I know it's been years since I've posted anything on here.  But I'm determined to do better while were here in New York.
We loved having a whole month to visit family in Idaho this summer.  Here's a brief summary of the highlights (at least those I remembered to pull out my camera for) ^_^

Andrus Ranch Adventures:

Sarah and Valerie riding Gray-Boy with Uncle Kevin

Fishing with Dad at Chesterfield Reservoir

Valerie eating rocks at Chesterfield Reservoir

Dallco Adventures:

Petting Jason's mare Sterling

She even let Sarah pet her filly

 Cattle Drive at Kilgore:

-poor Sarah was home with Aunt Jess - both sick with the stomach flu :(

 Caleb's first time riding all by himself!  Lily became his favorite horse.

Sometimes the best part of cattle drives is the food....:)

Cooling off on Grandma's Slip-n-slide

Dalling Reunion:

Sarah and Hailey on Tommy Boy

Jason took a break from his sick bed to cast a line.

Who's ready for a scavenger hunt?

The lake where we camped.

Aunt Nichole w/Val for the scavenger hunt.

And these are from Bill's much better camera:

Sarah and Hailey

That's one serious rower.

Caleb and Nathan

The view from our tent.

The 2 yr. old girls throwing rocks for Nip to catch.

Andrus Reunion:

I didn't get any pictures of us camping up the "crick".  But here's the 2nd day river adventures:

Working on the Riverbank Erosion Project.

Go Kevin!  Why is it John is the only one in the water? :)

Portneuf River has great mud!

It's been known for it's health qualities, especially when slathered on legs....

Mud fight!!  Hayley started it!

Caleb and Nathan.  Boys will be boys.

Nothing says red-neck like pulling the calf sled with bailing twine hooked to the 4-wheeler.  Jason says, "Faster!"

Playing "peek-a-boo" with Nana.

What started out as puling the bailing twine by hand, evolved to the 4-wheeler, and ultimatley to Jason's pick-up truck.  Yep.  Red-neck.

Kevin getting the last ride.  

I really need to get the videos from Mo-Jackson.  It was awesome!  But I thought I better post this instead of waiting for the better pictures and videos.  

And next I need to update you on our New York adventures. :)

House Projects

Everytime I start a project, I imagine sharing it with you guys on this blog, like I see in other DIY blogs out there. But it hasn't happened yet.... until now!!! Thanks, Mo Jackson, for repeatedly asking me to show before and afters.


There's not many completed "afters", so most I show you will be some "before and during" pictures. Enjoy!

Here's some of the exterior of the house I did in October 2011:

 Major Cracks in outer layer of foundation.  You can see the cinder blocks behind it.  Yeah, the guy who built this house was a Mason (of the brick-laying kind :)

 Had to brush out the holes, then fill them with mortar cement.

 Here you can see the left side painted after I patched the holes, and to the right of the door, I've patched a big hole, and it's ready to be painted.

 The East side of our house had less holes in the cement, but more cracked paint, so I scraped with a putty knife, then with a wire brush.

 Another angle.

 Here you can see the color difference.  See Honey?  The house really did need to be painted.  It was yellow for pete's sake!  Now it blends a lot better with the color of the fake rock above.

 Another angle.

 And done!  With lattice to cover up the window under the porch, since there was no way to make that bad boy look good.  It belongs to the fruit room, anyways, and is boarded up from the inside.  I planted a flowering vine (clematis) there to climb up the lattice... too bad I won't get to see it grow... :(

And the back of the house finally done.  Ignore the mess.  I had to hurry and take these pictures, it was going to snow the next day.  And it did... about 4 inches... in October... :)

Well, by now my blogging time has expired (an hour ago), so I promise I'll post more pictures later... soon.