Aug 22 2016

The week before school Goal 1 & 2

Posted on August 22, 2016 by Karin

We have had a great summer and it’s hard to see it gone but alas summer is almost over. My kids start school one week from today. The week before school starts I like to prep my kids so I know they are ready. My first goal for the week is waking my kids up at the time they would get up for school. That is 6:30 am for my elementary age kids and 7 am for my oldest. During the summer our sleep hours become lax. Bedtime gets pushed back and I let my kids sleep as long as they want in the morning. If I waited until the first day of school to start waking my kids up their bodies would not be used to the deprived sleep. They would be grumpy at school and want to sleep. I can’t do that to the teachers who work so hard to give my children their all. That is why we prep them for school. That way the first day isn’t a shock to their system and they are ready to learn. This morning was tough. My alarm went off at 6:30 and automatically my hand flies up to push the snooze. I’m usually up at 6:30 for my morning walks but I’ve taken a little break and it’s already tough to wake up. Once I was up I went and woke the little ones. My 3rd grader had an easier time getting up. She is really a morning person. She will wake up all year round with a song and a smile. My 6th grader is a different story. He took a little longer and usually I pay for it later when tempers flair and he isn’t quite awake. It’s now 7:30 am and my two oldest are already arguing. My 9th grader who has been a morning child before has crept into that teenage cycle of wanting to sleep all the time. He gets to sleep in an extra half hour than the others because his school starts later. I woke him up at 7:05 this morning and didn’t see him until 7:20. Hopefully this gets better during the week.

The second goal for today is cleaning out my children’s dresser drawers. We will at some point need to go get new school clothes this week. So today we have to make room for those clothes. We will remove anything that isn’t being worn or is too small or worn out. We will fill a bag of slightly used clothing and take it to the DI (Deseret Industries). This is a must. I let my 6th grader hang on to too many shirts last year and now his drawers have a difficult time closing. He doesn’t even wear half of the shirts in there.

Jun 15 2016

Day Hike with Activity Day Girls

Posted on June 15, 2016 by Karin

This morning we left for a fun adventure with our 10 and 11 year old activity day girls. I was called to activity days last September. I was so excited to get to hang out and teach these girls. This has to be one of the best church callings I’ve ever had. We decided since summer is here we could try and do some fun activities with these girls. So today we hiked the Menan Buttes. I love these girls all there silliness and craziness too. We had a ton of fun and the view was spectacular. I hope the girls enjoyed it as much as I did. Mary and I also took our own girls with us and they had a fun too. Oh and there may be a rumor going around that I got lost on the way home. I may or may not have taken a wrong turn in the tiny city of Menan. The girls had fun using my phone to navigate me back to the right road.

Before the hike picture.

Silly picture

Just the beginning of the hike.

Aren’t these guys the cutest!

Another silly picture.

Mary and I were behind and when we got closer we could here the girls pretending to cry and whine. So funny I had to snap a picture.

Eating lunch at the rim.

reading the signs.

Great view

The girls climbed up on this outcrop. It almost gave Mary a heart attack.

They are having so much fun

Another silly picture. Every time I took a picture they felt it important that we take a silly picture too.

climbing around on the rocks

Last climb before heading back.

End of hike picture. Do they look tired?

Last silly picture.

Sep 4 2013

Last summer Hurrah

Posted on September 4, 2013 by Karin

Family Photo at Harriman State Park

For the Labor day we went for a hike at Harriman State Park. This is the last fun thing we got to do before school started the next day. It was beautiful. My friend told me that I was pretty much guaranteed a moose sighting. Well she was wrong we didn’t see any moose. We did however see a lot of moose scat but no moose. We did enjoy the water fowl that we saw. There were a lot of geese, a few swans, a pelican and a couple of cranes. We did the golden lake loop which was a very easy hike. We hiked in total 4.5 miles. The only person who seemed tired of walking was the littlest. It’s the longest she has hiked without having to ride on daddy’s shoulders. It drizzled on us off and on throughout the day. It was never enough to soak us through but enough to keep us cool. This area is also one of our favorite spots to cross country ski. They groom the trails in the winter and it is so beautiful covered in snow.

