Yesterday, I fell into a mud/water pit that Tavin and Tilmann made. No big deal, except I happened to have my camera in my hand at the time. So now my camera is toast. Luckily, Mom has a camera that I will borrow, but getting a new camera is now in my near future. Will I buy the same model of camera on Ebay, or a different point & shoot? Or maybe just go for it and get a DSLR? It remains to be decided. Just thought everyone should know that I am now semi-without a camera.
***Update: I just took pictures for my food blog, and I think I will have to get a new camera very soon. I can't handle using Mom's camera for much longer...
We took a boat cruise down the Beautiful Snake River this month with friends, 5 couples...no children. It was a planned barbecue dinner party, with a boat ride first. Above is a daylight photo of the Perrine bridge. Yes, it is a large bridge with 4 lanes for traffic....cross it, and you're in Twin Falls. Down low where we are, there are two golf courses, each involving the Snake River, but on different sides of the river.
Aaron, with Russ in the cowboy hat, and Gary, up front of the boat, enjoying the view. Russ told us that in his high school days, he & some friends stole a chicken....and dropped the bird off the bridge. Oddly enough it didn't try to flap it's wings, but soared and made it to the side of the river.
Here is our mighty captain...look closely at his shirt, which reads 'Captain Chuck'. He is actually our potato farmer, renting one of our fields again.
Not lots of water falling over the falls, most at this time of the year is headed off to the farmers, but water with noise is wonderful.
Here is a photo of the 'party boat'. It can hold a group, but it doesn't go fast. We are anchored so we can go off and explore. The smoke up front is dinner cooking...not the boat overheating.
The rocks here are large, with caves, holes and other wear and tear from the raging water...fascinating.
Strong Man moving the boulders apart.
This photo of the Perrine Bridge in the evening. Aaron took it. You can look at it sideways, or upside-down and it looks the same...with the reflection from the water. We spent hours out and about, and I loved every minute of it!
This is my Older Brother Jon with a Cod Fish....not quite an attractive fish for the cover of National Geographic, but very nice size. These photos are from this winter, right now he is salmon fishing. But I decided that I would post them today, since it is my father's birthday....dad spent part of a summer years ago with Jon on a boat in Alaska....Jon lives part of the year on the Aleutian Chain of Islands in Alaska. I bet you didn't know I had an adventurist in my family.
Crab....crab season was after cod season. These are Opilios crabs. In the below photo my brother is on the right.
Winter....this is the Bering Sea with ice floating upon it. If our Grandma Bruneau saw this photo, I'm not too sure if she would let Jon travel up to Alaska anymore! Who would want to be out in this sea- during this season? I wish my brother a safe....and sane season! Tilmann, "Why would Uncle Jon want to grow up to be a fisherman....it looks too dangerous."
Drey & Taft with their very dead badger. Badgers are wicked animals, just ask Tilmann, if they were good, they would be called 'good-gers'...but they are bad-gers. They are a great problem on the farm. Notice the next photo, and you can see the size of holes that they make. Yep, you can fall in them....often they are going after ground squirrels, but what ever it might be, they make a big mess. The boys had a plan on getting this badger, their holes are deep, so they filled it up with water 50 plus gallons, causing it to come out of it's hole half-drown...then to be hit by 12 gage shot gun & a 22.
I thought I would throw in this photo from winter. I used it to make a trap-shooting poster, and thought it was a good one of the hunting boys.
***The Food Blog is now alive!***
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This is a photo of Drey from this winter, but it's a favorite. I measured him yesterday, he is now officially the height of my older brother, Jon....6 foot 1 inch! (That by the way is 2 1/2 inches in 4 months!!) Drey is 15 and finally has his drivers permit (that lovely class has finally come to an end!) Of course Drey has been driving for the last 10 years, as a lad his dad would put him in a hay truck, shift it down low, and tell him to steer towards something in the open field, while he and his brother & father would throw off bales of hay off the truck. (those days are long gone, since we bale 1 ton bales & a better back plan on getting them off the truck!) But you know driving on open road, with other cars is a whole new ballpark!
Well, I'm finally back from Girls State! It was held at Northwest Nazarene University in Nampa, Idaho, from Sunday (the 10th) to today. Basically, Girls State is a week of mock government. We were put into cities and counties, and we were either Federalists or Nationalists. We could run for city, county, and state offices, and we debated and passed bills in either the House or Senate. Etc. There were some fun parts, but I don't think I could say that it was a fun experience. Basically, I was counting down the days until I could go home. Here is a group picture of everyone there. I'm the person in the back in the red circle. You can click on this picture to enlarge it, but I don't think it will help much. I'm still just a little dot in the back. 
