Autumn in Idaho

I have loved the weather this fall! We have had a good 3 week stretch of warm, sunny, Indian summer weather. It makes it worth getting up for the day! We've been busy with school, church, scouts, Augie's preschool, etc. but we've also had fun.

A couple of highlights from the past month were visiting my folks in Utah and a quick trip for Daddy, Augie, and Grammy to Yellowstone. Then we went to Boise to see my sister during the kids' fall break, and then Grandpa and Grandma Droegemueller came to visit us--yay! First time we've seen them in almost seven years. I'll blog about that later... still haven't gotten the pictures off the camera.

Anyway, here's a few pics from visiting my parents:

Abby has lost her front teeth... she has a lot of gaps in her smile!

My parents have built two greenhouses in their yard and sell the produce at the farmer's market. The greenhouse is 7 feet tall in the center... and yes, those tomato plants are about 6 feet tall!

It was almost 90 degrees there so we went to a park called Jensen's Grove to play and stayed near the water. This is a duck/fish pond.

Jimmy and Augie

They have this huge carousel swing. It was supposed to have 12 swings but only had 3 left. Originally it was made by a ingenious pioneer who had a pony to pull it around... thus it was tough for one mom to spin this rebuilt-of-steel model.

Two fountains offered cooling relief!

Abby in front of the beautiful flower gardens.

At the playground.

Grandma Jane had an old friend who's daughter got married, thus the reason for the timing of the trip on Labor Day weekend. The Kellys are a nice family... I last met Marissa when she was 10! (She's the bride)

One Monday that Daddy had off, he and his mom and Augie went to Yellowstone. Here are a few highlights.

Augie sees a buffalo! It's his first trip to Yellowstone.

A hot spring.

A hot pool that's a pretty shade of blue.

Daddy and Augie by Old Faithful.

Augie with Grammy.

This elk was right off the road, maybe 10 feet away. Augie was a very good wildlife spotter and he had a little sheet to track his animals. He also saw a fox, crow, squirrel, deer, but no moose, bear or eagle.

That's all for now... till I get more pictures and will tell about Boise trip and our visit from Grandma and Grandpa.

Looking Back at Summer

Oh, how I hate to think that summer is coming to an end! Already the nights are in the 30's and the leaves are coming off the trees. So I have to look back and remember that yes, we DID have a summer, and it was a rather good one (aside from our best friends moving out the day after the 4th of July, but we'll eventually forgive them for that...). We have about 11 weeks of summer between when one school starts and another begins, so we tried to do something every week that was "summer" fun and special. I've already blogged two birthdays and the air show, so now I'll add some more things we did. Winter is so long in Idaho that summer has to be special!

We celebrated the Fourth of July, of course. We had a barbecue, some sparklers, and glow sticks while we watched the city-wide fireworks from our yard.

Augie playing in the back yard. All the kids got matching t-shirts from Grammy.

Abby flinging her sparkler.

Jimmy's imitation of an alien. How funny!

We went to a Johnson family reunion. We hiked to a cave, went down the homemade waterslide, and had a talent show.

playing my violin (sorry the picture is sideways)

Abby and Jim coming down the waterslide.

Group picture after we made it up to 40 Horse Cave.

We also did some fun things just as a family. We went to Rigby Lake and enjoyed burying Abby in the sand and going down their new water slide... well, it's a slide that ends in the water. It was fun to see the different reactions on the children's faces as they went down the slide. Sam loved it and wouldn't quit; Augie loved it the first time till he hit the water, then wasn't so sure. Abby's face was comical. She was like, "This is fun... wait I'm nervous.. now I'm scared... now I'm terrified! How do I stop?" She cried after hitting the water. I guess she didn't understand that she'd go underwater.

The blue slide attaches to a floating dock, in about 12 feet of water. It's farther out than it looks. Sam is playing football with some college kids.

Augie in his life jacket.

Abby's quite the diva in her sunglasses.

Her cute little toes in the sand!

Jimmy digging his toes into the wet sand.

We went ice blocking one Monday evening for fun. Some people call it ice sledding. We bought two blocks of ice and since it was a spontaneous decision and we didn't bring towels, we just put pieces of cardboard on the ice then slid down the hill at Community Park. There was a baptist group there doing the same thing, and they gave us a pizza they had leftover. It was quite fun!

Abby on the way down.

Sam and Jim cheering after their run down the hill.

Jimmy sledding. It makes your seat a little wet...

Jimmy is in the center. Napolean Dynamite dance.

Jimmy was also in a dance festival. He'd been working since May on learning a few dances. He did the Napolean Dynamite dance, the Bollywood, Verse, Rock, and Hero, and participated in the finale which was Circle of Life. It was a new experience for him to learn to dance. Our stake in the church worked really hard, and had the costumes and choreography all figured out. We were very glad he decided to participate and it was fun to watch.

The grand finale, "Circle of Life."

Jimmy in the yellow shirt doing the Bollywood.

Jimmy in yellow and his friend Robert in blue during the Bollywood.

picture courtesy of lavahotsprings.com

We also went to Lava Hot Springs, which is a fun water park about 90 minutes from here. Jimmy's school offered a discount day. We played all day in the pool! Because I was in the water with the kids the whole time and Daddy was working (as he was during most of these activities) we didn't get any pictures. Here's a picture from the internet:
We got very sunburned that day, although we'd applied lots of sunscreen. We got back home around 8 in the evening and Daddy had dinner ready for us. It was a blast and worth the trip to spend a day in the sun and water. We did NOT go off the 10, 20, and 30 foot olympic dive towers, but Sam and I did go off the regular high dive and climbed the rock wall in the deep end of the indoor pool. All of us went down those red and green curly slides you see in the picture, and I forced Sam to go with me down the white slide (it was one of those free fall, "my butt did not touch slide" slides).

