Cherry Season

It's been awhile since we've been able to eat our fill of cherries.  We miss the back yard oranges and apple bananas but, MAN, cherry season was a big hit!  Our neighbors down the street had a loaded tree that was all falling to the ground.  We asked permission to take some and they requested we take them all.  We took all we could.  We canned cherry juice and cherry pie filling.  I also pitted and froze a bunch for smoothies.  They are still tasting good right now. 

Peterson Visit

When the time came to walk through security and leave Auntie Dawn behind on Kauai we were all so sad.  However, before we left they already had had a trip planned to Boise so we knew it wouldn't be long before we would see the Petersons again.  We got to spend a few days with them in Boise and made the most of it.  We went ice blocking, ate at the Pita Pit, visited municipal park (where we saw a deer running through the park), had a barbeque, and most exciting of all went white water rafting down the Payette River.  Of course, the kids got spoiled with new Hawaiian outfitted toy story toys and iphone use by Auntie Dawn.  I didn't get any pics of the rafting but we got lots of ice blocking pictures.  We had a great time and hope to see them again soon. 

P.S.  The big question... will it even be Christmas without Mexican rolls?

Tank in a Diaper

Where did summer go?  Due to the lack of updates those 2 people who read this blog could guess that the summer was CRAZY busy.  The girls are in school now and I thought I might be able to attempt a catch up.  I thought I would start with the best of all.  Not long after Tank became a Cook the girls decided to solve the untrained puppy problem with the most reasonable and logical answer...a diaper, of course.  The only problem was that pesky tail.  Never fear, they carefully measured and cut a hole for a genius solution.  Tank didn't go for it and the diaper was quickly shaken right off.  Luckily he is now officially house trained.  If I could just figure out how to get him to stop eating wipes, important papers, books, shoes, towels, the legs of the chairs, the legs of the people, etc.

Happy Father's Day!

 The best part about Father's Day is how excited the kids are to make their Daddy feel special.  This year Rusty bought himself a gun so we decided that was a good Father's Day gift.  However, it just wouldn't be the same without a few fun surprises.  The kids and I decided to decorate a sombrero for a gift to go along with the new pictures for his Father's Day frame.  We put a foam airplane, candy bars, a foot scrub, heart shaped sticky notes, and fireworks on his sombrero.  We also pulled out the puffy paint and decorated door hangers to put around the house for the big day.  Then we forgot and gave them to him later, but it's the thought that counts, right?  Rusty's favorite thing after a hard day is a peach kerns on ice.  We stock him up for birthdays and special occasions.  It is way more fun to buy kerns in Idaho (.48 vs. $1.88 or so).  We gave him a few of those.  We took a bike ride in the afternoon after church.  For dinner we had bacon wrapped steaks, loaded bake potatoes, rolls, and something else I can't remember right now.  For dessert we had a homemade caramel topped cheesecake and we also played the ice cream game.  The kids insisted on it, even though Russ wanted a cheesecake so we did both.  Rusty and Kyleigh tied to win the ice cream game this year (where you taste an ice cream and try to guess what it is named and what ingredients are in it).  We also went to Winco on the Friday before Father's Day and did their make and take decorate your own cake station.  They had 8x8 cakes and various frostings and decorations.  You bought the cake and decorated it.  It was very fun.  The girls each did one.  We took those for lunches on the lot with a bunch of forks and everyone dug in.  As I type this it sure sounds like all we did was eat.  Hmmm, well I guess we did.  Happy Fathers Day!

P.S. The d-a-d stickers on Rusty's head were Katelyn's brainchild.  She was playing with a sticker sheet one day and was dissapointed that there weren't enough letters left to make her name(a detriment to having two kids with K's in their names).  She quickly got over it when she realized that there were enough letters to spell dad and she thought the best place for them was on Rusty's forehead.

Garden

 So we moved back to Boise, and we live across the street a few houses down from our acre + lot that has water rights to flood irrigate weekly.  All that means Rusty had visions of a beautiful garden dancing in his head.  Back to reality...we were in NM for a month, we didn't know how to flood irrigate when we got back, and we hadn't started any plants.  Oh yeah, we also have black thumbs.  Rusty refuses to accept that and some day he may win.  Not this year.  We did plant a few plants in our back yard.  The girls have taken to it and they are still alive.  The best part of planting was finding the worms.  They are still unused in the back of my fridge.  Be careful what you eat at my house.

Backyard Summer

 Lucky for us, our new house has a great climbing tree.  Not too high to scare me, but high enough that the girls think it is cool.  One day they built this "birds nest."  They are still hoping a bird will take up residence in it.

Tank Santa Samson Cook

 Meet the newest member of the Cook family.  Tank Santa Sampson Cook was born April 11, 2012. We met him and his siblings in early May and chose him as our new pet.  He came home with us in late May and we haven't looked back.  He is full of fire and your average puppy.  He chews on everything, jumps on you with his sharp claws, doesn't know that he isn't supposed to nip, and you forget it all when he falls asleep on your lap.  He may be the worlds largest lap dog when he is full grown.  He is a german shorthair and extrememly smart.  He is house trained already, sits on command, and almost always comes when called.  His mother died due to complications in the birth of her litter so he was bottlefed by the breeders.  They named him Tank because he ate his food so much faster than the others.  Tank is also the name of one of the puppies we met while volunteering at the humane society on Kauai.  He was one of the few I secretly considered adopting.  We liked the name and decided to keep it.  The Santa part is from Ridge, of course.  He is still obsessed with Santa and Christmas.  Samson was Jake's middle name and we wanted to keep that in memory of Jakers.  We pretty much love him, but look at him, who wouldn't?

Top two pictures by Kyleigh and Katelyn.