Fall colors & the carved pumpkin

We have a great view out  the front door of our house. Except for the guard rail, of course. I saw this view out of the door the other day and really wanted to capture the awesome colors of the season. I used all kinds of settings on my camera to get just the right look. I think it turned out pretty well.  This was before I carved up the pumpkin. That came next. When I was in Ohio visiting my sister I got this huge one cheap!

After cutting off the top & taking out the seeds I got to carving. I got this face off a website. Had to make it a little bigger, because like I said, it was huge. Thought he turned out pretty nice! Yet again I played with the camera trying to get just the right look. I think I'm getting better at the settings, but I doubt it.

Eeyore's vacation 2012

I posted a few years ago about how I'm probably too old to have Eeyore vacation with me, but o well, it still happens :) And the family enables me in my ....hmm, maybe it's an obsession. who knows.

 Anyway. E spent some time learning how to sail.

 Then he went kayaking. Canoeing too.

 He learned how to drive the motorboat

 And even tried to ride the tube

 He liked the pancakes at the Pancake House

 And Sean got a picture of him enjoying the sunshine

 Grandma Rife let him join her in the shade.

 Putting his toes in the water at Blue Lake

 And the best is... The donkey riding the donkey :)

Um, I think I need a life! :) Oh, and he seriously needed a bath after this vacation. he looked like a whole new donkey when he got out of the washing machine!

Holiday and birthday pics

Having teenagers and wanting to take nice family pics can be interesting. Annoying but highly entertaining :) Sean had just gotten home from a long day of work and I knew the weather wasn't gong to hold too much longer. And the girls are only here every other weekend, so had to get this done while I could. Sean was soo excited to be out taking pictures.

 He gets kinda goofy after a while.

 The girls were getting bored, or just looking for an excuse to play the latest: "ninja." Everytime I would stop to try & find a better spot this is what they were doing. so funny.

 After being in the sun and not liking the shadow and the sun in the face, we moved up to the patio of the mansion.  There were professionals up there taking pictures at the other end, I got annoyed, felt VERY amateur-ish, and we left to find a less "commercial" spot.

Sabrina doesn't like to smile with her mouth open. We tried our hardest to get her to smile bigger, but this is what we got. sigh.

The next weekend the girls were over we had a little time during the day when the weather was good and I had the girls come out to take some more pics. It was Abby's birthday and Sabrinas was in 2 weeks, so I thought it would be a good time to get some pics. Needless to say, I got a lot of this :) And then they were done.

Some more Idaho & the last of it :)

The girls & Sean love to fish. The next day Sean went and got them all fishing licenses and they headed out to the dam to try & catch some trout.

 All they managed to catch were some perch. But there were some nice guys that just kept pulling in these large fish and offered them to the girls. We weren't about to say "no." I, of course, came armed with my book & camera.

 For dinner we had some surf & turf. Oh yeah, so yummy!! Abby actually learned how to clean the fish. Sean cleaned most of them.

 The next day we went looking for some hot springs and weren't very successful. In fact we drove around for 4 hours and didn't find ONE!!! We did find this really sweet part of the river. The crappy part was, none of us had our water shoes. But Sean and the girls didn't mind. They went hunting for freshwater clams.

 That evening Dad returned from Boise and took us to a hot spring he knew about. Nothing large, or too hot, but pretty cool. The girls thought it was cool.

 There was a nice little outcrop above the hot springs and the girls took a seat.

 The girls had had enough sun, so when we went to the beach one more time, this is where they parked their towels :)

 Dad knows a man & his wife in Cascade that have horses and are willing to let the family come ride. We took the girls out to get some exposure to real riding.

 This 23 year old mare was pretty calm. She didn't do more than walk for either of them.

 There was also a donkey, Amos,  that Sean and I rode. He was pretty cool. Pretty stubborn too, but fun.

We headed back to Boise the next day. We left just in time. Once we got through the mountains they closed the road because of a forest fire moving through the area. Once we got back to Boise we went to find the Oregon trail area. It was a waste of time. I took a trip down the Boise river with the girls. Pretty minor river. It was so shallow in one spot that I had to get out and pull the raft and then get back in. The pictures for that are lost somewhere. hopefully not permanently lost :( And the next day we headed home. It was an awesome trip!

More Idaho - part 6

I really need to finish up these Idaho posts. The vacation was two whole months ago :) And I have more recent.....hmm, no actually I don't have anytime more recent to post. My life is boring!

