What the Guys Did

Gary, his friend Marshall, son-in-law Mike, Mike's dad and nephew, went to Moab. They had a wonderful time. Gary wanted to tell the story of this trip, so maybe he willl edit this tonight. You can click or double click on the pictures to make them bigger.

OH SAY CAN YOU SEE

Everyone enjoyed the trip to Fort McHenry. They unrolled a flag the was the size of the flag that flew over the Fort when Frances Scott Key penned the words to THE STAR SPANGLED BANNER. below the Park Ranger is telling Susan and Emily (and everyone else)about the British Invasion that happened in 1964.... Emily was like uhh, she is more of a Hannah Montana fan.

I wish I could have shared Fork McHenry with Gary....I'm going to go back

Just before we left we got a picture with the Park Ranger......More Fork McHenry pictures in a couple of days. Gary thinks I need to blog about the trip the guys took, while we were gone.

More Maryland Merriment

Story at the bottom--because I'm not a very good blogger....the pictures are not in order either.

I Loved the trip to Maryland, I enjoyed every outing we went on, and I enjoyed staying home and playing with the grandkids. Nicole picked up a flyer for a Pirate ship ride, so that's what we decided to do. We headed to Baltimore's Inner Harbor. What we didn't know was that Baltimore was also having Privateer Day's in Fell's Point. There were Pirates everywhere. There were actors dressed up and just "Normal people" dressed in costume,

hoping for a best dressed prize. Oh, and they loved to have their pictures taken.

BLAST FROM THE PAST

In April my daughters, Amy and Susan and the grandkids flew to Baltimore MD to see John and Nicole and Hadley and Jillian. We didn't take the husbands, I'll post what they did later. John and Tucker had all us girls to themselves. I really enjoyed the trip and will post a few pictures, over the next few days. Above Hadley loves to play dress up, and Tucker joined the fun.

Nicole and Jillian, Jillian is getting so big.

Payton and Jillian--- what little cuties

Hadley.... it was so much fun to see her again, and thanks to SKYPE, it was almost like they hadn't been gone for so long. None of that -- getting to know each other. More tomorrow

I'm Back

Gary really wanted me to start blogging again, not sure why. I don't think he even reads my blog, but he does tell his friends about it. He wants to share all of our ATV trips. So even though I don't have a lot to say, and I usually post about ATV's or grandkids. I guess I'm back.

This weekend we camped on Crooked River, it really looks more like a stream. Someone used big rocks to build a dam. The water is about knee deep, Gary said I should walk out there, so I took him by the arm and was going to pretend to pull him in, only I slipped and fell in. I hit my knees on the dam rocks, my knees are skinned up, and bruised. Today they are a beautiful shade of purple...and they hurt. Funny thing is, Gary came in after me, he said he thought I had hit my chin on the dam rocks.

There were a lot of beautiful wild flowers on the mountains.

View from Banner Ridge

The Banner Ridge trail ended at the South Fork of the Payette, we didn't see any river rafters.

A picnic on the trail.

This is our campsite, campfires are not very much fun without grandkids.

Two weeks ago Mike, Amy Emily, Tucker, Gary and I went to....tried to go to Graham airstrip. On the way we met another group of riders that wanted to get to the airstrip, so they joined us on our adventure. We had to winch our ATV's through snow, we had to use shovels to remove snow so we could widen the road enough to get the ATV's through a narrow pass (that had avalanche warning signs) I'm sure the signs were for earlier in the season. Anyway we finally made it over the highest peak. Then we headed down, down some of the roughest, rocky roads ever. One spot was so bad that I almost rolled my ATV, good thing I had Tucker get off before I started. ( he decided that he didn't want to ride with me any more after watching me) Well we almost made it to the airstrip, that is until the road ended because of a washout. I've never seen anything like it. You would never know that a road had ever been there. The sign below is what we saw today. They closed the road 20 miles, before the washout. There is a lot of beautiful ATV riding between that sign and the washout.

Christmas photo's

Susan, Payton, Mark's mom Karen and Mark

Payton and Emily

Mom and Dad

David and his soon to be bride Mara

Mike and Amy-

-I'm so disappointed in my Christmas pictures, The picture of Mike and Amy and the kids in front of the tree didn't turn out....Amy's eyes were closed. Tucker I only got 2 pictures of him and neither are very good. Okay the are awful. I tried, to get good pictures, but I ended up with the back of heads, or they would put up a hand.
Maybe I should just post the bad pictures....that'll teach em.

