Idaho Vacation 2008 - Week Two

Week two started on Sunday July 27th (at least in my blog it does). I went hiking on the traditional Cote boys hiking trip with my dad and my brother. We usually make the hike every year. I forgot my camera (I know...), so I don't have any pictures, but we had fun as always.

While we were off hiking, Lynnell and her family went to Coeur D' Alene to go to Triple Play (a bowling-swimming-climbing-eating-playing-mini-golfing type facility). They went to go swimming. Here's a picture of Lynnell and Izzie comming out of one of the slides.


Here's Izzie's reaction after the midget slide.


I'm pretty sure she wanted to go down a much much much bigger slide.

Here's all of the girls hanging out playing.


And Nell and Izzie at the end of the day.


Monday morning we got up early and headed way up the river to my aunts river place because Alan & Mom were staying up there on vacation, and we wanted to spend a few days with them. Here's Nell and Izzie hanging out.


Here's Grandpa Alan and Izzie hanging out down by the river watching the other kids and dogs playing in the river.


My mom didn't believe me that Izzie could say supercalifragilisticexpialidotious, so when Izzie actually said it she was very surprised.*


Here's a very tired Izzie resting her head on mine as we walked around in the water.


When early afternoon hit it was time to load up and go for a float. Here's Grannie, Grandpa Alan & Skyler loaded up and ready to brave the open waters of the North Fork.


While everyone went on a float, Izzie and I stayed behind so that she could nap. Where do you put a baby when it's nap time and you don't have anywhere else to put her? A Kokanee raft of course.


We hung out, played and ate dinner for the rest of the day. On Tuesday we got up and did it all over again. Here's a picture of all the ladies. Counting my grandma (bottom right), there's four generations (Izzie represents the 4th) in this picture.


Here's Nell and Izzie eating some cantaloupe for lunch.


Here's Izzie and I with her great grandparents just before they packed up to go home.


We stayed up the river through dinner visiting and enjoying our time with family. Here's a picture of Izzie zonked out on the way back to my dad's house.


Wednesday we hung out at my dad's house all day. Here's Sydnie with gum all over her face.


Izzie hanging out in the house.


Here's my sister and I going for a bike ride in the evening.


Thursday the 31st we hung out with Lynnell's family because Joe, Shasta and the kids were leaving Friday to go back home. Lynnell and Shasta decided that we should all go huckleberry picking, so we loaded up and headed to their favorite spot on top of a mountain. Here's me and Izzie picking berries.


Here's me enjoying myself. Man I love picking tiny berries one at a time!


Here's Shasta with the kids. We discovered that the bed of the truck was an excellent cage to keep them from wondering off and getting eaten by a bear.


After we were done picking berries we went back to Chuck & Shirley's for lunch and some fun. Here's Izzie and I relaxing on the swing in the front yard.


Nell got the wild idea that everyone should have a water fight. Not a bad idea since the temperature was in the mid 90's. So, they filled up a bunch of water balloons and the war commenced.



After everyone dried out and ate dinner, we headed back to my dad's house (that's where we stayed the whole time if you haven't caught on yet). When we got there my dad had his squirrel out playing with it, and they showed us their new trick. The squirrel jumps on command to my dad.



Friday we hung out at my dads house again. Here's Izzie and her aunts playing, reading and coloring in the yard.


Then we decided to have a water fight with my sisters. We filled over 100 water balloons, scattered them throughout the yard in buckets and let the chaos begin. here's Nell trying to drill me on the run as Izzie watches on wondering why everyone is runnign from the squishy red things.


Just a quick side note: I drilled Nell in the side of the head while she was in a full run from the other side of the yard. I'm talking Hail Mary style throw. When it hit her she stumbled a little bit, but that was it. She kept on running for more balloons. My dad and I almost died of laughter. I'm pretty sure I couldn't do that again with a hundred tries. Good stuff.

Here's Izzie and Grandpa Joe hanging out on the couch Friday night.


Saturday we got up packed all of our stuff and headed back to Billings. That was the end of our vacation, and we needed to get home to recuperate from all of the fun.

*Izzie can't really say supercalifragilisticexpialidotious. It was just the only clever thing I could think to say for that picture, and it wasn't even that clever.

Idaho Vacation 2008 - Week One

Once again we went to Idaho for vacation. Fortunately this time the gas was paid for because we would have actually had to go over for some training that I had at SEL in Pullman, WA. It just so happened this time that we had already planned on taking vacation the day after the training got out. So, we ended up spending two weeks over there with me only working three days.

