Boise Trip Gunnar's Homecoming

I always look for any excuse to head up to my second home in Idaho and this time it was to go to my first God Daughters baby blessing.  I believe it was Friday morning when we got the call from Papsy to go down and help the Steele’s move some cows.  When Jake came into ask if I wanted to go, there was no hesitation.  I jumped into my boots and we headed out.  By the time we got there, they had most of them already in the corral, but there was a sick cow out there, that was pretty suborn.  At one point we started to load some of the cows onto the trailer and a few got out.  I instantly booked it to try and run them the other way, and had thought for sure I would save the day and be the cowgirl hero….only to slam my face right into the ground!  Ok, so I didn’t totally slam my face, but I biffed it good!  When we were waiting for the trailer to come back, I drove the truck into Star and got us some drinks.  As soon as we finished loading the cows we were getting calls telling us to get back home because we were late to go white water rafting.  My heels were totally torn up from my boots, so it was nice to throw on Shelby’s chocos.  We changed as fast as possible and then headed up river.  I’ve gone down the Payette a few times and this time I was brave enough to jump off the bridge to start the rafting trip.  The height nor the jump scares me, it’s the freakin freezing cold water that I’m scared of!  The current after you jump and you have to swim across was literally probably the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do.  I’m not a great swimmer and even with a life jacket you think you are going to die.  But the one good thing about the jump is that by the time you make it to the shore, your completely exhausted and not even really cold because you just had the biggest work out.  We went rafting with Bryans family the next day and the second time I jumped and had to swim against the rapids was way harder!  This was Abbie’s first rafting trip and of course, we get dumped into this hole.  It was so scary, and I just totally grabbed her life jacket and didn’t let go till we were out of the danger.  Getting hit into that hole was scary, but afterwards it was pretty fun.   Sunday was great getting to see family and visiting with everyone.  We had a lovely brunch and it was so good.  I loved the time I got to spend up there and the opportunity to meet baby Maggie! 

There is nothing like picking your rasberries from outside to put on your captain crunch cereal!

 Feeding my little baby cow

 This was a rarity, getting to hold baby Mags, everyone wanted to hold her!

My boys: Gunnar and Jake

 Abbie's first time rafting down the river.  At one point we hit a certain pocket and literally grabbed her so she wouldn't fall out of the boat! Ive gone a few times now, and it was the scariest ever!

My god son Ashton (getting so big)

Right before Hailey and Bryan left to drive across the country to Washington D.C.  Loading their car up turned out being a pivotal moment in my life--you'll see why in a later post.

Backyard/Sideyard

My backyard consists of mostly pool, with a tiny side yard.  This side yard is a pain in my side every 6 or so months because the weeds get so out of control!  I literally had to use a chainsaw once to get out some of the big weeds because the root was so thick!  Here are the before and after pictures of getting a garden built like Ive always wanted.  All thats left to finish is the sprinkler system!

Backyard Projects

I can remember buying my house and getting the arial map that in the backyard had a circle that side, beehive fireplace.  It looked cool, but in practice Ive never been a fan of a fire pit of its liking.  So I decided to tear it down, and it was quite the project.  I feel like I probably hauled away bricks to the dump and dropped buckets of brick into my trash multiple times and for months!  It was never ending.  But I did finally get it all out of the backyard, and started the propane fire pit installation soon after.  

In process of working on the backyard, I wanted to fix the facet so it wouldn't leak water when it was on.  In order to do so, it meant I had to sweat an extension pipe in order to use the compression valve.  Id never done any kind of plumbing, but it was nothing I couldn't learn from watching youtube!  I do have to say, that I enjoy welding five hundred times better, but I was able to get the pipe and outfit to not leak, so I called it a success!