The trail through the meadow

Stopping to look into a pond.

One of the winter warming huts.

Taking a break.

A Couple of swans.

Our destination Golden Lake

Aug 10 2013

Girls getaway

Posted on August 10, 2013 by Karin

Every year my husband puts together a guys hike and they take an overnight hiking trip into the woods. Finally it’s my turn. We have been talking a long time about going on a camping trip just us girls and we have finally made it happen. We went up to coffee pot campground and kayaked part of the Henry’s fork river. This was my first time kayaking. As you can see I’m the only one wearing a life jacket. Most of these women have been down this stretch of the river and swore I wasn’t going to need one. I’m a little nervous around rivers especially since Corey joined the local search and rescue team. There have been too many stories of people drowning and their life jackets were on the boat but not on them. Well it turns out that most of the river is very shallow. We even had to walk our boats in some areas. It took us about 2 hours to get down the river. The best part is we could kayak right up to our camp site. The next day after breakfast we went on a hike. We hiked farther down the river where there were class 4 rapids. Not something I’m going to tackle any time soon. There were lots of huckleberries along the way. Andrea was always hanging back to pick a handful at a time. When we got back to camp we packed up and squeezed one more trip down the river. This time I did it without a life jacket! We had a great trip and I couldn’t think of a better butch of friends to experience this with. Thanks guys I had a great time. We need to start planning for next year.

Setting up camp

View from our camp

Taking a short break before hitting the water.

Getting ready to get in.

On the water

Walking our kayaks through the shallows.

Melanie

Andrea chillin with her peanuts

View from Debbie’s Kayak (photographer of the water venture)

Andrea and Jennifer

our camp is in sight

back at camp

Oh Deer!

Rapids

picking huckleberries

The hiking trail

A wonderful bunch of Ladies.
Andrea, Jennifer, Me, Debbie, and Melanie

Jul 9 2013

4th of July 2013

Posted on July 9, 2013 by Karin

Wow we have had quite some weekend! We start with the 4th. It was jammed packed with fun stuff. We woke up at 5:30 am and went with Corey to help road block for the 5K firecracker run here in Idaho Falls. The kids had fun watching the runners go by and seeing some fun costumes people had on. Then straight from the race we went to the parade. We didn’t get a nice shady spot this year so it got pretty hot. Luckily we were well covered in sunblock. Then it was off to Gem Lake to hang out with our friends and play in the sand. We stayed there for a good 4 hours. Unfortunately some of us did get sunburned after 4 hours. Mainly it’s because they forgot to reapply on their shoulders. Later we were lucky to have Nami and Nampa Edwards join us for the fireworks. The show was an hour late because a 27 year old kid decided he wanted to swim to the island in the middle of the Snake river and drowned. They had to search the river and postpone the fireworks for an hour. So sad, it kind of put a damper on the festivities. By the time we got home we were beat. Sophia fell asleep in the bike trailer before the fireworks even started so she missed the whole thing. I guess it will be a year we never forget.

waiting for the parade

Corey and Sophia walking on the sandbar

Preston and his little buddy Seth playing in the water.

She may look sweet and cute here but…

she covered herself in sand. It was everywhere.

waiting for the fireworks

Sophia and her good friend Candice. Her mom made cute outfits for them.

Jul 9 2013

Camping

Posted on July 9, 2013 by Karin

Our family loves to camp but unfortunately we haven’t had too many opportunities this year. Corey got a new job in May and he has been travelling a lot. He’ll leave Monday morning and not get back until Friday evening. This makes planning a camping trip difficult. We decided to let the kids have some fun and camp in the yard. The boys thought that camping in the backyard was awesome. Sophia tried to follow them out there with her pillow and blanket but, to her disappointment, we didn’t think she was old enough to stay out there. So we set up a tent in the living room for her. She lasted about 10 minutes before she ended up in her own bedroom on the floor. The living room was too scary for her. I’m sure that if the living room was too scary than the backyard would’ve been too much for her.

Boy’s in the backyard

Sleeping in the living room.

