Forts Forever

It helps to have a construction truck at your disposal when you are making a fort.

Certificates and Snow

This is Braxton's cat. He worked very hard to make it. He hopes you like it a lot.

Braxton's certificate for "High Honor Roll."

Kanyon's certificate, also for "High Honor Roll."

We went hiking today at Camp Tahosa. It's a Boy Scout camp up above Boulder. The boys found some guns lying in the snow. Kanyon said, "and then we shot some deer."

The boys had fun falling in the snow. Kanyon dunked his face in the snow. Braxton normally doesn't like to wear his big coat, but he wore it this time because he was cold.

A little note about Boulder (for those of you not familiar with the area). On the way home we saw some people standing on a corner with signs, "Food for Gaza." Another man's sign read, "Obama is a Commie." He looked like he just came down from his cabin today.

New Calling: Family History

In case you alls didn't know, my new calling is family history consultant. I had a good conversation with mom tonight about the Backlund line. I then called Aunt Linda and had a 1:07 conversation with her. The gift of gab must come from the Backlund side. She also gave me a good overview of where the Backlund/Walker family history stands. Aunt Linda has her research and temple work down to a pretty orchestrated cycle.

Anyway, I'll keep you all filled in as I learn more.

Mom, Aunt Linda mentioned that you, she and John discussed writing Louise Walker's personal history. Has anything developed with that? Also, would I be able to get a copy of Carl Backlund's personal history, and the histories he wrote for each of his parents? Thanks.

Pinewood Derby Time

This Saturday was our Pinewood Derby. Ty had fun designing and making his car. Yes, a Cub Scout was actually involved in the making of his car! Ty drew the profile and top view of his car and I cut it out with the jig saw (the same one that carves pumpkins.) He then used my Dremel to sand it and shape it. I showed him how to use a can of spray paint and he had fun putting on the various coats of paint. I wasn't sure how to paint the flames, so a quick trip to Hobby Lobby fixed that. He did very well in the race and made it through the first several rounds. The best part- Ty enjoyed the whole experience for the most part and no tears when he got eliminated.

The weather here is certainly interesting. Wednesday and Thursday were a sunny 70 degrees. Today it is cloudy and a chilly 17 degrees. I've gone from T-shirts and sunburns to a sweatshirt and hood.

Matt- send some more pictures of the new house. It was fun to see how fast they completed the rough framing

Brant

Landscaping in January

It was above 60 degrees today and it is supposed to approach 70 tomorrow.

This is the project Brant and I are working on. We're getting pretty good at destroying front yards and then putting them back together.

Before:
At about 11:00 today:

End of day:

Milk Day

We were a little tired of the cold and the dirty inversion air, so this morning we took a trip to Goblin Valley and Little Wild Horse Canyon. I had been there a couple of times before, but Kelly never had. We hiked around, enjoyed the views and spent some time just soaking in the sun.


Kelly worshiping the sun gods that have long been absent from Provo


Soaking in some sun and learning about the Masons at the same time
Little Wild Horse Canyon

I've seen this little cemetery in Spanish Fork canyon a million times as we go to and from Denver. We finally decided to stop and check it out on the way home. Not too much going on here for the last 100 years. Most of the graves were covered by snow but I signed the guest register and looked around for a few minutes.

Technology

Tonight I communicated with Dad by-

Radio
IM
Email
Blog

Whatever happened to a good old phone call???

Brant

Another photo of the bird

He was grey with white slashes on his wings and tail feathers. He also had this sort of "crest" on his head. I think there was some yellow in there somewhere too.

This is for anyone who might know what kind of bird this is.

PS - you know Kevin, Grandpa got so mad at me for making fun of his spelling that he banned me from reading his life history for a couple of years.

#802

Defending the homestead!!

Not much new this week. We're kind of getting back to normal after the holidays. The snow has melted enough that I was able to drive the Ranger to church today. That's the first time it's been driven since mid-December.

Anybody know what kind of a bird this is?

Yesterday the birds in the neighborhood went nuts. They swarmed the pear tree in the back yard and the crab apple in the front yard. Mom heard a thump and said a bird had hit the front window. I grabbed the camera and stood in the window and watched as four more flew right into the window. We suspect that the crab apples were fermented and the birds were a little tipsy. There are now several feathers stuck to the window.
Brant has worked his Ham radio magic a couple of times and connected the repeater in Denver with a repeater in this area and we were able to talk ham-to-ham. It has been fun but I am still a rookie and don't speak the lingo as well as Brant.
Tomorrow's a holiday so we will probably do the usual and stay home and do nothing.
Hope you are all having a wonderful new year.

Post #801

Anyone else notice that we just passed 800 posts on our blog? Not too bad.