Exploring with Kelly

On Christmas Eve we go exploring with Gary's daughter Kelly, (last year I fell in a creek) the picture above has nothing to do with the outing, but how cool is it to see this going down the freeway.

Gary and one of his daughters

This year we took a drive to Hagerman to see the frozen water falls. There are thousands of them....maybe not, but that is the name of the area.

Have a Merry Christmas

Sunday, Gary needed to get away. He was tired of dealing with plumbing problems (the plumber comes tomorrow) he was tired of the fog. So we went in search of the sun. We headed out highway 95 and 7 miles from Oregon we left the fog.

So we took the ATV's for a winter drive. I wasn't sure I was up for the cold, but it wasn't so bad. It was a short ride only 16 miles round trip but it was worth the effort.

Time to go home, back to the fog.

Payton's 1st Birthday

Yesterday was Payton's first Birthday. Her mommy made her a cake. I think Susan did a great job. Payton had her first piece of cake last night...I forgot my memory card so I didn't get a picture of that.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY--CUTIE

She's not so sure about the hat.

RAINING IN THE GARAGE

Yep, it was raining in the garage, well sort of. We have a hose hooked up to the water system, the water system that keeps everything it touches from turning orange, and smelling like sulfer. Gary uses the hose to wash the Land Cruiser and the ATV's. He rolled it up and brought in the garage...he left it hooked up. I'm thinking the hose and squirter nozzel might have been frozen in the on postion, because last night we heard water running and finally figured out it was coming from the garage, water was everywhere, that squirter works just fine. Then this morning, more water problems, this time, it was the lack of water. Something froze up (maybe due to the soaking it got last night). Gary used his heat gun and we got our water back. Which is a good thing, right? Maybe not. Because tonight our kitchen sink over flowed. Water running everywhere. The water system, does some sort of cleaning action and runs water thru the kitchen sink drain, unless the drain has a clog, then it just fills the sink and runs all over the floor. It took pretty much every towel we have to clean it up. But it could be worse. Yep a lot worse.

Christmas at the Orchard House

The Orchard House decorates the garden

They Invite Clyde the Camel

Then they invite everyone to come and share the fun. I Love the camel and I'm pretty sure he loves me too. However, the camel licked Tucker, so Tucker thinks the camel likes him the best.

Mrs. Santa takes pictures and then e-mails them to you----grandma takes pictures too!

Payton didn't like Santa, she refused to sit on his lap, she liked the camel better than santa. I had a lot of fun and I'm going back on Sunday and taking my parents. And this time the batteries in my camera won't die.

Oh Great!

Do you like my Fall Layout?..............you better, because I can't figure out how to change it to a Christmas layout. You'd think if I could change my layout to Fall I could put on a Christmas or winter scene, but no. I was clicking on buttons the other day, and now I notice I have ads on my blog.......I guess they (whoever they are) don't realize that I have about 4 people that read my blog.
It's really cold in Idaho, it is expected to reach 18 degrees tomorrow. BRRRR. Oh did I mention we are going to a neighborhood ---Diner, Drive in, or Dive. I can say that because that guy...Guy from the TV show came to visit the restaurant. Anyway they go all out for Christmas, they put up lots of lights in their garden and bring in a Santa, and they have a camel and a bon-fire.... but still...brrr. Well anyway I guess we are going to go and check it out, Amy and Mike and the kids and Mark and Susan and Payton, and Gary and I. Brrr.

THE BLUES

I have been feeling sad, depressed, blah, blue. When Gary feels like this he says he feels DULL. I thought I was coming down with something. I figured it out, not sure why it took so long, but I pretty much start feeling this way every November and I don't start feeling better until spring. I'm Sun deprived. Going to work in the dark and coming home in the dark, I guess that means I need to spend my lunch hour outside whenever the sun shines brrrrrr.
Dear God: how about a fog/inversion free winter, please.

Payton's Last First

Susan was feeling a little sad this Thanksgiving---because, she said that this was Paytons last 1st Holiday. Susan started scrapbooking after Payton was born and has enjoyed scraping all of Payton's firsts. I did remind her that Payton had one more 1st coming up----her 1st birthday.