided it was NOT going to work alone so IT died too!! Lame....it's ok...we got new(ish) ones after a few days so all is well again with the world....

Settler's Day

I think if we had to live in a town, I would like Deer Park. It's a cute little town, and has lots of fun little community traditions. One of the traditions we like is "settler's day" It has a parade, and they games/fair in the park. We actually got there in time for the parade this year, AND got to sit in the shade along the road!

Lucy and Scott watching the parade
Lane being a silly. Modeling his sweet water bottle

One of the funniest things i've seen in a parade was when smokey the bear came. He was walking along and kids would run up and give him a hug. Lane decided he wanted to run out and give him a hug, and when he was walking back, smokey bent over to give another kid a hug and his head fell off!!!! it was helarious...the parade announcer was like..."AHHH DON"T LOOK KIDS!!!!" hehe...it was good stuff

Then we headed to the park for games and stuff...They have a little petting zoo for the kids...Lucy thought that part was pretty fun!

Lane also liked the petting zoo but was NOT a fan of getting his picture taken, and mama was tooo slow with the shutter to catch him :) He's walking out of the picture on the right...

Here's Lucy getting ready for her foot race. Maybe it's just me, but watching about 20 little kids under the age of 2 running a race is about the cutest thing ever!!

Lucy was DEAD last in her race...:) it was awesome.

Lane getting ready for his race. He was pretty excited becuase last year he WON his race, but this year he got third....and he was NOT happy about that. It's tough learning that lesson...but he went and got his "prize money" anyways....

they do a "penny scramble" for the little kids....they just throw a bunch of change out in the grass and let the kids pick it up and keep it. Lucy thought that was a fun game.

it was a fun day! the kids are getting better at outings like this! Even macy did pretty good. Until next year!

Huckleberry time!

I will preface this post with the disclaimer that I have turned into a complete slacker in the picture taking department!!!

We went to Baldy mountain to pick huckleberries today!!! It was so much fun, and such a pretty drive up the mountain. I love that we can drive down the road and up a mountain in almost any given direction!

Our picker pair! Lane was a great picker this year, and once lucy got the hang of it, you could set her in front of a bush and let her go at it. Of course none got in the BUCKET, just her mouth. But at least she was happy!! She would even pick a bunch and go "share" them with Macy....aka: Stuff them in Macy's mouth :) It was so cute. By the day's end, poor macy had a lap-full of berries, and a very purple stained shirt!
This is Lane modeling how to put the bucket on your belt for easier picking...

Scott and macy getting ready to walk and pick.

here's the stash. I think we did pretty darn good for a couple hours of picking with 3 little kids!

This is for my friends and family in Ohio that have never seen or heard of a huckleberry. This is what they look like......they're amaaaazing :)

So we have a little stash to freeze for the winter. I'm excited to try and make a huckleberry pie....and of course huckleberry milkshakes...mmmmmmm

Magic

When I was a little girl, I had a list of places in my life that were magical.

1. My grandma's backyard, when she lived in her "old" house. I don't even know what town it was in, but somewhere in Utah. It had a little play house tucked into a little shady nook. It had a trampoline. It had little stone paths were under the shade of giant arching branches, that led to different areas of the yard including a little fire pit where we could roast marshmellows. This magnificent back yard was probably about 700 square feet if i were to look at it now, but when i was a kid, it was enchanting and magical.

2. My back yard growing up. There was a giant tree that we would climb in and i had my favorite branch that i would sit on for "hours" :) There were terraces which seemed like great walls of china that I could walk along, and at the bottom of the three terraces a wide path that curved around under a row of trees, and when you walked along the grass and looked up, it seemed like you were in some enchanted (or haunted depending on the day) forrest. And at the end of the path our neighbor had a giant tree that grew these freakishly large balls that we appropriately called "monkey brains" becuase really....there was no other way to describe these things. I still, to this day, have no idea what they are. But we would play with them for "hours" and heaven help the poor soul who was tagged with one during dodge ball. It was magical.

3. Our fireplace growing up. I lived in the suburbs and so we didn't do campfires very often (except the occasional garage fire me and my brother ignited...but...thats another story) SO when we had fires in our fireplace, i remember sitting by the hearth watching it, mezmorized. And then we would get our roasting sticks and roast marshmellows in it. It was magical.

