A Day at Rigby Lake

We did the beach Idaho style the other day and went to Rigby Lake. My sister Cheryl was here with her boys. It was a nice day to visit and play. It was the first time there for Makenzie and Zoey. Makenzie first thing waded out chest deep then fell over and came up spluttering. She didn't cry but never waded in that deep again.

Makenzie

Jordon, Kailynn, Makenzie & Tanner

Zoey

Tanner
Kailynn

Tanner, Rachel & Makenzie

Kimberly, Cheryl, Sara & Jordon chillaxen beneath the canopy. I didn't get a picture of Josh. I think he was off having fun somewhere.

The Fourth of July in Florida

The week of the Fourth of July the Clarks, Czieps and Schifferers met in Destin, Florida for a fun week on the beach. Here are a few of my favorite pictures. Our beautiful beach house. We watched the fireworks on the beach from the 3rd floor balcony.
Heinrich, Hunter, Kelli, Laura, Roger, Rachel, and Cooper.

David, Heinrich and Kelli enjoying the beach beneath the shade canopy.
Kristie burying Sydney and Cooper in the sand. I loved the sand. It was so white and soft.
Thanks to David and Kristie we always had lots of good things to eat. Here we are celebrating all the July birthdays.
Rachel got to blow out the candles. She turned 18 on July 7.
Sydney and Kristie catching a wave on the sea kayak.
Hunter, Rachel and Hunter's friend, Matthew coming in on the sea kayak.

Laura, Hunter, Rachel and Matthew showing off. It was a great vacation!

Rachel Goes to Commencement Dance

Rachel was asked to the high school commencement dance by Alex Olaveson. Saturday they went with eight other couples. The boys showed them a fun day by taking them to breakfast in the morning. Mudding on four wheelers and motorcycles all afternoon. Brought them home to get ready then picked them up again for a nice dinner at Stockman's restaurant. Then off to dance the evening away at the dance which was held at the Flight Museum in Rexburg. Rachel had a wonderful time.







But her heart still belongs to daddy!

Adam Is Engaged!!!!

Adam has felt bad because it has taken me so long to post this. I will try to make it up to him and announce that Adam and his sweetie, Kylee Briggs, are engaged to be married on Saturday, July 11th 2009. They have been "officially" engaged since February 28th. He knew she was the "one" a month after he got home from his mission. For those of you who don't know, Adam and Kylee have been friends since the seventh grade and were dating before he left on his mission.
The Ring. I couldn't get the camera to focus on it.

They will be living in the "Love Shack" next to Mike and Kimberly. Both are attending BYU-I during the summer semester and Adam is working with Roger and Alan on his days off from school. We are excited to have Kylee as a part of our family.
Adam and Kylee in high school going to prom in 2005.

Rachel and the Silver Bullet

Rachel got her driver's license this last November. Of all our children she has been the most cautious when it comes to driving. We have two Ford Ranger's we use here on the farm. When it's not in use, we have been letting Rachel drive the silver one which the kids have named "The Silver Bullet" to school. Adam is driving the white Ranger which the kids have named "Danger Ranger".

The first snowfall of winter last December Rachel was worried about the roads being too slick to drive to school. We told her to go ahead and drive but to test how slick it was by tapping the brakes to see if the pickup slid. We watched her out the window as she headed down the road. We saw her brake lights go on and the pickup did a little fishtail. She went around the corner tried it again with the same results. We then saw her turn around at the neighbors, come back home and asked her dad to take her to school. We laugh about the fact that she's the only one of the five who would have ever come back whether the roads were slick or not.

Tuesday morning we had two inches of fresh snow on the ground. Even with the snow the roads weren't slick and it had melted off by the afternoon. Wednesday morning the roads were dry as Rachel headed off for school in the Silver Bullet at about twenty after eight. Her friend Katie usually rides with her but that morning she didn't. At 8:36 Roger got a phone call from Rachel saying she had slid off the road. She said she was OK and that people were stopping to help and someone had called 911. It seems that the road was dry except for the spot where Rachel slid off. It was a big patch where the snow had drifted across the road then had turned to ice. When she hit it she spun around 90 degrees just missing another car and went off the other side of the road into a snowy field. The pickup then rolled clear over a fence and ended back on its wheels facing the direction she had just come from. Of course she had her seat belt on. She wasn't quite sure if she had even rolled. We think she probably closed her eyes. We turned down an ambulance ride and I drove her to the doctor to have her checked out. The doctor said she might be a little stiff and sore but she is fine. Roger had one of his friends who lives near by pull the pickup out of the field with his tractor and Roger was able to drive it home. As you can tell by the pictures there's a pretty good dent in the roof. The windshield is also cracked, the side view mirror shattered and it has a few new scratches.



Thank heaven for miracles.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Laura and Adam were home this weekend so I decided we would have a little Valentine's dinner for them, Roger, Rachel and I. The table looked so pretty with all the reds that I thought I'd take a picture. Adam was in a hurry to eat before he went snowboarding so he was my model.
Steak, lobster tail, baked potato and asparagus. Mmm, Mmmm! It tasted as good as it looks!

In Search of Sunshine!

One of the benefits of having grown children who can feed the cattle is that Roger and I finally got to take a long road trip. Knowing the cattle and Rachel were in good hands we set off in search of sunshine. Sunshine has been very absent here lately. This is what it looked like out our side door the day we left on January 29th.

We left with no plans of where we were going or staying other than we were headed for Phoenix whenever we got there and for ever how long Roger felt like staying. I told him I was just along for the ride. The kids were taking bets on how long Roger could stay away. Personally, I didn't think he would last a week.

We drove to Cedar City, Utah before we ever got out of the snow. I thought we would never find sun. We spent the first night in St. George. It was fun to get up and not see snow and yes the sun was shining! I threw my winter coat in the trunk and never wore it the rest of the trip.

The next day we drove past Las Vegas and went and played tourists at Hoover Dam. It was nice to be able to walk around without a jacket in the sun. The dam itself is awesome.




The last two pictures are of the Colorado River Bridge. They are constructing a 1,060 foot twin-rib concrete arch. Construction on the nearly 2,000 foot long bridge began in January 2005 and the completion of the entire Hoover Dam Bypass Project is expected in June 2010. When completed, the bridge will span the Black Canyon (about 1,600 feet south of the Hoover Dam), connecting the Arizona and Nevada Approach highways nearly 900-feet above the Colorado River. This is so they can get the traffic off the dam for security reasons. The road over the dam is the main road. There is so much traffic besides the tourists on the dam. It will be neat to see it finished.

We made it to Phoenix that night. We checked out the town and surrounding areas over the next few days. We walked around Old Town Scottsdale which is a lot like Jackson Hole, Wyoming; drove out and found a few dairy farms on the outskirts; checked out the Peterbilt dealer (this is how farmers vacation)even stopped and walked through a swap meet and went by the Mesa Temple. I really liked the orange and grapefruit trees all over the area. I had always wondered what people went south for and where they stayed. We saw a trailer resort in Mesa and they were having an open house on some of their trailers so we went to take a look. Some trailers were pretty fancy and some were plain. One gentleman saw us looking around and gave us an unofficial tour of the trailer park and the rec center. He was so nice. It was amazing what there was available to do there. I don't know if that is what I would like to do every winter but it was fun to see how people live. Super bowl Sunday was also our 29th wedding anniversary. That night we stayed at a hotel in Mesa, had dinner and watched the Superbowl. It was a nice anniversary. The three days we were in Arizona the temperature was 65 to 79. It was perfect!

Mesa Temple
Orange tree
Arizona ditch and head gate into hay field.