And the rest of the summer was full of lazy days where you can kick back and watch a million cartoons until you're bored and go outside and play. That's what summer's all about, right? We had lots of things keeping us busy and were so sad to bid summer goodbye on August 18th when Sam and Abby headed back to school.

Blue Angels Air Show

I'm still trying to catch up on all my blogs. So here is one from July 24th.

The Extreme Blue Thunder Air Show came to Idaho Falls that weekend. It was the only air show that featured the Navy Blue Angels performance team in the whole Mountain time zone this year. We felt very lucky to have it! We bought the tickets in honor of Jimmy's birthday which was the 27th. He turned 12, which is indeed a birthday worth celebrating. We started out the day at the Science Center parking lot, where a shuttle bus took us the .4 miles to the air show (but free parking is great wherever it is). Still, it was a 15 minute trip with all the traffic. Little did we know that getting home that way wouldn't be possible.... anyway, more on that later.

Looking cool in our caps.
We walked into the air show and bought a souvenir program for Jimmy and then looked at the smaller planes and helicopters on show. Almost immediately a B-2 stealth bomber did a fly-by. Those are truly silent planes! They just sneak up on you.

The stealth bomber

Sammy manning a helicopter machine gun

An old "warbird"
Then we had a chance to set down all our chairs and blankets, and Jimmy, Sammy and I went to see a large airplane that was offering walk-through tours. It was an Air Force refueling plane, an "airborne gas station" as the airman in it explained.

The boys got to lay down and look at the controls where the person maneuvers the refueling hose into the other airplane.

Jim and Sam in the belly of the plane where they actually lay face down (not up as the boys are doing) and maneuver the controls. It's a tight fit.

Then we sat for a while and watched the show. There were P-51 Mustangs at the beginning, which Jimmy really likes because he studied them for his 6th grade passion project. There were also biplanes, war birds, and some very fast (and loud) MIG fighter jets.

This plane is doing a loop.

Abby... smiling through the heat

Thank goodness Grammy brought frozen wash cloths to cool us down. Augie stuck it under his hat.
The biplane
After about three hours of these other planes, the Blue Angels took off. Now, we had seen them practicing their tricks over the previous week so nothing was too novel, except when they are right over head and crossing within inches of each other. It really takes your breath away! I tried doing some videos but I was almost out of memory. Some of the best videos I will put on below. (Jessica, these are for you, so you can see AND hear them!)



Four of the blue angels in formation

All six in formation

A low overhead pass
At the end of the day, all 38,000 people were trying to load the shuttle buses at the same time, making it about a 3 hour wait. Well, we figured since we live only a mile away it would be better to walk. Only Grandma was not really feeling well, but she said she'd rather walk, too. It was HOT (95 degrees) and the pavement was scorching. We hobbled along for about an hour till we made it home. We ended up very sunburned, tired, and hungry. (The food at the air show was a joke... $4.50 for a hot dog, $3.50 for a drink, $8.00 for a hamburger. And since 38,000 people were all trying to eat at the same time, it was an hour or more in each line. So we all had one Bambino [fried, stuffed scone] and that was it. They finally opened a fire hose and filled people's water bottles.) We were happy to find food and water and comfy chairs at home. I sent Daddy to the parking lot to fetch the car when he got home from work. Overall, except for the traffic and food, we were pleased with the show and were glad we took the chance to experience a once-in-a-lifetime air show.

Jimmy's Birthday -- 12 Years Old!

Nothing brings  you to the startling realization that you are getting old like your first child turning 12. This is a huge milestone in our church -- boys get the priesthood and enter the Young Men and Scouting program. It's really a turning point, and one that has made me feel unprepared. However, Jimmy has been excited about it. He's the only one his age, so the Sunday after his birthday he was ordained and immediately set apart as the Deacon's quorum president. He is really growing and maturing, and I'm so proud of him! I love this picture of him. He is such a good boy and it shows in his smile.

For his birthday he wanted to go to the Idaho Falls Extreme Blue Thunder Air Show. I will do a separate blog entry for that... it was a huge event! So that was his birthday celebration, and on his birthday itself (the next Tuesday) he got to pick his favorite meals and eat cake and open presents.

Our family, thanks to Daddy and his enthusiasm for Dr. Who, have all been watching Dr. Who episodes and even reading Dr. Who books. So Jimmy's theme was Dr. Who. He wanted the TARDIS on his cake. If you don't know, that's the Dr.'s spaceship and it looks like a police call box. It was really fun to make. I took a poptart box and turned it inside out and painted it blue. Then I added a couple layers of cardboard to the top (cut from an old pizza box) to make the roofline molding. I glued a toothpaste lid on the top for the light. Then I painted the words and drew lines with a permanent marker to make the look complete. I think it's a pretty realistic representation. The cake is frosted with an outer space look with a birthday message from the doctor:

The TARDIS swoops through the sky to wish Jimmy a happy birthday. 

Jimmy's presents reflected his interests and talents: reading (lots of comic books), Legos, Lego Star Wars, comic-themed shirts, toys, and cards. What else could a boy want?

Augie has the same toy, but Jimmy is a huge Green Lantern fan.

He really likes this Batman shirt!

Adding to his Lego collection is always fun for him!

A book about Lego Star Wars... the perfect combination!

Happy Birthday Jim! You're a wonderful son and we love you so much!