Our First Kayak Expedition

So the kayaks came in the mail today. Used, tandem, inflatable kayaks off of Ebay to be exact.


We took them out to a local pond to give them a whirl. We don't have proper paddles yet, but the old canoe paddles worked fine in the mean time.
It was a pretty spring fed pond with gorgeous crystal clear water.

Hagerman seems to be full of beautiful water. I must admit that this place is really growing on me.
We had a great time!

Monday Night Explore

Last week we went to visit 2 of the plants that Daddy works at.

It was a lovely walk.....
With a beautiful view.....

Fresh clean spring water pouring out of the flume.......

I cried a little bit at this point because I'm afraid of heights. But I wiped them away, and went on to enjoy the rest of the night. :-)

We happened upon a very cute little snake. I like snakes better than heights.
Oh.....except for that time I almost stepped on a rattler in the South Hills, when I was taking all the kids for a hike. I certainly didn't like that snake. No sirree.

Then, on our way to the other plant, we stopped by the Clear Lakes Fish farm to look at the sturgeon in the viewing pond.
Can you see the dark outline of a big fish next to Hailey's left arm? That's a sturgeon.My baby boy enjoyed it too and he got his first mosquito bite.
I should write that in his baby book.

TEA Party

After morning school, the kids and I made signs and then drove over to attend the Twin Falls Tea Party last Thursday. It was a lot of fun and a great educational experience for everyone. The boys helped with the opening flag ceremony, and then all the kids went forward to help sing the Star Spangled Banner. One of our homeschooling friends, Truman Whitney, who is only 14, did an amazing speech. He did even better than the adults and he did it without any notes!

Here's my artist, Torsten, working on his poster. I love his lettering.

Discovering the Gorge

I haven't been hanging around the "blog" much lately- a mixture of a little sadness, some sickness, and much busyness has contributed to my lack of writing, but I will work on getting back in the habit of posting! And now that it is getting a bit warmer outside I may actually have something to write about. c'mon spring...you can do it...you're aaalllmost here...


Yesterday the whole family went to take a look at the deep canyon near our house. Hailey mentioned the view of the falls at the beginning of the trail looks reminiscent of Hawaii. .....ahem...well....if you squint and imagine real hard. :-)


Along the trail there is this look out point with interpretive signs that huge birds must have read and interpreted as saying: poop on me. You just know the birds are thanking humans for building this right here for their perching and viewing comfort. (click the picture to see what I mean)
I've been wanting to take the kids on this hike ever since we moved here, but thought I'd wait until Joel was there to help me keep everyone away from the cliff edges. I'm glad we waited for him because there was a heck of a lot of cliffs and edges on this hike. The land falls away on both sides of the trail until you're walking on a thin wedge of plateau with canyons on either side. The water below actually gets more clear and beautiful as you walk further down river because of all the underground springs adding their fresh cold water to the river. I love it.

We walked until we could overlook the Upper Diversion.
Idaho Power sends this water to a little dam further downstream, one of the many that Joel is learning how to operate in this new area.

And speaking of Joel, he took this interesting shot of some lichens.It was so nice to get out and explore. It will be fun to discover all the beautiful little spots around here this summer.