October 2020

October 2 - Work has begun on Randy and Courtney's house!  Ryder and Molly loved pretending to drive this machine.

October 3 - General Conference Weekend  - There was a lot of painting, playing and napping.  Then, there was a shoe fashion show.

October 6 - Blake decided to clean out the rain gutters using his leaf blower.  It worked really well to get the dust out, so it doesn't turn into mud when it rains. After finishing our house, he went over and did my parents, there's lots of dust coming out!

October 7, 8, & 9 - Things are really happening at the new house!

October 9 & 10 - So, on Friday afternoon Jared, Randy and Brian loaded up in Brian's truck and headed toward Cindy's.  The purpose of this little trip was to go to Maine and pick up a utility trailer loaded with Nikelle's parents belongings and then drive it home to Rupert, unload it and then the trailer would belong to Jared to use for work.  They drove through the night and arrived at Cindy's on Saturday afternoon.  It was fun that Randy shared his location with me, so I could track their progress.

October 11 - They left Cindy's at 3:00 on Sunday morning heading east. They arrived in New Hampshire in time to get some good Maine lobster.  They stayed in a hotel, then on Monday morning hooked onto the trailer and started the return trip to Cindy's.  

October 13 - They spent the day with Cindy, doing a workout, and just resting up.

They went down to the Sandhills and the beach for a while.  I think it was a fun time for the 4 of them to be together.  The boys headed west early on Wednesday, October 14th.  It was a lot slower going with the trailer and the strong winds.

October 14 - a lot of progress on the new house! Plumbers and HVAC have been working, and shingles have arrived.  They got some windows and doors installed too.  Unfortunately, this was the wrong front door and has now been removed. 

October 15 - After driving all night in strong winds, the boys made it to Rupert about 7:00 am.  They got unloaded and then drove home! Now Jared has a nice new trailer, and they had a grand adventure! We were all very thankful that they made it home safely!

It was also my birthday, Ryder made me this cute card and came to help me blow the candles out on my pumpkin roll. Such a cute boy.

October 16 - I went out to the front porch to see if I had a package, and looked up to see the beginnings of this beautiful sunrise! It took my breath away.  I stood in the cold for 14 minutes taking pictures.  I had tears streaming down my face as I felt such gratitude to see such a beautiful sight in this crazy, confused world. I was filled with love and gratitude to my Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ for creating this for me.  I remembered how much they love me! I'm so grateful for my knowledge that the The Son, Jesus Christ did rise again, and that because of Him, I can rise also, not just from the grave, but from the trials, mistakes, tribulations and troubles in this world.

October 16 - Now that the boys got home, the work began on wiring in the new house.  Jared and Randy put a lot of hours and a lot of wire into the house.

October 17 - The work on the house continued! My nephew Joseph came to help out, he did more than electrical work, he installed the boxed soffits on the eves.  Ryder helped by climbing up and down the ladder.  We took some lunch to the workers and had a picnic in the garage.

While the men worked, we played.  Molly and Hallie were doing some "wall sits". Of course I wasn't able to catch Hallie actually doing them! Michael and James came to play, and so did my Mom and Akaila, and Adam and Michelle.  It was a fun day.

October 18 - My orchid is blooming! It hasn't bloomed for over a year and a half! I was just about to give up on it.  Brian brought his kids down for the afternoon, we made spaghetti!

October 23 - Another beautiful sunrise.  

October 24 - Wiring continues.....with some new helpers.

While the men worked, more fun happened at our house.  I tried to cut Hallie's mullet off.  She didn't love it!, but we got it trimmed up.  Maden, Annie and Clark came to play for a little while.

October 25 - Hallie got to stay the night, she has the cutest bed hair.  Then she thought she was big enough to sit at the table with the big kids.

October 27 - Another beautiful sunrise! 

October 28 - Blake got real creative and used the lawn mower to carry the air compressor to the pump, so he could blow the sprinkler lines out.  It took him 6 trips, so it was nice to just leave it on the lawn mower to take it back and forth.

I went up to tend Molly and Hallie and took some paint with water books.  Both girls loved it!

October 30 - Annie's 8th birthday! What a cutie.  She and I had a fun little date on the 26th, I'm sad I didn't get any pictures!  We went to lunch and went shopping.  She had a great time picking out her own birthday present. It was a fun day!

More work on the wiring!

October 31 - Halloween - Molly and Hallie came down to Blackfoot, while their daddy worked on the wiring.  Hallie really wasn't sure she liked Ryder in his skeleton mask.  Michael and James got to be in on the fun too. Brian sent this picture of his cute kids before they went trick or treating.  It was a nice warm evening.

Trunk or treat fun! it's such a great, safe way for kids to get the candy! My parents backed their car over to the school early, so Nikelle, Michelle and I just handed out candy while the daddy's walked the kids around to get their candy.

This time it is a moon rise.  It was a beautiful full moon! 

September 2020

 

First day of school for these kiddos.  Maden is in 5th grade, Clark in Kindergarten and Annie in 2nd grade at Summit Hills Elementary.  Molly started Kindergarten at Discovery Elementary.  

