Save the Worms!

 I came out of the back door of the house one afternoon to this scene.  Katelyn and Elena had flooded this area.  This happens quite often.  The kids call it the Amazon River or Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.  This time they were catching the worms they had flooded out to "save them."  However, to save them they were putting them in a cup full of water.  I taught them that the worms come out to get away from the water, so putting them in water wasn't very good for them.  They filled the cup with dirt and saved the worms.

Zoo Boise Butterfly Exhibit

 We get pretty excited when summer rolls around and the butterfly exhibit at Zoo Boise opens up for the season.  This was a particularly good day to go.  I think the butterflies were attracted to the tie-dyed shirts we had just made.

 Rusty and I have heard tale of the plane wreckage at Loon Lake near the Secesh River area above McCall.  When we planned a few days away for backpacking this summer we decided that would be our destination.  We spent three days and two nights backpacking.

It only took us a few hours to get to the lake.  Those 5 miles went by no problem.  We brought supplies to go fishing but found the lake to be an undesirable fishing location.  It was only about a foot deep for a good 50+ feet into the lake.  We looked for a place to camp and found the camping locations near the lake to be very overused and kind of dirty.  So far it sounds like a mediocre trip but those little things didn't matter because I was spending time with Rusty in the outdoors.  We spent some time walking around the lake looking for the plane wreckage.  We found it and that was pretty cool.  I didn't expect that much of the wreckage to be left.  It started raining pretty hard while we were looking so we took shelter in the plane.  That worked out great for me but Russ was underneath a big hole and he got more wet than he would have out in the rain.  After we left the wreckage we decided to work our way away from the lake to find a less used place to camp.  Our plan for the second day was to follow a trail shown on the map that led to some high mountain lakes and fish there.  We went toward that trail and found a great place to camp.  If anyone had ever camped there before you wouldn't have know it.  It was perfect and quiet and fabulous.  We packed extra light on the tent, using only a piece of visqueen and some rope.  We packed extra heavy on the food and ate right!  We ate hamburgers with the works and chocolate fondue with bananas, strawberries, toasted coconut, and toasted almonds.  

Our second day of hiking was a bit harder.  The trail that was supposed to be there to follow was MIA.  We went up and around and down and further than the five miles the day before wandering in the wilderness.  We ended up coming down a really steep mountain in an attempt to get to a main trail.  We knew it would be on the other side of the river, but hoped we would find a place to cross.  After an hour or so of deliberation and investigation we found our way across the river and found another great spot to camp.  It was a chilled out night and we hiked out the next day.

Russ and Ridge

 blowing off the driveway...

and watching the Priesthood session of general conference.

Spirit of Boise

 We have been to the Spirit of Boise morning balloon launch one other time.  Ridge loved watching the balloons blow up and fly away.  We tried to go last year but missed it.  When I heard they were doing a kids morning with free tethered balloon rides I knew we had to get there this year.  As a bonus, my parents were in town on their way to Northern Idaho to visit Darci.  We almost decided against the tethered ride when we saw the lines, but then watched how fast they were moving and went for it.  It was so fun.  Due to the weight limits we had to split up for our ride, but we all got to go.  So fun.  Hopefully Russ can get there with us next year.

and...First Day of Preschool

 Ridge was nervous to start preschool with Ms. Laura until he found out Amy (Holly's sweet sister) was the assistant teacher for Ridge's class.  He LOVES preschool and is learning so much.  Plus he is exceptionally cute!

First Day of School

 How cute are these two?  5th grade and 2nd grade here they come!