So after the DeAnn, Daren & their horde left, we decided to spent some time OUT of the water. There is a place near Cascade called Blue Lake. It is amazing! The water was crystal clear. So pretty. We had a really easy hike down the trail. It's only about a mile down to the lake. Along the way there were some butterflies sitting on the trail. So cool. Once down at the lake we decided to put our feet in. The water was COLD. But it was great on the really warm day. We were actually the first people out there. Except for the people that had camped there. They had their alpacas & their horses. Kind of funny to come across an alpaca on the trail. ha.

Once we were done admiring the lake and eating our snacks we headed back out. The really easy downhill hike in turned into the uphill hellish hike out. It was a mile uphill. The girls, especially Abby, were out of shape. The altitude didn't do much for any of us either. So we just took lots of breaks on our way up and drank all our water. The only thing that would have made it better would have been my book & some fishing poles for the rest of them. Once we returned to the cabin we watched TV. Then went for a little walk by the lake to watch some guys fishing. Then we went back & watched more TV :) It was great.

Idaho - Part 5

You would think by part 4 I would be done with Idaho vacation, but nope there's more. We were there for 2 weeks, and the week with the Cox family was PACKED with fun stuff. So all 4 of you that read my blog will have to hear about idaho vacation for a few more posts :)

After Sean had recovered from heat stroke the previous day and we spent another day out on the water we headed to the hot springs just outside of Cascade.  Man, was it great.

There were about 6 pools and the ones at the top near the source of the spring were nice & warm. Corrinna loved the hottest pool. Me, not so much. I spent most of my time in the next one down. DeAnn & Dad said that it used to be free until the nudist colony got a little out of hand. Someone bought it & turned it into a tourist trap :)

This was the pool we spent most of our time in. We started in this one. Bad idea. We wanted to visit all the pools, but by the time we got to the second one down from this it was too cold for me! The ones at the bottom that the girls spent a lot of time in were like regular swimming pools, or the lake. Corrinna spent her time running from one pool to the next, jumping in and out of the water like a jumping bean!

DeAnn enjoying the nice warm water.

There was a large chess set by the pools. The girls wanted to play, but no one had a clue how to play chess, so they made up this game of "Chess/checkers." And then Abby used a bishop as a microphone. It was so funny to watch. Then the boys went & actually played a game of chess, not sure who won that one.

It was a wonderful way to end the day. It was also the last day that Daren, DeAnn & the kids were there. So we made the most of it.

Idaho vacation part 4

Another wonderful day at the beach and in the water. Sean spent most of the day on the beach with the kids digging holes in the sand. I've yet to figure out the facination with digging holes in sand. Even Abby & Sabrina do it.  

 DeAnn, Chandler & Camden spent some of the day caneoing & kayaking across the lake. The boys wanted to go, so DeAnn was willing to go with them. Took them a while.

 Camden went in the canoe over with DeAnn & Chandler took the kayak. I can't find my picture of Camden in either. hmm, should probably go back & look. Anyway. Once they returned DeAnn tried to stand up and step out of the canoe at the same time that Chandler decided to grab the ohter end and boost if farther up onto shore. This was the result :)

Dad was driving the boat this time. Daren got to get up on the skis for a while. Then he was the spotter for the rest of the afternoon.

This was Abby's first time ever to try to get up on skis. I was trying to help her out. As you can see, she wasn't very successful. She spent most pf the time with her face full of water :)

Next up was Camilla, who didn't have muc of a problem getting up and stayed up for quite a while.

Then Chandler. We were worried that he was goign to lose his trunks when he got up. haha. Clayson tried, but none of the skis were small enough for him and when he tried they fell off.

As I said, Sean spent most of the day on the shore with the kids digging holes and making sand castles. Our girl Corrina is a trip. As you might be able to tell she was singing, "Call me, Maybe" Had a dance for it & everything. Eeyore was out enjoying the sun too.

Corrina as a mermaid, compliments of Uncle Sean.

After coming back from his trip on the skis Chanlder got the bright idea to make a large hole in the sand and sit down in it, then get buried. Then he thought it would be fun to scare someone once he had a towel put over him. He got Daren when we were on our way out. He was in the hole a while before someone came looking for him.

After the fun at the beach we headed to the hot spring. but that is for later.