June 2020

 WEEK 1 (June 1st - 6th) - This week was a huge week for Ava.  After nearly  years with braces they finally came off!  It has taken a really long time to get Ava's teeth in the right position and she definitely wanted to murder the orthodontist a few times, but she finally made it!  Her teeth look wonderful.  We started some systems this week since it is the first week of summer such as chores and exercising. 

Abby had everyone over for dinner and a campfire this week for our family activity.  She's got great views from her yard.

We took our cows up to Humphrey for the first time.  Jed was very nervous about hauling them in because we have to walk them along the fence line for a couple of miles to get them into the right pasture.  However it was smooth sailing and they just walked right to where we needed them to go without any problems. We finally found Kinsley's calf - a little brown one!

Even though it was Abby's week, we had another get together at Sydnee's house.  Since the weather was so nice we had an outdoor water day with games and a waterslide.  It is so fun to see all the cousins playing together so much.

 

WEEK 2 (June 7th - 13th) - This week was Josh's week for hosting and he invited everyone to the loft for a cookout.  Ava made some yummy little key lime cakes.

Jace also got his mission call this week so we drove down with Grandma and Grandpa Erickson to watch him open it.  He is going to the Philippines and leaves in October.  While driving down Dallin watched Little Rascals and he was laughing so hard.  Grandma Erickson must not have thought it was as funny as he did.

WEEK 3 (June 14th - 20th) - With our cows up to Humphrey now we have to go up there to check on things more regularly.  It's nice that it isn't too far away but still feels like a getaway.  June is definitely the prettiest time in Idaho.  Not having church on Sundays makes it a nice day to have our home church and then go up to check on things.  When we got home Dallin started getting a rash all over his body.  It didn't bother him too much but he must have reacted with some plant up there.

Malorie came up this week so she stayed up at the ranch with Katie so we went back up there this week for some cousin time.  She helped the kids make fruit pizzas.  It is fun to be adults as sisters.  Even though we are quite a bit different in age it seems like we aren't because of being moms and having kids in the same stages.  This picture of us was last year.

 

While Mal was here she really wanted to take her boys to Bear World.  I never pass up a chance to go see my old stomping grounds and it had been awhile since the last time my kids were there so we joined her family. We saw lots of cool animals!

One huge win for Bear World was adding in the little amusement park area.  This was not there when I worked at Bear World and I'm wondering why people came to Bear World without it!  They have made great improvements to the entire experience. 

 

A few weeks ago Jed, Jake, and Jason went to a roping in Utah and one of Jake's friends told them they could take his living quarter's trailer.  He wanted to sell it and he was hoping after they took it one of them would buy it!  Well Jed ended up being the lucky one.  We decided to take the plunge and try to make roping more of a family experience to be enjoyed.  We will see how it goes.  The trailer is really fun and is pretty much longer than our house.  We decided to take it up to Swan Valley for a test run in staying overnight in it.

When we first got up there we had just gotten settled and Jed got a call from the hospital about an emergency so he had to leave right away to go.  It was a little annoying but we went down to get the razors and went on some rides.  We rode for a couple of hours and then went back to the trailer.  The kids thought it would be fun to go get some games from the ranch so Ava and Kinsley loaded up in a razor to go down and get some.  I figured they would be fine so I wasn't too worried about them.  After awhile I wondered what could be taking them so long and was just about to load up in the other razor to go see what was going on when I saw them Jed driving up the road.  When he got up to us all three got out and I knew something was wrong.  Jed told me that as he was pulling up the road to the ranch house he could see the razor going up and down the hill with the trees.  He thought to himself - "they are going pretty fast" when all of a sudden he saw the razor tip and just roll end over end 4x.  When it finally stopped it was upside down.  Jed said he has never been so scared in his life.  When he got up close enough he jumped out of the truck and ran over but there was nothing but silence and he thought for sure the girls were unconscious or worse.  By a miracle, they were both still alert and strapped into their seatbelts so Jed was able to get them out and somehow flip the razor over and drive it back to the garage.  It was pretty dinged up but the girls seemed to be fine minus a few scraps and tears.  I can't even imagine what could have been.  Jed hears about razor wrecks all the time and there are so many permanent and life-altering results from them.  It was a pretty somber few hours after they got back to the trailer with lots of hugs and tears.  We had a cookout and played some more games but no one was too keen on the razors after that.  By the end of the night we had smiles and laughs again. I'm so thankful Jed was in the exact place he was at the exact time.  I'm so thankful the girls were ok.  I'm so thankful that we left the ranch the next day in our truck leisurely instead of rushing to the hospital in an ambulance.  So many tender mercies. 

