Steve and Laura

This is Rob's cousin and his wife. Also known as Steve and Laura.

 And this is us.

 Rob and Steve have known each other for a long time. Actually their whole lives. We knew of them and would see them here and there at family functions but that was about it. Then around Christmas we were all at Rich and Steph's and decided we needed to get together just us adults. No kids.

We set a date to to hang out at Steve and Laura's and wouldn't you know...Rich and Steph couldn't find a babysitter. Rob and I had never hung out with S&L on our own and wondered if we should cancel and do it another night when we all could be there, because sometimes it's nice to have a buffer. We finally decided that S&L couldn't be all that bad so we kept our plans and made one of the best decisions of our lives. We spent that Saturday night and every Saturday night for the next six weeks with S&L. We watched football together, we played Rockband, we ate, we played Rockband, we laughed, Rob helped put together baby furniture, we played Rockband, we went shopping, we went to dinner and we played just a little more Rockband.

We have had the best time hanging out with these two(soon to be three!) and we are so happy that a couple months ago we took the leap and found out what great friends they are!

This is our night at Chandlers. Great food and great company!

Love Day

These were Emily and Taylor's valentines this year. I loved them!

 We have traditions in our house that we stick to for certain holidays. Two of ours for Valentine's Day are heart shaped pizza and red drinks with whipped cream and sprinkles. I have been really watching what we eat(no more boxed, ready made stuff) so I made our pizzas. For Rob and I it was caramelized onion and prosciutto pizza. A little olive oil, salt and Parmesan on the crust, mozzarella, caramelized onion and prosciutto on top. Super yummy!

 For the kids it was pepperoni and olive. I didn't use pizza sauce, I used crushed tomatoes, olive oil and salt, turkey pepperoni, colby jack cheese and olives. And they devoured it.

 For the drinks we did 100% juice(apple raspberry) and heavy cream that I whipped. And salad of course.

I did do valentine peeps, which I will never do again cause they were hard and gross, and conversation hearts because what valentine's day is complete without conversation hearts?

It was a great evening spent with the loves of my life.

The Great Comb Disaster of 2010

We had a meeting to go to so Terry came over to watch the kids. After she left I went to tuck Emily in and turn off her light and I noticed this:

 Is that a comb in her hair?! I  looked closer.

 Yep! The girl had, apparently, started playing with a comb after she was in bed, got it stuck, couldn't get it out and went to sleep. Being a rat tail comb I didn't want to leave it in and have her poke herself in the night so the process of untangling it begun. I thought it would be fairly simple. Boy was I wrong! I'm not sure what she did but that comb was good and stuck. First Rob tried to do it without waking her up. That worked for a few minutes but all that tugging didn't go unnoticed by our girl.

How she got her hair wrapped around the comb like this I will never know.

 Before long we had her in our bed and Rob was bending the comb and pulling her poor hair trying to get it out. I just knew we were going to have to cut it out. She was so tired that she kept telling us to cut it so she could go back to bed. 

 He was able to break the comb in a few spots and get the hair off. It was a slow process but it was working.

 We even managed to get a few smiles out of her.

 An hour and many pieces later the comb was finally out. It took another half hour and a whole lot of de-tangler to get the tangles out. Lesson learned...hopefully.

If it was the right thing to do...

...then why do i feel so bad?

We sold Kya last night. This is one of the pictures we used to list her.

She looks so sweet and innocent doesn't she?

Then I think of all the H-E-double hockey sticks she put me through in the last two and half years.
-ripped my favorite mother's day swing to shreds.
-chewed the siding on the house.
-dug huge holes in the yard.
-killed three of our neighbors chickens.
-barks every time I go into the garage.
The list could go on and on.

But then I think of the times that she didn't bother me.
-When we go camping and she wears herself out running all day and we find her curled up on our air mattress by 7:00.
-After she had been hunting with Rob and she was tuckered out and so calm.
Yep, that's about it.

I had talked about getting rid of her for a long time. After the chicken incident I was done. She was a good dog but far too hyper to be couped up in our back yard all the time. We didn't have the time, or the motivation to get her out like she needed every day to run all that energy off. I talked to Rob about it a couple of times, pled my case and he finally agreed that the eight days of hunting he does a year did not necessitate having a dog the other 357 days.

I took some pictures of her and put them online. Because it wasn't necessary that we sell her we were going to be really picky about who we let take her. She needs lots of attention and even more room to run so that was very important in anyone that wanted to look at her. We didn't get any calls on her the first couple weeks and I was starting to think we may have her forever. Then we had a call from a guy in HOmedale. He wanted to come see her but didn't know when he could get out here. Great. The next day we received another call.  He lived on a farm outside of Ontario. Sounded like a good fit on the phone so he said he would come by at 6:30. Turns out he has 160 acres between Ontario and Vale and he had a German short hair for 12 years and just had to put him down three weeks ago. He said he's always had 2 or 3 dogs running around and didn't know what to do without a dog around. He saw Kya for about 15 minutes and said he wanted her.

We let the kids say goodbye and it was downhill from there. Emily and Tay were crying and before long Rob started in too. I started to think that maybe my decision to get rid of her was selfish and, maybe I hadn't really thought of what it might mean to everyone else. I felt terrible. If it was the right thing to do then why did I feel so bad? I started talking to Taylor and was explaining that even though it's hard to say goodbye Kya was going to be so much happier where she can run and be free. She can chase birds, chase the tractor and run until she can run no more. In the end I knew we had done the right thing but, I've learned, the right thing isn't always the easy thing.

Signs of Life

I was walking around the house today and a little frustrated at the amount of stuff that was all over. Then I started to think of them as signs of life. Sure it would be nice if the house was picked up all the time but I kind of like seeing the signs that people actually live here. Signs like:

Austin's clothes piled on the floor of the bathroom. I have to ask him to pick them up almost

every. single. afternoon.

 Emily's line of shoes along with her backpack and coat by the front door.

 This mountain of animals that she piled up sometime AFTER she went to bed.

Her shower buddies. A place for everyone and everyone in its place.

 The sports page left by the heater. Taylor sits here every day and reads the sports page while he warms up in the morning. 

 My dry erase board that Emily likes to draw notes on. She wrote the first line, I wrote the second and she wrote the third.

Austin's forms for lacrosse.

 Taylor's football that is almost never out of his sight.

Now, I've got crayons rolling around in the floorboard of my car

Bicycles all over my driveway, bats and balls all over my yard

And there's a plastic man from outer space sitting in my chair

The signs of life are everywhere

-Steven Curtis Chapman

Winter Carnival

Marc and Skye invited us to the Winter Carnival in McCall this past weekend. I hadn't been in years.

And by years I mean Y-E-A-R-S. Let's see...wavy hair, glasses...yep it was junior high last time I made my way to the Carnival. We gladly accepted and packed up Emily and Tay, Austin had an overnighter the previous night so he was home sawing logs, and headed north.

After getting out of the car the kids noticed some friends wandering around. And they weren't the least bit afraid of us. This one was actually, ever so slowly, walking towards the kids. I got the picture and then made them retreat to a safer locale.



We started to walk into town and noticed that somehow we had taken the same route as the parade was going. Hellooooo McCall!!

This was the actual beginning of the parade. Can you believe all the people?! I don't think I have ever seen that many people in McCall at one time. The parade was fun and full of candy and mardi gras beads being thrown.

We were completely unprepared and had no idea where all of the sculptures were. We ended up only seeing five the whole day.

Aren't we a hodge podge mess...