Christmastime

 

Christmas is on its way!! Here is our Tree, finally finished. We cut it down about Two weeks ago, and we finally got around to finishing it. It is around 12 ft tall. Oh, and we had our first snow yesterday. I am so excited for there to be even more snow!

     

  

Mama Cita's Birthday

This weekend was Mom's Birthday! Since it was on Thanksgiving this year, it was and extra busy day. Clayton, Amy, and Sam were there! This was their first time home to Idaho after coming back from Maine. Chris, Carly, Kyle, and Tyler made it up as well. It was a fun weekend.

                       

                

(We didn't get a very clear picture of Clayton and Amy, and sorry if the pictures are in weird positions. Blame it on blogger.)

Halloween

                        

                                 

Ahh, Halloween. What a fun holiday. I'm not so much for all the candy, but the kids definitely are. This year Abby was a witch. Henry was Hannah Montana. We didn't get a very good picture of him. He even had Molly's Jean Jacket on and everything!

                                       

                                        (Sorry, Blogger is being weird with our pictures)

Bugs Bunny's Dream

                                    

We planted our carrots differently this year. Instead of going down the middle of the row with the seeds, we sprinkled the seed across the top of the whole row, so about a foot wide.  You geniuses might have figured this out years ago but it really increases your yield about 5 fold. We thinned the carrots while the plants were small to give the carrots plenty of room. Now truly, have you seen better looking carrots? They are sweet to boot!  This pile is only about 1 foot of a row. We'll probably get over 200 pounds of carrots this year. Do you want to know the real secret to our garden? WATER. It got watered 20 minutes a day by the automatic sprinklers. We hope we never have to hand water a garden ever again!

Nothing Gold Can Stay

                                                                    
                                        

These are the Skeletons of our beautiful crop of Sunflowers. Just in time for Halloween! Oh well, they were pretty while they lasted.

Snowing!?!?! In October???

A few weekends ago on October 11, it snowed 6 or 7 inches. No one thought it would really happen, just another false weather report. It felt more like Christmas time rather than Halloween!

                                   

                                                       *Sorry for this being so late

Tribute to Chacos

 

                                                                                           Chacos: The best sandal ever made. They designed it to be comfortable, as long as look cool. Vibram makes the soul, so they have great traction and grip, perfect for hikes and long walks. Now that the summer is over, it's time to put them away and get out the close-toed shoes :(  Chaco has recently come out with more of a fall/winter shoe. I have never tried those. If anyone has, let me know how they are!

Meet Rylie

Rylie is our next door neighbor. She comes over several days of the week after school with Abby while her mom is at work. She's only in Kindergarten, and it is fun to have someone younger than Abby in our house again. It's funny because she really likes peanut butter with celery, and she made her dad go out and buy Adams. She eats a lot of things at our house that her parents could never get her to eat at home, like fresh peaches (she claims they're a different kind.) She and Abby do all kinds of girl stuff together, like nails and hairstyling. We are really enjoying her; she is so expressive and dramatic.

  

                              

Happy Birthday, Chris!

We were at the cabin for Christopher's birthday, so we had a little party for him.He said the two balloons he is holding represents the two kids everyone else his age already has. Don't worry, Chris. We know you will be married before you're 35.

 

                                     

                                                                         

Thompson Family Reunion

The highlight of the reunion was getting 8 of the 10 siblings together!  David passed away in 1988 so the only one missing was John, the youngest child.  Grandpa Thompson came from a family of 13 children and there is only one child left, Aunt Gerry. She is the 12th child. It was fun to get reacquainted with some of the Thompson cousins. They were never as close as the Smith side cousins. We found out that Dale's cousin Joyce Balmforth recently made a trip to Maine and stopped in at a nearby church on Sunday only to meet Amy's parents, Mark and Marta Sisco.  When they learned she was from Idaho, they asked if Joyce knew any Thompson's.  She said, "I am a Thompson!" Then they asked, "Do you know Dale and Amy?" And her reply was, "Dale is my cousin!"  What are the chances? The world is certainly small!

                            

Oliver and Hazel

Oliver loves animals. He can mimic the sounds of dogs, cows, and sheep. At the cabin we took him out on the porch to crawl around and Hazel was out there. Usually he is a little bit scared to be up close and personal with big animals, but he wasn't a bit intimidated by our slobbering affectionate dog. Sam, if you were here, you would get equal time on the blog :)

                                

                                

Labor Day

Every year over Labor Day, we go up to the cabin and chop down trees for the wood-burning stove. Dale had 5 of his 6 sons up this year! Clayton, you were missed! It was a blast. Tyler took the pictures so he's not in any of them. There were also lots of other relatives up there helping. During the same weekend we had a Thompson reunion. The cabin was filled to the limit!

Volunteer Sunflower Garden

Last year we grew sunflower seeds in little cups in our laundry room window. When they got too big for the cups, we transplanted them into our flower bed. This year, all of these plants came up from last years crop of sunflowers. It was a nice surprise, however, they are infested by grasshoppers and hornets! 

LIVER CLEANSE

We grew a 24-foot row of beets again this year....they are big and healthy and ready to be juiced.

We rarely cook any of them because of the great health benefits of the raw juice. Beets contain iron, calcium, sulfur, and potassium.  Their rich mineral content contributes directly to the well being of the liver and gall bladder while building the blood and stimulating the lymph glands. Beet juice is powerful stuff. Never drink it solo!  Here is a recipe that we like:

1 apple

3 carrots

1 wedge of lemon

1/4 of a medium beet

Beets also combine well with celery or cucumber juice. We use the beet greens in our green smoothies. All these wonderful vegetables from our garden contain everything we need to stay healthy and free from disease. Each year we have the opportunity to rebuild our blood and cleanse our liver by juicing beets! Sounds better than doctors and medications, huh?

Veggie Dog

Our dog Hazel loves to eat. She will eat everything we give her! When we are out in the garden we will give her an overgrown squash or eggplant and she will just gobble it right up! Watermelon rinds are her favorite.

                                                  

                                           

                                      

                                             

                                                                                          

Take These Broken Wings

We were driving downtown in an alley way, out for our daily rounds, when we found Clayton's Wings! A couple of years ago he and a date took some chalk and drew these. Here is when they were first drawn:

Camping Pictures

Sheep Lake

Here we are at the Sheep Lake trailhead during our week at the Cabin. Its a tradition in our family to go backpacking once a year. This is probably the most beautiful hike we have ever been on.... Also the longest.

We had to cross the water many times.

Our dog Hazel just loved it up there. She 

kept up with us the whole time hiking too.

The Lake was beautiful, and the fishing was amazing. 

          Almost every cast brought back a fish!          

Oliver's Birthday

 

We were lucky enough to have Joey and Vanessa visiting on Oliver's first birthday.  It was July 20 but we are just getting around to posting these cute pictures.  Thanks Clayton and Amy for challenging us to create a blog!  We accept your challenge and we think it's going to be a blast.