basketball works, broke, fixed, broke again.

Sage and Gabe use to play basketball ALL THE TIME!, then our back stop fell over in a wind storm and broke. It took about 2 years to find a used backboard at a garage sale that would fit our Basketball stand, finally we found one. When the weather got nice Sage helped me put it on.....and the boys have been playing basketball ever since. That is, until last Sunday when another big windstorm came through and knocked it down.....urgh.

The Circus came to town

Gabe and Harley dressed up like clowns to help sell Circus tickets out side of the Super 1 grocery store. they had fun. and the local newspaper guy came and took pictures of them.

Camping Trip - CDA River - July 8,9,10, 2011

Poppy took our New Family photo, at Fern Falls, near Yellow Dog, on The CDA River. We are starting to like the Casual family photos that we take during our family activities. This one will replace our family picture around the snowman.

Harley started her first camp fire.

Sage spent a lot of time fishing with Poppy.

This was Greyson's first camping trip. He did awesome. He loved having such a huge Sandbox, dirt, and rocks to play with. And liked sitting around the campfire.

Gabe found a large Crawdad in the river.

Harley caught the largest fish of the trip. about 14 inch cutthroat trout. Her Magic pink Princess pole strikes again!

Gabe also caught a nice fish! And he saw a bull moose cross the river while he was fishing.

We had a great time.

Water Fight - Mom Rules

Julie was watering the Garden, she splashed Sage, "oops sorry". "It's okay" she splashes him a little more, "Oh woops, really sorry" "It's okay mom".....a few minutes later Sage comes out with a cup of water throws it on Julie, "oops sorry mom" .... and just like that, everybody was all smiles and water was going everywhere.

At first, Julie had the hose and was dominating, then Sage got to the second hose, then Gabe teamed up with Julie. And everybody was wet all the way through. Except for Harley, as soon as the water fight started she flew into the house to change into a swim suit, and showed back up right as the fight was over. she missed the whole thing. So of course we hosed her off too.

Fathers Day

After Church we had a little back yard fire. And dinner on the picnic table. Which is quickly becoming my Favorite sunday activity in good weather.

All of the kids made me a fathers day tie from construction paper. Love it.

1 year check up............Perfect!

Sage, Gabe, and Harley, Have been on a No sugar diet for about a year now. Except Family Birthdays, and Major Holidays.

And they have been great at brushing their teeth before bed time. And even floss ocassionally. Especially on Family birthdays and major holidays.

Recently all 4 kids, including Greyson 16 months old, had their dental check up. And there were Zero cavities, none, nada, ziltch. Pretty cool.

"Teens........Stupids!"

I've been laughing about this for days. At night I tell the kids child hood stories. I recently told Harley the story of When Poppy took pictures of Kyle, Megan, and I, jumping off the Bridge, that flows over the Spokane River, at the end of the Dike, by NIC. (Heading South on 95). Long story short, Megan landed wrond and was in a lot of pain. But while I was telling her the story, from time to time, she gave me a look similiar to the photo below. With an expression like, "Why in the world would you jump off a bridge," or "Dad, I thought you were smarter than that? etc....

At the end of the story, she gives me a look like the photo below and says, " How old were you".....I said, "Like, 15"............she thinks for a second, gives me that look and says, "Teens,....Stupids."

And I laughed, because anytime Julie and I see Teenage kids doing Dumb stuff (Stuff that we don't want our kids to do), we say, "Look at those stupid teenagers"...........I guess the message has sunk in.

FYI...photos are comliments of Poppy's fine work.