Halloween Party

This year we decided to throw a Halloween bash. Our neighbors had the same idea and so we thought to throw one together.


Our lovely tree of yesteryear died during the summer. We had thought to revive it, but our Frankenstein ideas just wouldn't work. So we thought to give it a final farwell by making it our ghost tree for the party.


By far I think this was the creepiest decoration we had up. The spiders were gigantic, but I was able to sleep at night because they were out in the living room.


With all the free time on my hands I decided to build a coffin. It just so happen to be the prefect size for Ella Patten. Plus she was a vampire for Halloween so it fit.


Our creepy witch.


My coffin, well, not the coffin I will use sometime in the future, but the coffin I built. Thank you Johnson family for your help!


Our neighbors, the Phillips. Can you guess what they were?


Can you guess what we were? Think Pinocchio.

Pet Costume Contest

The Village had a contest for resident's pets for Halloween. We thought since it was highly unlikely for people to dress up their cats that Teddy would have a pretty good chance. So we dressed him as Cat Dracula. Guess what, he won!!


There were only two other cats there. One was an angel, and the other was a monkey that wouldn't come out of its cage. Teddy wasn't so scared either so I think people were actually able to see him.


I thought the cutest dog was batman. I thought he should have won.

The Museum of Idaho

The Museum of Idaho located in Idaho Falls has traveling exhibits come at least once a year. In the past they have done the Titanic and some Pharaohs. This year they had a Da Vinci exhibit.


Da Vinci had a lot to do with everything. He dabbled with levers and pullies, along with gears and shafts.


He even constructed some war equipment. This one was designed to be drawn by a horse and go through the battle field slicing people. What I thought was interesting though was that Da Vinci always held a key component back on his war devices, so that these machines were actually never really built and used in his day.


Of course everyone knows that he was famous for painting the Mona Lisa, the Last Supper, and that spread eagle guy. What I hadn't realized was that he became such an awesome painter because of his dive into determining how the human body works. He used to steal dead bodies to cut them open and see how muscles and bones worked together in the body. His practices were frowned upon so he had to do these things in secret.


Da Vinci looked into how to fly as well. His inspiration was birds, and thus a lot of the contraptions he built look wing like.


I also didn't know that he did quite a bit of work in the area of hydraulics. He had some boats and ways to walk on water, though I liked this idea of scuba diving.


They had a bridge built entirely of poles that people could take apart and put back together. I asked one of the museum watchers if people usually do it by themselves. She said people usually have someone help but that she saw a ten year old do it by himself. Well, I couldn't be passed up by a ten year old, so I did it by myself as well.

Craters of the Moon

We ended up going to the national park on National Park day, though we hadn't realized until after the fact. We were thinking that they let us in for free because the place was under some major construction work.

There is a one way loop through the park and we decided to bike it. I hated it the first 3 miles because it was a steep incline the whole way. So I cheated and made William walk up it with me.


We saw some cool splatter cones and William was excited to use the word kapuka, which is an island in a lava flow.


They had 3 caves, created by underground lava flows, open to the public to climb through. Unfortunately, we didn't bring our flashlights and so were only able to go through one of them.


The caves were nice and cool, which was nice compared to the desert feel on the surface. We also saw some chipmunks out on the lava formations, which was surprising since the nearest tree was a mile away.

Temple to Temple

William and Josh decided that they would run the temple to temple between the two of them back in April before parting for the summer. Over the summer neither I think trained as much as they thought they would.


Upon arriving back at school and realizing the run would be 38 miles, they recruited two other people. The rules were that the teams had to be an even amount of people and if you had guys and gals, you needed the same number of each. Josh's little sister said she would run and then they had a volunteer join our team. The team was called Moose on the Loose.


The starting point was the Rexburg temple. It started as a pretty cold morning. Ashley started the race.


I thought this guy had cool shoes. Apparently, only those who are avid runners invest in these things.


William took over after Ashley and ran 10.6 miles straight through. I like this picture because it is a good view of the Tetons in the back.


William handed off to Josh who also ran 10.6 miles straight through. Josh handed off to Erin who ran 10.7 miles. This is Josh and William giving the moose sign.


Ashley ran the last few miles after Erin. Everyone crossed the finish line together.


