Leif posed on Santa's lap last night at the school program.  He did fine until Santa asked him what he wanted from Christmas. Then he flushed bright red and and got a desperate look on his face.  "Mom!  What do I want for Twistmas???"  I whispered, "You want trains!".  "Oh ya, I want twains for Twistmas".  Cute!

Making music

There is a great new band teacher at our high school this year!  She's really inspiring the kids in our community to want to learn how to make music. Of course, our family has always really enjoyed piano and hand bells and singing....but now the kids are enjoying learning trumpet, trombone, flute and percussion too. It's fun to hear random music coming from all corners of the house as they work on their songs or try each others instruments out.  Joel and I like to try playing them too.

Taylor's Bruneau Canyon Pictures

Bruneau Canyon

We went for a Sunday drive to see the Bruneau Canyon.  I'd told all the kids that it was deeper than the Grand Canyon but I found out I was wrong.  It's actually Hells's Canyon that forms the western border of Idaho that is deeper than the Grand Canyon.  Nonetheless, the Bruneau Canyon is deep enough to warrant a drive out to ooh and aah over it...... and give me heart attacks that the kids are about to fall off the edge.  I'll have Taylor upload pictures he took with his nice camera-- these are terrible ones from my iphone!

Owyhee County Fair

Somehow I deleted this post the other day!  Luckily I had a draft in the file and I am reposting it because this blog is an journal of sorts for our family, and I wanted the fair included in our journal.   
Sorry for the repeat, you can just ignore.  :-)
Out family had an exciting week at the fair!  It started out Tuesday with both Joel and I being pulled over simultaneously by 2 police on the way to Homedale (we were both speeding and come to find out, the police had actually been looking for me because someone had called me in for reckless driving 20 miles earlier!) and then it ended Saturday night with me getting pulled over again by the same policeman for lack of trailer lights on the camper.  Luckily he took pity and didn't give us another ticket.

 In between the trip to and from the fairgrounds we had a great time!  Heidi took 2 goats- her dairy wether Cocoa and her meat goat Coreo, Taylor took his meat goat Lucifer, Hailey took her lamb Daisy, and Reagan took his 2 pigs Bacon and Sausage.

We spent the first day weighing in all the animals, they all made weight--yay!, shearing the lamb, and Taylor and Heidi showing their goats. That was the craziest day by far because the rodeo was that night too.  Lot's of fun!  The sheep show was the the next day, the pig show Friday.  After the pig show they let the parents try their hand at showing their kids pig for the judge. I did it and realized how hard it was to herd your pig around the ring and still make eye contact with the judge. I did terrible! And  while I was waiting to go in the ring about 4 pigs, including mine, got into a big fight in the alley. Our pig was 263 pounds-- these are big animals! Before the men could break it up, I was crashed into and I got a big bruise on my knee to show for it.  So much excitement!  :-) Did I ever mention the pigs ended up being our favorite animal?  They are so funny and personable!

Though 4-H made for a super busy summer with feeding and walking animals, record books, demonstrations, record book interviews, meetings, parade, fund raiser, posters, fair, etc., I think we are all glad we did it at least once and had these new experiences and adventures.

Birthday Boy!

Leif turned 4 this week!  He has been talking about being 4 for months.  I can't believe my baby is that old!  Leif spent his birthday playing with his Grandmas, riding with Reagan on the tractor, and then having a bulldozer cake.  Thanks to Grandma B. and Grandma C. for the cute cake!  He loves trains, trucks, loaders, or any other big loud machine.  By the way, those Kit Kat treads were really tasty.   At the end of this post there are pictures of him on his new birthday bike. :-)

Weekend at Grandma and Grandpa's house

We spent the day at my parents house doing various projects. There's never an end to projects at their house!  Reagan was the designated tractor driver.  Torsten did cutting and welding in the barn, Grandpa jack hammered rock, Joel and a friend moved the extra piano to Grandma Clayton's house, and Mom and I cut quilt squares.

 

Silver City---- are we there yet???

It was such a beautiful crisp fall day that we decided to go on a Sunday afternoon drive to see some new scenery.  Perusing my Idaho gazetteer, I realized there was a back way to Silver City, which is an old mining/ghost town up in the Owyhee mountains.  The normal way takes a little over an hour from our house but this way looked more interesting.  We left CJ Strike a little after 2 with a pan of brownies, apples, plums, red peppers, cherry tomatoes, peanut butter and crackers and of course lots of water.  By the end of our trip I was wishing I had packed something more substantial and I was so glad I had a roast and potatoes cooking in the crock pot at home! Who knew the "interesting" way would actually take 7 1/2 hours?  Oops.  But I Loved it!  I feel more alive when I'm seeing some where new and it involves the great outdoors.

Here was CJ Strike before we left......wasn't that sky amazing? So nice after all they hazy, smoky skies of July and August.

 

After driving for over an hour up Mud Flat road and across Antelope Ridge we had to stop for a bathroom break.  Everyone found their own juniper bush.  In the distance behind Heidi are the mountains we were going to go up later.  Hours later.  Did I tell you we took the looong way? It took probably 2 hours to go 20 miles on this road.  Sometimes we went two miles an hour because the road was so rough!

After Antelope Ridge we came on to Flint Creek Road.  I really liked it.  It had neat old remote farmsteads with open range cows and horses.  Of course, I didn't take any pictures of Flint Creek Rd until we were almost at the end of it.

 We then turned onto Happy Valley Rd and we were almost to Jordan Valley, which is in Oregon (yes, we almost drove to the Oregon border entirely on dirt roads!  This was one bumpy trip!) but then we turned right onto a road which takes you the back way to Silver City. We followed a creek almost all the way up, passing a few remnants of other mines and ghost towns that are not as well preserved as Siver City.

Some neat old rock walls near a mine....

Leif in an old mine building we came upon.

 

 And Torsten and Joel. The walls were thick!  They built things to last in those days.

 

Climbing a hill of mine tailings.  We found a lot more cool rocks to add to our collection!

So after hours of driving, I seriously think the kids had decided we were NEVER going to get there, we finally made it to Silver City, a "ghost" town that is still lived in during the nice months of the year by hardy souls who love antiques and being waaaaay out of civilization.  There is no electric service here- everyone uses solar.  Back in the boom days, Silver City was the county seat of Owyhee, but now our county seat is Murphy. 

 We stopped at the Silver City Hotel and Restaurant.  It is filled with neat old artifacts, furniture, an old jail cell, chandeliers, etc.  You can sleep here and have dinner and pie if you want.  Sometime we want to do that.  We didn't on this trip, just visited with the friendly gentleman who owns it.

 Before we left, we visited the cemetery.  I really like old cemeteries.  It is always neat to look at the designs of the old headstones and read their inscriptions.  We like to look for the oldest ones we can find. 

 

 A well preserved Mason headstone from the mid 1800s.

 

We had to keep Leif off of the headstones.  He kept thinking they looked like fun things to climb.

 

What a day!  When we drove down the north side of the mountain to go home, we could see the lights from Melba to Mountain Home to Grand View.  It was so fun to spend time with our family and explore the backroads of our less populated Owyhee county.