This is a picture of the Idaho Governor and his wife. We were able to listen to them talk, and then each city had their picture taken with them. So here's my city: (I'm in the bottom row, second from the right.)
Thursday was inauguration of the new Girls State Governor. Everyone had to wear formal dresses, so it seemed like a good time to take pictures. By the way, we had to wear dress clothes every day. Here is most of my city:
At Girls State we did a lot of singing, clapping, standing and clapping, and debating bills. We were always doing something, and we generally didn't get to bed until past 11 o'clock, so I was feeling really tired most of the time. I felt overwhelmed, but I also felt bored lots of the time. Contradictory, but that's how I felt. I was incredibly bored during bill debating. I really didn't have phone access to call home, so I spent most of my time writing down everything that happened in my journal. It took my mom two hours to read it today. Really. It's like I wrote a book, not a few journal entries. I'm proud of myself, so I included some pictures of my journal. The middle pages are from Girls State:
My Mother headed off this morning in her motor-home. It's been lonely without her...o.k. not really lonely, but a bit more of an 'empty spot' without her. (how can I be lonely with all these boys?) I've been missing Tearsa, who is off for the whole week to Girl's State. Now with Mom gone too, it's just slowed down. (I could get back into the cleaning mode?) We loaded her motor-home with 22 boxes for our summer yard sale....I've been collecting since last summer! Yard sales on the island are popular, and help pay for gas for our summer vacation to the island! Anyhow Mom's been great company, we've done lots of stuff while she's been here....which by the way was her longest visit yet...but still not quite long enough!
This by the way, was a photo I found in my camera....Tavin was in and out of the house this morning, (with his dad, who is stacking hay) while I was in town with Tilmann, waiting on Drey for his drivers ed. class. Self-portrait I'm sure.....
Mom took a ride in the 'Hayminator', our hay retriever. Aaron built this out of a garbage truck 7 years ago. There is a front bar clamp that picks up & squeezes together 1 ton hay bales, then drops them up on top of a ramp....the bales sides down to the bottom. The truck can carry 8 bales at a time. The two lower photos show how he can stack them, 4 go at one time, with a stop to hold the others in place, then they can drop down and be stacked. It's a nifty piece of equipment. Mom decided she wanted to ride out in the field and gather first hand knowledge of its skills. It bangs and clangs, and bumps...and when it drops the bale on top of the cab ramp & it slides down....well she decided it was very much like a carnival ride! Yes, she loved it. Taft by the way was working on the same pivot with Aaron, working in the baler. If you notice the hay isn't all bright green, it's because we've had a chunk of a rain storm when the hay was cut.
By the way, Mom was just outside reading a book, sitting on a chair in the grass, when her dog went barking....she quickly grabbed him, before he headed out of the yard, since he had spotted 2 skunks in our driveway!!! I hope they don't find the cat food, because I really don't want any more pets!
Saturday night, we did family photographs up in the hills, at the old Buck Rice Place, which in it's day was a wealthy homestead. There were Aaron's parents, and all their descendants, making about 2 dozen of us. We wore white shirts, and denim bottoms. He also took individual family pictures, which he did ours in front of the house, with the boys in the windows. After all was said and done, I asked our niece, Natalie to take a photo of the family for the blog, so it might not quite be like he had posed us, but at least the same general area. I cropped out part of the upper part of the house, for it is two story, but my niece took a photo of the photographer & his wife, so you can sort of see more of the house.
We loved the photographer, Jim Fort, & his wife Mary. They attended High School with Aaron, Jim a year older, Mary his grade. For locals, his business is Addison Photography.
Another attempt to take a photo with grandma .....much more difficult than it needs to be. Of course there are the blinking eye problems, but then there are also the goofy kid problems too.
I think this is the best that we are going to get.
Mom decided to get her hair done while in Idaho. I think it looks great! Cut & highlighted! Doesn't her shirt match our wild roses perfectly?
Here is the back, where you can easily see the highlights. I am not use to seeing my mother with short hair....I was the one with short hair in our family!
My Mother, Joyce with her dog, Samson. Nice photo....notice how her shirt matches the color of our clematis flowers? Tye-dye can do that! It has been so nice to just have mom around....she will dearly be missed when she heads home.
Here is Mom with Wade & Eileen Quigley. They were a missionary couple 25 years ago on Whidbey Island, which we have stayed in touch with. Of course there is more to it than that.....19 years ago, I spent the summer & fall living in their basement (they adopted me) and that is how I met Aaron. Without them, I wouldn't be in Idaho...or married to such a good man, and yes they are happy to take credit for it! We spent the day with them yesterday.
