Ridgerman and the Big 3

Ridge Michael Cook is THREE! (6 months ago, but who is counting?).  He had a great birthday.  In the morning while the girls were at school he spent at least an hour painting small wooden things I had been collecting for just such an occasion.  When we were walking home from picking up Katelyn from school at lunch time he got some fun surprise balloons from his friends Sadie and Hudson Fish.  His request for party theme was a resounding FOOTBALL.  He had had the theme chosen for months and interestingly enough he had the following year chosen also (tractors).  He wanted a football birthday party with pizza for dinner.  I had an idea of how I was going to make a football cake, but in the days leading up to his birthday he kept asking if I had all the stuff to make "THE football cake."  Finally I thought I better clarify what "THE football cake" was.  I was surprised to get his quick and direct answer.  He said, "you know, the football cake in the cake book."  He proceded to pull the cake book out of the cupboard, open it up, and find a page with a football cake.  He pointed out the marshmallows, licorice, and brown frosting.  I was really glad I had asked.  He also wanted pizza so I attempted to shape the dough into a football, which Ridge appreciated.  The best part of the whole night was Ridge's birthday song.  He bounced and danced through all four of the Cook family birthday songs.  We got a great video of it.  His big gift was a pirate ship playhouse for his room.  He loved it as did the rest of the kids.  It is a really cool pirate ship.  Happy birthday to our little man.

McCall Winter Festival 2013

We took a little day trip to McCall for the winter festival.  We weren't able to make it the first weekend, so the sculptures had melted and were a little disappointing.  However, the large piles of snow were a favorite and made the trip.  There were piles all over town.  Some already had slides forged through them, others were made by our kids.  We had subway sandwiches for lunch and came home the same afternoon.  I would definitely go again, but probably try for the first weekend.

Snow Fort

  Rusty and the kids made a cool (no pun intended) snow fort in the front yard.  I had to add this second picture because it was so cute of the two of them.

Bounce

Not a great picture, but we took the kids to bounce a few weeks ago.  The kids had a great time and to mine and Rusty's surprise, so did we.  I think we were both expecting to see "NO ADULTS" posted all over the bounce equipment.  We were happy to see that we were just as able as the kids to use the equipment.  All of us were able to joust, try to stick ourselves to a sticky wall, jump, play in the pirate ship, run only to be whipped back by the cords (in picture above), slide down the slides, and run through the obstacle course.  It was a great time.  This was a ways away in Meridian, but they have just opened one right down the street from us so we will have to try that one next.

Visit with the Giles

We made the trek to Utah in January to visit the Giles.  This time when I say trek I really mean it.  We got rerouted through Rupert when an onion truck overturned on a bridge on the freeway.  It was a 40 minute delay.  Not long after we were back on the freeway we hit some debris.  Rusty never even saw it, and I only caught a glimpse the split second before we hit it.  We continued on for about a mile, when Rusty went to pass a semi.  He said he thought that it sounded like a flat tire about the same time I asked if the sound was coming from the semi we were passing.  He quickly slowed down and we were blessed with a very close exit.  We took it and pulled over to see that our back drivers side tire was completely slashed in about 5 places.  We spent the next 30+ minutes changing to our spare tire.  I have had my car for 5 1/2 years and never pulled the spare out.  We had to get out the manual and figure out where all the gear was.  Of course it was under the kids' seats so we had to put them in the front seat and remove all the car seats.  This was after we had removed all the luggage from the back.  It was about 10 degrees outside so the kids were all huddled in blankets in the front.  We turned the car off so noone got carbon monoxide poisening.  When it was finally changed we checked the tire pressure and found the spare to be quite low.  We limped along to the next exit where we found an air hose.  It was a poor excuse for an air hose but eventually it did the job (about 5 minutes to the spare tire).

Despite our exceptionally long journey, we had a great time once we got there.  On Saturday morning we hiked up to Bridal Veil Falls in the snow to watch the ice climbers.  That afternoon we had an all kids birthday party, complete with cake, presents, hats and candles.  Uncle Shaun joined us for that, too.  Saturday night we went roller skating, then had pizza for dinner.  Once the kids were in bed we played games with John and Wendi.  Sunday we went to church and hung out in the afternoon.  Kyleigh, Alyssa, and Haley worked on their duct tape art and came up with what they believe is a landmark invention, the duct tape pillow.  Monday morning we went to trafalga.  We played a round of black light mini golf and watched a mini-show in their 3-D theater.  We then said good-bye to the Giles, and went to Ikea to get some stools for Holly.  We met Shaun and Debbie for lunch before heading back to Boise with a thankfully unremarkable trip. 

The girls have already been asking when we can see them again.

Rusty's Birthday

Happy Birthday to Russ!  As usual his birthday wish consisted of really good food.  I did my best with a full on turkey dinner and three pies for dessert.  A highlight of the night was watching him and Ridge open the present Ridge got for him.  He picked it out himself at the thrift store.  It was a toy firetruck. Shocker, I know.  He quickly grabbed it for Rusty to open first.  He helped him open it, and then jumped off his lap and played with it for the rest of the night.  Just the fact that he allowed it to be wrapped and controlled himself from opening it before the party is evidence that he is growing up.  Mike and Holly and the girls came over and gave Russ a snow shovel.  He had been having some snow shovel envy since Holly had purchased one for them a few weeks earlier.  He was pretty excited about that.  Kyleigh made him a duck tape pillow.  Duck tape is her new favorite art supply.  Katelyn picked out a pair of work pants from the thrift store and was excited to give those to him.  I gave Russ the gift of a new talent.  A NEW UNICYCLE!  I think he should learn to ride it and then do so while juggling his pins I got him for Christmas a few years ago.  There isn't anything wrong having the circus as a backup plan, right?

Random Camel

Randomly, a camel and it's wiseman-like dressed handler showed up at the nursing home across from our church just as we were finishing the 3 hour block.  We went over to say hi.  I guess to be fair, it wasn't totally random, it was Christmas time.