Jun 23 2013

A hiking we will go

Posted on June 23, 2013 by Karin

We have gone on a couple of hikes this season. We did Hell’s half acre again but this time we hiked a little further along the red line. Sophia walked about 2 miles but Corey had to carry her for a mile in between. It was a fun first hike.

What a cute group of people

Eating lunch

Family Photo

Corey Hiking with Sophia

Preston Shooting his new BB gun

Another hike that we went on was Palisades creek trail. It is actually a pretty easy hike just really long. In total we hiked about 5 miles (Sophia 4 miles). If you went about 1.5 miles more then we would have made it to the lake. The kids kept complaining all the way hiking in but on the way out they were just fine. On the way back we sang songs to take their minds off of hiking. I wish I had thought of that on the way in. Corey and I are hoping that we can make it to the lake next time. It was a very pretty hike.

The creek that goes along the trail.

Pretty wild flowers

Hiking the trail

More traill

More wild flowers

Corey’s sneeky bouquet. He put flowers in my backpack while I was hiking.

Mid point over look.

Aug 17 2012

Wild Cats

Posted on August 17, 2012 by Karin

Grandma worked last night so we ended up spending the day with grandpa. Grandpa decided to take us to a place just outside of Cave Junction called Wild Cats. On the way we stopped at Kerbyville and looked at this shop that sells a bunch of wood carvings and had a lot of tree houses on the lot that the kids explored. When we got to the cat park we got to see a lot of really cool cats. The first one we saw was the lion. It freaked me out a little because I didn’t expect them to be so close. It’s a little unnerving when they roar. Most of the pictures that are of the big cats aren’t zoomed that is actually how close they were. My boys loved it. Sophia got a little hot and tired and by the end of the day just wanted to go back to grandma’s pool. It was pretty hot but every so often in the big cat park they had misters to stand in to help us cool off. When we got home of course we spent an hour or so in the pool. We had a really great day with grandpa.

The kids climbing up a tree house

Grandpa T. on the lower level and the boys on the middle level

Grandpa T. lower level while Levi is on the very top. So high!

Sophia and Levi posing silly.

Cool enclosed tree house with faces on it.

Leopard

Tiger

White Tigers

Baby Leopard that we got to pet.

Snow Leopard

Very impressive Lion

Aug 16 2012

Over the river and through the woods

Posted on August 16, 2012 by Karin

Well we have finally made it to visit grandma and grandpa Tiffany. After a 14 hour drive (split over two days) we arrived last Sunday to Grants Pass. We have spent a lot of time in the swimming pool. It has been in the triple digits while we have been here. It has been nice to cool off in the pool. Yesterday we chose to cool off a different way. We went to the Oregon coast for the day. What a difference in temperature. It was only 61 degrees there while in Grants pass it was over 100. We let the kids play in the water for a little while until Sophia got pummelled by a wave. We then let them play in the sand but Sophia was shivering and we decided it would be good to head home. I love this area and I have really missed it. It’s been 2 years since the last time we were here. I wish we could come more often. Better yet I wish we could live here. For now I’ll just enjoy the time I have.

Stretching our legs at the Rouge River Gorge

Rogue River Gorge

It’s really hard to take a picture while you drive.
Notice the trees on both sides of the road. So pretty.
Crater Lake Highway

Getting ready to swim

Levi Jumping in

Preston Jumping in

Having fun in the pool

Swimming

Staying nice and cool

Being silly on the beach

Playing in the ocean

Sophia after she took a tumble in the water.

Harris beach in Brookings Oregon

Jul 30 2012

Canning has begun

Posted on July 30, 2012 by Karin

Sink full of green beans

I spent last week up in the mountains with the girls from our ward up at girls camp. When I came home my fridge was full of green beans. We planted twice as many beans as we usually do and in one week we got a whole sink full. So the canning begins. The boys were wonderful in helping me snap the ends and then snap them to bite size pieces. It took all three of us about 30 minutes to prepare them for canning. When all was said and done we ended up with 19 pints of green beans. Not too bad for a weeks worth of beans. Next picking we’ll pickle.

A couple of great helpers.

Voila! 19 pints of green beans.

In A Nutshell

Take time to listen, to laugh, and to play together– Elder M. Russell Ballard

Category Archives: Summer