WEEK 4 (June 21st - 27th) - We celebrated Father's day up in Swan Valley.  We were ready to head back home from our camping and stopped at the ranch house to have church with Katie and Deantre.  We all shared our favorite stories about our dads and how much they have blessed our lives.  It was very sweet to hear my kids talk about how much they love their dad.  Jed is such a wonderful dad and Deantre even adopted him for his dad for the day.

It was Katie's week to plan some activities and she planned going to Rigby Lake one afternoon.  The kids were excited.  Kinsley had one gnarly bruise from her accident but it is crazy to me that other than that the girls have nothing to show for their trauma!  Rigby Lake is quite the popular place and was full of people.  We had sandwiches and popsicles for dinner.

Katie has been trying to set up a pop up clinic at the Loft while she has been here.  She has been working so hard and getting supplies ready.  I've been so proud of her and all the work she has put in to it.  For her other activity she invited us all out to use some of her supplies.  There were tons of flowers and legos. 

 After the loft Sydnee said she was going to take Raleigh to get her ears pierced.  Kinsley thought it might be fun to join her so very spur of the moment both these little girls were sitting in a tattoo parlor in Idaho Falls waiting to get their ears pierced.  The pictures are the wall were a little intimidating and I was a little nervous of what and where we had gotten ourselves into!  The guy who pierced their ears did it with a needle and was covered in piercings and tattoos.  I think Kinsley might have been a little nervous of what she would end up with, but it went good and they were both so excited to get their ears pierced together! 

Kasen was outside playing one day and this most beautiful butterfly landed right next to him.  He was able to hold it and brought it inside to show everyone.  It was huge!

Mallory invited Ava down to her school's volleyball camp and at the end of the week they invited Ava to play in a tournament with their team.  She did really well and it was so fun to see her enjoying the game again.  Last year school volleyball was so awful for her.  The girls were all so nice and just embraced Ava.  We went to a fun diner to eat and then stopped by to say hi to Grandma and Grandpa Erickson on the way home.  We saw Nixon there - the world's fattest baby.  After such a fun week and weekend for Ava we started to wonder if we should maybe move down that way?? There were lots of pros to being in Firth - smaller schools, knowing their cousins in school, friendlier people, less competition in sports, easier roping access for Jed, etc.  We even went and looked at some houses.  There was a beautiful house we found but it wasn't quite the right land we wanted or the right outdoor space. 

 It seems like our whole lives revolve around cows now.  We are constantly checking on cows.  Sometimes I feel like I just inherited 30 more children and their babies to take care of now.

This week we decided to go out to dinner and invite Marilyn to come.  We went to the Japanese steakhouse and it was so delicious as usual.  There was lots of fun laughter and conversation.  While we were eating Marilyn told us she had heard about a virtual concert Garth Brooks was doing at the drive-in.  We all said how fun it would be to go and how much we love Garth and his music.  After I got home I looked up ticket information and saw that tickets went on sale the next day.  You paid for a carload and then went to the drive-in to watch the concert on the big screen.  We decided to go and got tickets!

The concert was that Saturday night.  It was a beautiful night and we got there early for some good parking spots.  We brought pizza, camp chairs, and Sydnee even brought the giant bean bag in the back of her truck to watch on. I had also gotten tickets for Jake and Megan's family to come.  It was so fun!  The music was amazing and we had space in between the cars so the kids ran around, danced, sang, and the adults even joined in for some classic line dancing!  Towards the end it got really wild as Kasen, Heath, Jagger, and Dallin went shirtless!  It was so fun.  There is nothing quite as American as sitting on your tailgate belting out country songs - especially Garth Brooks country songs - into the summer night as loud as you can!

 

WEEK 4.5 (June 28th - 30th) - Another thing we are working on is developing the habit of daily scripture study.  It is going pretty well.  It seems to work out best when everyone does their own study but at the same time around the table.