Highlights From Summer 2012

BAILEY AND MILES ARRIVE!

Bailey and Miles came to Idaho so they could be here when Isaac got home. I of course forgot to take the camera to the airport to get a picture of them arriving. Plus their flight was early so I wasn't even there to greet them getting off of the airplane. But here is a cute picture of Miles we had taken while he was here. It is a good thing he is crawling in the picture because he learned to do that while he was here.

 

 

 ISAAC'S HOMECOMING

 Isaac returned home from serving his mission in Teresina Brazil on June 13, 2012. His sisters were excited to have him home. So was I!

 The whole family at the Idaho Falls airport. Since leaving on his mission our family added Miles and Brooke. Well done, Good and Faithful Servant, Elder Robertson.

 

TEXAS OR BUST

 At the end of June, Eric and I set out on a road trip to move him to Houston, Texas. This was construction going on in Wyoming near Kemmerer. It is a tunnel for migrating animals. The traffic goes under and the animals go over. We drove through a lot of smoke! I saw smoke from the Fontenelle fire, Ft. Collins fire, Colorado Springs fires. The trip took us 2 days. The first night we stayed in Westmeinster, CO and the second night in Ft. Worth, Texas. We arrived in Houston on the third day and got Eric moved into his appartment. It is a lovely place complete with a pool and fitness area. The photo below is Eric in his new place.

 Saturday we had a chance to drive around and get a feel for the area. It was a rainy day which made it a bit cooler, but not much. Our first stops were to find the temple and the church. The Houston Temple is beautiful. I don't know why the photo is sideways. I tried to change it, but it would not budge. Just turn your head sideways :) Sunday we attended church in Eric's new ward. It was a very diverse ward. Much different than Idaho! The people were friendly and I think he will enjoy it there. Then the bad part of the trip came....I had to leave to return to Idaho. Bailey and Miles were still here and I had to get ready for our next summer event. I must admit I shed a few tears while sitting in the airport and still do everytime Eric comes home and has to leave. It will be a very LONG year.

MIRANDA THE STUD!

Miranda decided to train for a half marathon this summer. She worked very hard and was very diligent in getting her runs in daily. She was also working full time. These are her running shoes all lined up. I think the first pair are from her early XC days, the middle pair are from her senior year and her freshman year of college and also the pair she did her 1/2 marathon in. As a reward, I bought her a new pair to start training for her next event. Who knows when or how far that will be?

 Coming into the finish line and she still has a smile on her face! Maybe she has the smile because she is coming to the finish line.....hmm. The half Marathon she ran was in Driggs, Idaho. It was the John Colter Half.

FOREIGN EXCHANGE STUDENT ARRIVES!

On Aug. 4, 2012 our foreign exchange student arrived. Her name is Shu-Han Liao but she goes by Micon (Mee-Ko). Abby and I were at the airport awaiting her arrival. She is joining our family for the upcoming school year from Taiwan. Upon arrival we came home and she promptly took a nap. I could tell she was exhausted. 

YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK

We wanted to show Micon around the area before school starts. So on a weekend when Eric was home from Texas we took a drive to Yellowstone. Micon had never heard of it before. We assured her that we were taking her to a very famous place and she would see people from all over the world touring there. The very first people we saw and heard were speaking Chinese. That brought a smile to here face. 

 Geyser Basin

 Old Faithful

 Brink of the Falls - Notice the beautiful rainbows.

 

AROUND THE HOUSE AND YARD

 Even though we will be moving to Texas, we planted a big garden. As I am taking care of it by myself I often ask myself why? This is the garden shortly after planting. Probably the only time there wouldn't be any weeds. We planted a couple weeks earlier this year. Eric just couldn't wait! All would have been well except for the freeze in June just after the plants were all up. We covered most of the garden so the freeze only stunted things for a little. Now it is a jungle!

 We gave Micon a chance to pick beans. She was a good sport about it. We have a ton of Sunflowers this year. We did plant some, but most of them came up from seeds that dropped last year. They are pretty and the bees love them.

 

OTHER PROJECTS THAT HAVE KEPT ME BUSY

I talked Eric into letting me get a new bedroom set, one with matching dressers and headboard, night stands. It didn't take much talking...he is so good to me. Anyway we had this old dresser for the past 22 years. It is a sturdy dresser and well made but it was pretty banged up from so many years of use. I decided to refinish it and put it in the room Micon is in. Paige helped me do a lot of it. I learned some valuable lessons...the most important is to not put a coat of polyeurothane on at night. I was doing this project in the garage and the lights were one and the bugs were gathering around the lights and then dropping into my wet paint....I had to sand it down the next morning and try again. I think in the end it turned out nice. And notice the blue wall..Paige, Abby and I also painted the room a nice light shade of blue.

 

ANNIVERSARY!

Eric and I celebrated 27 years together on Aug. 24. Luckily it was a weekend he was home from Texas. We were able to spend the day together, go out and eat and walk around the greenbelt. It was just very nice being together! I am looking forward to many more years together. 

A visit to Buhl

We decided to take a trip over the long weekend to visit Leslie (and Paige and Brent too). We arrived on Saturday. We braved the wind and cold and fed corn to the ducks that live down the lane from Paige's house. We went to Twin Falls for dinner and a little shopping much to Eric and Brent's dismay. We played Quiddler. Paige was the lucky winner. Leslie was so fun. I wish I had taken pictures of us playing in her fort. Sunday we attended their ward. They have a very friendly ward. That evening we enjoyed brownies and a game of 5 Crowns. Paige was the winner again. Maybe she was cheating...hmm. The weather wasn't very good. It was cold and windy, but on Monday we journeyed out anyway. We drove to Balanced Rock. I have always wanted to see it since I taught about it when I taught Idaho History. It was very cool. I will post pictures.