Yesterday, a friend invited me to go play Airsoft with him. For those of you unfamiliar, Airsoft is a simulated combat game where you carry guns that shoot little plastic BB's. When you get shot, you can feel it but it doesn't hurt too bad. I did come home with a slight fat lip from getting shot on our last desparation charge. Some of the guys that we went with are pretty hard core and they try to dress as authentic as possible. One guy even talked about filling is bulletproof chest plate carrier with sand so that the weight was more realistic.

I had a great time and already got an invite to play next time they go out. Who knows, maybe by then I'll have my own gear?


The team heads out to take the bridge.













Sorry about the formatting, it was giving me grief. The way I wrote it and placed the pictures looks nothing like how it turned out.

Word of the day...

Phlebotomist

New Bling

The new ones are a little thicker and now the trailer rides a little higher.

From the Ground Up

I stopped by the construction site on Monday as they were finishing up laying the subflooring down. I stopped to talk to one of the workers as they were snapping chalk lines to prep for the framing. It took him about 30 seconds to peg me as the home owner (must have been the goofy grin). Just a note, this first pic was taken with my cell phone. Not too bad. There's about a three foot high crawl space underneath the exposed foundation.

Tuesday afternoon this is what it looked like.

Kimbre and I stopped by again on Wednesday night, after the Chiefs game, and the trusses were up. Our realator emailed me a construction schedule and next up on the list are the windows, roofing, and roughing in the utilities.

FINALLY!!!

It's no 6 feet but I'm still happy with our 6 inches!

Congratulations Martha (aka. Mom)

Mom got her "official" picture order back this week so I thought I'd post them. She did a great job and we are all proud of her. She looks great in the cap and gown with her "hood".

Hope you all have a good week.

Dad

Primary

Today was Weston's first day of Primary. He's been really scared to go, so we've been trying to work him into the idea the past month or so. He started off a little like the above picture. I sat with him for 5 minutes, then left. His teachers say he did just fine after I left. We got home from Seattle yesterday afternoon. The roads were great. As you may have heard, the areas around Seattle have been a little water logged. We didn't experience any of the water, just snow. I'm excited to be home so I can clean, organize my life and work on more vinyl. I got to attack the deli with vinyl and some pictures I took of the bagel making process. On Friday, I was putting some vinyl on the windows outside of the Deli and a lady walked by and said, "Are you the photographer?" She had seen the pictures inside the deli that I took and really liked them. It made me feel just a touch special.

These are the bagel bins I labeled and a picture of the pictures I took.

More Princesses

Aimee and Katie got into their play make-up this week. They were washing make-up out of their hair for the next two days.

Not much too exciting this week. Les is getting into her rehearsals with the high school so I'm becoming Mr. Mom. Try as I might, the house is never as clean, nor are the dinners as tasty. I'm glad it is only for a couple of months or we might all be looking like street urchins.

The other news is that Dad and I had our first "QSO" today. I linked a repeater here in Denver to one in Spokane, which is permantly linked to a repeater on Kamiak Butte. Sounds complicated, but needless to say, it was fun to visit on the air. When he gets his new power supply then we will really tear up the air waves.

That's about it for this week.

Brant

Cinderella in training

Nice shiner, eh?

This week Raya was practicing running in only one glass slipper, tripped and hit her eye on her bed. I guess she need a little more practice before we audition for Broadway.

take 3 days + rain + wind + 45 degrees = green grass

Looks just like spring
Where are those smores?

Get the mower fired up

Ready to plant flowers

Just thought I would show you what a difference three days can make. It is supposed to start cooling off again but it sure is nice to see the grass and concrete.

Paradise Creek is running full tilt. It is up to the bottom of the old railroad trestles on the way to Pullman.

Have a nice day.

It finally stopped ...... for today.

Mom quit before the job was done (I fell asleep on the couch). The driveway was clear last night.
My pickup is sitting on the street (they graded it Saturday).

Where's the fire hydrant?

A 2 liter bottle of root beer from New Years Eve.

Can you find the pop-up?

The snow has finally stopped for today. They expect another couple of inches tomorrow and then on Wednesday and Thursday the temperature is supposed to be in the 40's. Maybe we should get the rafts out and pump them up.

.............and again................

This was my greeting as I opened the door this morning.
I made my way out to my pickup.

I drove to several of the buildings in Moscow and then headed for Lewiston. At the south end of town there were two state patrol cars with lights flashing so I turned around and came home. School is canceled, Hwy 95 south is closed, Hwy 195 north is closed, and we have 8-10" of new snow and it is still snowing. My mechanic who lives in Palouse couldn't get to work and my custodian here in Moscow said she would finish snow blowing the institute and then go home. I guess I'll open a Louie L'Amour and do a little reading.

I think we've had enough!!!!!!