4. The Big Pit: We had these woods at the edge of our neighborhood that me, my brother, and our neighborhood gang would spend pretty much our entire summer in. There was a little park by the woods, and we found a neat little path that led to a dried up creek bed, i guess is what it was. But it had huge walls of dirt on either side, so to us it was like the grand canyon. We named it the big pit and had all kinds of games we played there. There was a giant cement culvert that we could go through and play hide and seek in (don't worry mom,...there was rarely ever water in it :)) and in the winter sometimes it would freeze up and we could ice skate on it. These woods were also the home to "midnight" our resident warewolf that i was terrified of until i was at least in junior high.....magical....

There are more to the list, but those are the bigs ones I've thought about lately as my kids are growing, and my desire to create magic for my kids in their childhood is surfacing.....

I think the place we've chosen to live has a lot of "magic" potential for our kids. I guess, that's assuming our kids get the same kick out of the great outdoors that me and scott do. When Scott and I barely started dating, I knew he was a keeper when one night we were talking about things we'd like to have in our "yard" someday, and he said he wanted to build his kids a "tree fortress" like the swiss family robinsons. I'd never even seen that movie at the time, but I had always had envisioned my future kids having a tree fortress with swinging bridges through the trees.....destiny......anyways, I digress :)......we've started to come up with some ideas for our yard that i'm excited about....

Scott made us a log porch swing.....i LOVE IT

this is showing the sweet rocks we're uncovering in our back yard. We're still deciding what to do with the hillside, it may be a launch site for a future zip line :)

Scott found a place to get free slate drops. So we decided to make a slate fire pit. We've got about 1/3 of it done, and i think it's awesome. Here's what we've done so far.....

It's going to be inbetween two lines of rocks, so it's kind of hidden looking at it from the driveway. I think it's so fun becuase the rocks are big and fun to climb on, so while we're having our s'more's festivities or whatever, the kids, and me, can be jumping and climbing on the rocks. FUN

This is the view standing on one of the big rocks. We might need to make the fire circle a little bigger...not sure yet. But all that area will be slated.

One row of rocks. It's amazing to see them like this. I should have taken more "before" pictures of what all this looked like when we were building our house. I didn't even know some of these rocks were here becuase the brush was so thick.

more rock views....

anyways...just one of many little "projects" we have planned. We have to make our house the coolest place on the planet, so our kids won't feel jipped about living out in the boonies with no friends around :) who needs friends when they'll have such fun things to do at home, right?? :) we'll see.....

Jareth look alike?

I choppe off all my hair today......YAY!!!

I think it is fun and sassy....

Scott, however, thinks that I look like David Bowie from "The Labyrinth"

that david bowie sure had good taste in hair-do's!!

BFF's

We have a little friend here at the lake. He and Lucy are good friends, and they  have lots of fun hanging out :) We'll have to watch these two in like 15 years!

geepers creepers

Look at those peepers!!!!

Scott is mortified that I'm posting a picture of him. But I had to post about his new eyes!! Scott got lasik surgery in may and is LOVING life without glasses. YAY!

Visitors

A little friend built a house on our front porch ligh.....

I think it's amazing how theycan build these nests...

Look what's inside!!!! it'll be fun to see them hatch :)

Independance Day

Here's some pics from Independance day! We had a fun day. Kayaking and playing on the beach in the morning, naps, BBQ, then fireworks!! YAY

I made some cute flowers for the girls....we'll start with Macy's :)

Lane and Macy are so cute. As crazyas lane is sometimes, he can be a really sweet big brother. He still likes to make the babies laugh,and he lets them "get him" and wrestle, gives hugs, and still likes to sing songs to the girls before bed time....it's so sweet. I love this picture of macy.....she's such a cutie!

Macy loves her big brother too! Whenever she hears him she gets a big smile!

All the babes and their flag shirts! YAY for America!!

I couldn't get her to take her had out of her mouth

two american girls!

I had to put this one in.....lucy's face is awesome!

My flower...

Me and my guy...

The kids had fun watching fireworks this year! We were slackers and didn't even buy one sparkler!!!! Always next year!