Balanced Rock from the parking area 

 Eric, Leslie, Abby, Paige, Brent and Remi ready to hike up the hill

 Marie and Abby below Balanced Rock

 Balanced Rock right at the tip of my finger

 Paige, Abby, Marie posing

 Balanced Rock

 Eric standing at the base of the rock. He was tempted to try and push it over. Can you imagine being the person that toppled Balance Rock, and ruining one of Idaho's unique landforms?



Eric and Abby decending the hill. Another view of the rock. 

We had a fun time. I wish we were closer so I could seem the more often. I guess I can't complain too loudly about 3 hours...it could be worse...We only get to see Bailey's family once or twice a year..Philly is too far.

Salsa and other stuff.

Happy 50th Birthday to Eric! We spent his day making Salsa and drying apples. And obviously from the pile of dishes behind him, washing dishes. That was my job.

Eric and I both took a day off from work and we stayed home and made salsa. When it was all said and done we had 28 pints of medium salsa and 28 pints of hot salsa. The hot isn't really that hot, but since it is the one that we put the ceyenne peppers in we called it hot. Both are very good and I am glad to have salsa back in my food storage. The only bad part was we had to buy tomatos. We had tomotos in our garden, but when the bulk of them were ripe the peppers weren't ready and then we had a couple of hard freezes so our tomatos were not good.  We have also been drying a lot of apples. We dried pears too this year and they are yummy. We canned apple pie filling and Eric canned a few quarts of pears. (Bless his heart). That was one of the chores he gave himself on one of his Fridays off. He found out it wasn't very much fun to can stuff alone and so he only did enough pears for 3 quarts.  Here are some pictures of the salsa.



I love the color and texture of fresh salsa. I wish I could also post the wonderful aroma that was coming from this pot.



Going to Philly!

Paige, Leslie and I are flying to Philly tomorrow to hang out with Bailey, Chad and the new baby..if he ever gets here! I am excited to fly with Paige and Leslie. This will be their first time on an airplane. I hope Leslie does well, and if not, I hope the other passengers are patient.

What a blessing it has been to me to have a student teacher! Taleea is wonderful. She is doing a super job and is a natural at teaching and discerning student needs. She has the lesson plans written and ready to go and will be teaching the class while I am gone. That relieves so much stress for me. I still had to get a substitue, but her job will be to help Taleea. It will be the easiest sub job she has ever had.

I hope the next time I post something here it will include pictures of new little baby boy Clark. I think his name is going to be Miles Chad Clark, but Bailey said not to embroirdery it on anything because they want to see him first before they settle on a name for sure.

Bon Voyage!

Our First Honey Harvest!

On Labor Day we harvested our honey for the first time. It was exciting and we had no idea what to expect. Paige, Brent and Leslie came over  to help. Miranda also had some friends over that were intereted in seeing the process. I worried that it would take a long time and we would be up half the night doing honey and I would have to get up and go to school the next day. That is not the case. Eric started getting into the hives around 10 am and we were done with the extracting and filtering by 3 pm. And that was with a lunch break.

Here are a few pictures that we took to document the day.  

The Bee Whisperers - Getting ready for the harvest.

Eric, Brent and Frankie

Eric very carefully brushing the bees off of the frame.

Paige enjoying some honeycomb. This was before we had to go inside because of angy bees.

                                                            



 

Some capped honey about to go under the heated knife.

Leslie really liked to dip her finger in the honey. She thought it was tastey!



Honey pouring out of the extractor and into the first filter.



The final filtering of the honey.

I am not sure if my kitchen floor will ever be the same.
We mopped it twice the day we harvested and I still find sticky spots.

We are enjoying the honey and have sold much of it. 







Spring Break 2011

We are on spring break this week. The week sure has gone by fast. Paige and Brent were on break last week so they were here in Idaho Falls visiting. When they went back to Wendell, Abby went with them. Eric had to work so mostly it was just Miranda and I  home doing our thing. It felt good to have a week to just chill. I did have a few goals to accomplish over the break. 1. Clean my bedroom. It was really out of control with laundry and ironing. 2. Buy a new car  3. finish Mirnada's senior quilt  4. Go to the temple. Sad to say I only accomplished two out of the four....

Here are some pictures of our trip to Wendell. We got out and did some sight seeing around the area. It was a very lovely day; lots of sunshine and heat!

 Our first stop was one of the many fish hatcheries. This one had a pretty cool viewing pond that you could look from the top or through  glass from below the pond.

 This is a very big sturgeon.

 This is a very cute girl!

 Four beautiful girls sitting on green grass, in front of blooming daffodils. The sun in shinning!

 Second stop, a hot springs swimming area that has alligators on the premises.

 Apparently it is a lucrative business to raise alligators in the Hagerman area. Lots of fish farms that provide fish guts to feed the gators.

Third stop the state fish hatchery. I thought these were large gold fish. Eric assured me that they are golden trout.

 Getting a good view of the trout tanks.

 Another alligator farm. We spotted at least six gators in this fenced in area.

 Next stop, Filer High School. There was track meet going on. We wanted to say Hi to DJR.  

Now I know why I try to control the camera. I let Eric use it for a minute and I end up in a picture. I hate to be reminded of how old and frumpy I look.  Miranda, Abby and Me in front of Shoshone Falls.





 Shoshone Falls near Twin Falls Idaho. I have read about these falls when I was teaching Idaho history. It was fun to finally get to see them. They are beautiful.



 More pictures of the falls. We walked on a trail and took pictures at all the different vantage points.

 On the drive to the restaurant we passed the Twin Falls temple. I took this picture out the front windshield, hence the bugs.

 Sisters...we miss Bailey.

Two handsome men. We miss Chad and Isaac.