We got there sometime early afternoon on Saturday July 19th, and since it was such a beautiful day out, we decided to go up the river for some fun. The river was freezing cold, so we obviously didn't do that. But, we did relax and enjoy ourselves. Here's my sisters cruising around on a Power Wheel that they found.


The next day (Sunday) we headed down to Pullman because my training started at 8:00am Monday. On the way we stopped by the grandparents' houses. Here's Izzie with her Great Grandpa Paul (my dad's dad). We're finding out that she takes an easy liking to my dad and now my dad's dad. Maybe it's the skin color or maybe it's the personality. I don't know but it's odd and cute.


Then it was off to my mom's parents' house. They live out in the country and have a beautiful farm. Here's Izzie and I feeding Great Grandpa Bill's ducks some bread.


And here's Izzie hanging out with my mom's mom, Great Grandma Hazel.


After some dinner there we headed on to Pullman. Here's Izzie hanging out in the hotel room.


Luckily for us, hotel rooms still don't keep her from sleeping all night.


After a few days of traning, visiting friends and hanging out it was time to head North for the real vacation. Izzie, as always was an angel in the car.


We got back to the Silver Valley early Wednesday evening. Here's Izzie swinging with Aunt Alex pushing.


Here's another great picture of the fun.


The next day (Thursday) we went up the river to hang out and have fun. When we got home dad (Grandpa Joe) brought home a new pet for the girls.



Here's a picture of Izzie watching the bunnies hop around the yard.


Friday we hung out up the river all day, but we made it back to Lynnell's mom and dad's in the late afternoon because we knew that Lynnell's sister and her family were comming into town. It was intended as a surprise for Chuck and Shirley, but Devon accidentally slipped it to Chuck. That left Shirley being the only one that didn't know about it, so when they came to the door and knocked on it Shirley was very surprised to see them.


Here's Grandma Shirley enjoying her granddaughters.


Saturday July 26th was the real reason we actually took this vacation. Lynnell's aunt and uncle were having their 40th wedding anniversary. So, we headed up the river early Saturday morning, and of course we took the aunties. Here they are playing with Izzie in the pool (a daily event for all river expeditions). Izzie enjoyed the pool for about 30-45 minutes, and then she wanted out. Is the storm trooper hat sweet or what?


Here's Izzie doing what she does best: being cute.


An afternoon in the sun, playing in the pool and running around will take it out of a girl. Here she is just after her nap.


The party commenced late afternoon. There were a lot of people that showed up, and between the excellent food, volleyball, horseshoes, badminton and water everyone was having a great time. Here's Derek, Jake (my best friend growing up) and I just after a quick bite to eat.



Later after dinner we found a sweet Power Wheels Jeep roll'n around, and there just happened to be an extra seat. So, I stuck Izzie in it.



Here's Nell playing with the girls in the sand.


The end... of week one.

Sodding Party

Just before we went on vacation in July we decided to install sod at our new house. Luckily Lynnell's mom and dad offered to come over in June to help us install an underground sprinkler system. That was huge! Thanks guys!

We didn't quite get it all installed. I still needed to run the control wires and get that all hooked up. Here's a picture of me routing the cables through the house.


Yeah!


Here's Nell sorting out the programming while I finished the wiring.


This one's tough to make out, but we're testing the automatic control of the sprinklers. Obviously it's a success because it's on.


We got them working just in time because the next day the sod was scheduled to be delivered. 5:00pm sharp the sod man arrived. Here's a couple pictures of him delivering the pallets to the yard.



Unfortunately it started raining as soon as the sod arrived which didn't make me happy because Nell and I spent a lot of time (with some help from friends too) raking and smoothing the yard. Our soil is very clayey and when it gets wet it gets very sticky and clumpy. It sticks to shoes like glue. So, I took my shoes off to save myself the trouble of walking around with 20 pounds of dirt stuck to my shoe, and then we started laying the sod. At first it was just Adam and I, and then more people started to arrive.


And then more people started showing up. We ended up having 12 people show up to lay sod which made 4200 square feet of sod go fast. About an hour and 15 minutes fast.



Izzie's contribution: playing.


Here's the front yard getting some hefty watering after the sod was put down. That's right... automatically!


Here is the back yard one month later (middle of August). Look'n good.


Here's the front.


It's most excellent! We have a yard.

Thanks everyone!