Wade & Eileen are celebrating their 60th wedding anniversary this summer. They are having a celebration next month along with a family reunion. Then in the fall, closer to their actual wedding date, they are taking their 5 children & spouses to Hawaii. By the way, they have 19 grandchildren and 49 great grandchildren! What a wonderful couple.
Speaking of wedding anniversaries Russ & Ardith Weaver, are celebrating their 50th this summer. They are local friends, who actually know the Quigleys, for years ago, they both lived in the same town. I took this photo at church, on one of those Sundays I had my camera, because I love Ardith's hat!
This is Tilmann's newest thing: collecting crickets. He and the other boys gather them from under rocks and such around the yard, and then store them in two old bee boxes in his room.
He has 28 crickets so far, and they are rather noisy...for proof I filmed them for you. They generally make MUCH more noise than they are making in the movie, but you know how it is. Point a camera at crickets and they are instantly much quieter.
I think that crickets are absolutely disgusting, but it is fun to hear them chirping. For about 10 minutes, that is. After that, they do get on my nerves. Plus--I think one of the crickets got loose and is in my room, and I know that at least two crickets are roaming free in Til's & Tav's room. Gross. Enjoy your movie. (okay, it's not that good, but whatever)
***Turn up your volume. It helps.***
Tavin wanted me to post this picture because he thinks it's freakin' awesome, but he doesn't know what to write about it. He's got mad skills when it comes to building with K'nex.
He really isn't sad in this picture...if you click on it to make it bigger, it's easier to tell he's giving us a 'cool' look, not a 'hurry up Tearsa, before I fall over and die' look.
Today I had a beautician chopped off most of my hair. 15.5 inches, to be exact.
Here is a before picture of my hair.
Points of interest: yes, it was waist-length & yes, the last 3 or so inches of hair amount to absolutely nothing.
This picture doesn't really show how long my hair is, but it makes me look really weird and it was hard for me to bend like that, so I felt the need to post the picture.
And here are the after photos:
And here is my horse tail (by the way--it's really nasty. I don't know how to explain it, but it's kind of like my finger got cut off in an accident or something, but instead of getting rid of it, I'm storing it in my room. And touching it. Reallllly gross.) 
I really love my new haircut, and I think it looks tons better on me. I was expecting my hair/head to feel much lighter, but honestly, it feels the same.
I don't think my horse tail will make up a very large portion of a wig, but hey--every donation counts, right?
This is our nephew Elder Lance Williams, who just returned today from serving a 2 year mission in Winnipeg Canada. While he was away, his younger sister graduated from High School, His older sister had a baby, and his twin brother got married!
Finally our children get to see their cousin! Of course he was shocked on the growth of the kids! He said he could see Drey from the window of the airplane and couldn't believe how tall he has grown!
Not the best photo, but they are all together as a family! It was great fun waiting his arrival at the airport, and all the many people that came to greet him! Welcome home Lance! 
Taft has been swathing hay this week....yes he is 12, but can run this heavy....expensive piece of equipment! This is the pivot next to our house. Aaron also has spent many hours swathing hay.
Mom bought down these tubes of plastic bubble stuff....I remember making them as a child....difficult making a bubble this big. (my older brother made the biggest bubbles) So I put her by the clematis and took a photo.
Mom and I went to high school graduation for Ethan, pictured with his mother Stacey. I find going to graduations kind of fun, and happy to have Mom attend with me! I was their official photographer.
Mom celebrated her birthday this week. Which one? Well, she told the grandchildren that she turned 49....but my math says she was a bit too young when she had me! We've also been going to town lots this week...trying to get her list of 'to dos' done. We figured with the children in school, this was the time to do it.
Today was the last day of school, which means at the Elementary school, Track Day! Here is Tilmann doing the high jump. Tilmann received a bunch of ribbons, first place in Ball Throw, Making hoops, (basketball) and the Long Jump. By the way... Tearsa wants everyone to know that Janice took this awesome photo.
Here is Tavin with the climb from the obstacle course....run through tires, climb through tubes, run with buckets on your feet...typical fun. Tavin did well with the ball throw and running.
Drey has been taking drivers ed. this quarter at school. But the driving teacher started this course a bit late, went on vacation....and what ever, meaning that school is out, but the course still lingers onward. For the next two weeks he has classes every day, and I get to drive him to Filer (20 some miles away) Are we thrilled? Well in two weeks he will have his permit, and I'll be riding with him, now that might be thrilling!