The ending point was the Idaho Falls temple. Nicole (Josh's wife) and I were the constant cheerers and would drive to each check point to make sure our runners were still doing well.

Cat Tails

I had wanted to go here for some time because I had thought I would get to pet a big kitty. The place had even told me that I would get to pet a siberian tiger cub if we came such and such dates. So we went such and such dates to find out after we paid that we couldn't pet the cubs until other such and such dates. Phooey on them. I guess I will just have to go to Africa.


This is the closest I have been able to get to some big kitties. Granted, there were two sets of fencing between us that made taking pictures difficult, but it was still cool.


I was aiming for the one taking a bath. He seemed to be enjoying himself.


I've seen lions before, but seeing one on the same ground level as you and just a few feet away is still pretty intimidating.


We could have fed the kitties if we paid additional fees, but you had to do it through pexiglass so you wouldn't be in danger. I thought it would have been cooler just to do it through the fence.

Bottle Feeding

I got the chore of feeding two calves this summer. Have you ever tried it? It is not the easiest thing in the world, feeding two at the same time. I got pretty good at it though.


Aren't they cute? One of the calves was kind of sickly, so it got special treatment, not the gentle kind though. It had to get daily shots for a while and I just couldn't do it. I had to have William come home on his lunch break one day because I just couldn't get the needle into the cow's skin. It started to wail, and I just couldn't emotionally do it. Sad, I know, but I am ok with it.


Unfortunately, the sickly one ended up dieing on me when we switch the calves over from being bottle fed to eating grain and hay. Such is life.

Shaving the Cat

Teddy was a mess of mates at the beginning of summer. Brushing had done no good it was quite difficult to get him to sit still long enough for me to cut the mates out.


Teddy was thought to be a fat lazy cat that just laid around the house all day. Not something significantly different from most other cats I know.
After finding out that it would cost $70 to give Teddy a lion cut, William and I decided that we could do it ourselves.


Looks like a totally different cat, huh?! Teddy sort of acted like a different cat after that. He would strut around like he was cool and actually became playful. Who woulda thunk?
Now since most of the hair is back, being October, he's back to being a lazy cat.

Summer Projects

We had a lot of summer projects at the Meyers' house this summer. Amy and William were the instigators in getting the horse trailer out of the yard. Thus William and I built a brand new clothes line. William fixed some of the fences closest to the house. Amy, Mom Meyers, and I painted the kitchen yellow, then while everyone was away, I painted the living room, hallway, and boys bathroom. I made some window treatments with the help of Mom Meyers and Amy. The biggest project, however, was building the porch, though William might say the biggest was to clean out the barn.


The old porch was moved into the barn to act as a floor.


Sheila helped dig holes a little. Daniel was given the task of digging most of them though.


Amy mixed concrete, and is now the concrete professional.


Kevin and William laid most of the top boards down while Mom Meyers and I had to get the rest of the boards.


The completed project. Doesn't it make you want to shed tears of joy at the shear beauty? No?! Well, I think it was a major upgrade.

Summer Birthdays

Here is William trying to cut through his ice cream cake, he was very happy.


This would be the awesome castle cake that I made and Daniel of course, for the cake was made for his birthday.


William made the cake all by his lonesome, isn't it beautiful.


Roger didn't want a cake for his birthday, so instead I made X number of white chocolate macadamia cookies.


Amy wanted a cheesecake for her birthday.

Lighthouses

Cape Disappointment Lighthouse: I liked this one the best. It also lies on the most dangerous part of the coast. There are several deaths every year and is the place where the big dog military personnel come to train.


You can't tell from the picture, but there was an extremely steep drop from where I took the picture to the shore below. This place was called Dead Man's Cove.


I thought it would be really cool to climb into. I was having second thoughts when I saw all the spider webs, but William said I had to hurry because the camera was dieing, so if I look scared, it's because I was.



Grays Harbor Lighthouse: this one was a little depressing because it wasn't on the shore line, it was in the middle of the town. Silly us for driving out to the beach thinking the light house would have been out there.



North Head Lighthouse: This was the only lighthouse open to the public to tour. We would have gone up, but we left our money behind and the cool optical lens had been removed.