Playing in the mud

Another fun thing the kids love to do here at Jacob and Amy's house is play in the mud. (And Jacob has a lot of mud.) See here for more pictures of the mud bath.

Toby, Aspen, Isaac, and Mckay posing for me.

Aspen and McKay warming up on the pile of gravel.

The mud dried on the kids and then kind of stuck to the little hairs on their bodies. Didn't feel too good when they tried to wipe it off.

So I got to clean them off with the hose (bring freezing cold water from the well). They screamed like little girls! Took lots of 5 second squirts to get all the mud off. I thoroughly enjoyed it, even if they didn't.

Wheelin'

Isaac is in heaven here visiting Jacob and Amy's house. He has talked about coming here for months. The thing he looked forward to most is driving stuff - anything with wheels and an engine.

Jacob Jacob got the old lawn tractor going for Isaac to ride. It only goes like 3 mph, but Isaac just wanted to drive something... anything.

Everyone took turns driving on the nearly 2 mile track Jacob made out back.

Aspen and Mckay have had a great time together.

Toby, Isaac, Kirsten

Dozer

I need to brag for just a bit here.

I have the best husband in the whole world.

Nate took the last 4 days of his vacation last week and drove me to Idaho. (Since my surgery last month, I haven't been able to see very well due to some sleepy facial nerves.) The next day he turned around and flew back home to work. After being home by himself for 3 weeks, Nate will fly to Utah to pick us up and drive us back home again.

He is the BEST HUSBAND ever!

Okay, enough bragging.


During his 12 hour stay in Idaho with Jake and Amy, Nate managed to cram some fun stuff into his short visit (as well as cooking waffles, feeding, bathing, and putting 8 kids to bed while Amy and I went grocery shopping).

Sorry, no more boasting, I promise.

He drove Jake's dozer out in the pasture behind Jake's house. Nothing like pushing stuff around with a really big shovel to get past the I've-been-driving-for-three-days-and-I'm-sore feeling.

Happy Birthday Hannah

Today is my little sister's birthday!

HANNAH is

Hardworking and talented

Amazingly beautiful

Nice to everyone

Never boring

Awesome sister

Happy

I love you dear sister. Hope that you have had a great birthday.

Congratulations...

to erika and felipe and their new baby boy!
He was born around 4:00 this afternoon. Weighed 8 pounds 1 ounce. I hear he is very blonde! To be named Victor Manuel. Hopefully some pictures will be forthcoming. Mother and baby (and father and sisters) are reported to be doing great.

Road trip treasures

On our way to Idaho, we drove through Rawlins, Wyoming. It's a small town in the middle of nowhere on I-80. Anyway, I remembered that I found a little Thai restaurant there last summer. Since most of road tripping involves fast food/chain restaurant/gas station food, we wanted to stop for lunch somehwere that didn't serve french fries and chicken nuggets.
So we ate lunch at Anong's Thai Cuisine in downtown Rawlins.

As we were leaving, I noticed lots of people walking by with empty bags. Wondering what was going on, we went out and discovered that a parade was coming down the road. Now, my kids have probably only been to 2 parades in their whole life. So we quickly moved our cars off the road and into an alley (we didn't want to be stuck behind a parade) and the kids watched to see what was coming.

Lucky for the kids, they were throwing out candy! So everyone got a few treats.

We saw lots of small town parade sights: fire trucks, ambulances, horses, kids on roller blades and skate boards, classic cars, all the cars that were signed up for the crash derby next week.

We also saw this:

But my favorite was this float: (look close)

Did you know there were festivals celebrating this? Did you notice that the float sign painter can't spell?

Haircut

During:

After (with sunglasses for dramatic effect):