We took Ryder to see a Model Home, he loved the little playhouse under the stairs, and I love the look of the outside of this house!

September 5 - Blake and Jared went hunting in the river bottoms in Firth, Blake made friends with some horses.  Then we went to the Eastern Idaho State Fair - really just to the fairgrounds. It was eerily empty, and the food that was there wasn't our favorite. Such a strange year! Hallie loves to do whatever Grandpa is doing, and we got a good laugh at Molly's new mask.

September 7 - Labor Day - We started out the day going to Yellowstone Bear World.  It's always fun to see the bears and other animals.

We had fun taking photos with the bears, and some of us had fun on the rides! We went to Texas Roadhouse after Bear World.

Then, this is what we came home to! The wind had started while we were at Texas Roadhouse, and had caused havoc.  The north wind blew a lot of trees over all over the area, but these branches came down on a power line. most people in the area was without power over night, but ours was out for 3 days! 

September 8 - Some of the damage to the trees.

September 9 - And the clean up begins.  We really appreciate all of Randy's hard work!

September 10 - Still working! It was a huge job, and we didn't have as much damage as a lot of people.  There were many loads of trees taken to the dump!

September 11 & 12 - We went to the Parade of Homes in Idaho Falls.  There was a lot of houses, some great and some weird.  Look at the floor that Molly and Ryder were standing on, that was a weird one!

September 16 - We've had a lot of smoke in the air, coming from the fires in California, Oregon and Washington.  It turned the sun red!

September 19 - Everyone came down to celebrate Blake, and to clean up the shed, there was four wheeler rides, painting, "holding Hallie" and games.

We had Ice Cream Sandwich Cake and sang "popcorn popping", oh I mean "happy birthday" to Blake.

September 21 - Ryder came to celebrate on Blake's actual birthday and sang again on the rest of the Ice Cream Sandwich cake.

September 22 - Blake and I took a drive up past Palisades to see the fall colors, it was awesome!

September 23 - Yay! They're working on Randy's house!  Hallie kept begging to have this mask on, which I think is so funny, because she wouldn't have anything to do with a mask in April.

September 26 - Everyone is helping put things away in Brian's garage after he and Randy got home from their big hunting trip.

In the basement of their new house!

September 28, 29 & 30 - Spud harvest! Jared drove truck for Bart again this year. It's always fun to go see the harvest. Courtney and Ryder were there at the same time as Grandpa, Grandma and Michelle and her boys.  They hadn't seen each other
since March! Then Nikelle and Molly and Hallie came too! Thanks for the spuds, Bart! They are so good!

August 2020

August 1 - Celebrating Courtney!

August 3 - Beautiful sunrise!

August 4 - Ryder caught a little fish! Not sure he was really thrilled.

August 5 - Blake shot an arrow right into another arrow.  That doesn't happen very often.

August 8 - Jared came down to work on his trailer, when he got done, they took a little family four wheeler ride.  Hallie loves the four wheeler!

August 10 - Blake and Brian went over to the Castle Rock Archery Range.  It's a great 3D range.  They also did a little fishing.

August 11 - They dug the hole for Randy and Courtney's new house!

August 18 - Putting in the Cement Forms

August 19 - Cement is poured! Ryder was very worried about this "bridge", but got brave enough to walk on it with his Daddy.

August 21 - Jared and Randy are checking out the basement.  It's all so exciting, but it would be more exciting if things would happen faster!

August 15 - New Family Picture for Brian's family!

The bottom picture was the original that we took without Celia, the top is the one that my sister Tricia doctored up to include Celia! She's a magician!

August 17 - Ryder got to come hang out with me. He played a little basketball game of his own while we watched the Jazz on TV.  Then we had to vacuum up some crumbs, and he was very brave and did it himself.

August 19 - We had Ryder, then Molly and Hallie came too. Ryder and Molly learned how to shoot the arrows really well.

We made a date with Maden to go to Olive Garden, Ryder got to come along too.  They had a good lunch, then we went for ice cream at Reed's Dairy, we saw the animals and Maden got to meet some of Blake's relatives and have a family history lesson.

August 21 - See the smoky sky and the red sun? The kids had a fun day playing in the shed on the 4 wheelers.  Even Hallie got to play on them.  Then they had a little ride.  Hallie was in heaven!

August 22 - I drove with my parents to my sister, Lynne's in Woodruff, Utah.  We went to be part of Baby Paul's blessing and to attend Jackie and Mike's Open House. The top left picture is a 4 generation, with Lynne, Michelle, Mom and Dad and baby Paul.   It was a good day.  We stayed in Randolph in some tiny little cabins. I wish I had taken a picture of the outside.  It was tiny, but it was nice and pretty close to Lynne's house.

Aug 25 - Ryder was so excited that he got to go inside Grandpa Chin Chopper's house after almost 6 months.  He was even more excited to play air hockey with Grandpa!

August 26 - This big guy gets to go to Kindergarten! How is that even possible?

We had a little backyard pizza dinner with my parents, Michelle and her family and my nephew Adam Taylor so he could introduce us to Kayla Harris.  It was a fun little party, and good to see Adam again.