The fair was in town

What a wonderfully fun summer we have had.  I’ve taken the summer off from the blog and hope to get some updates from the summer on here pretty soon.  Blogging was a bit of a pain in the butt with the way I was doing it, so I’ve done some research and hopefully have found an easier way to keep up to date.  Only time and blogging will tell.

To end our summer we had a fun day at the Western Idaho Fair.  The girls rode lots of rides and ate really good fair food. We learned some things in the Farm Town building.

This was a new ride called “The Windsurfer”.  It was in the shade which is something I appreciated since the temperature was around 98 degrees. 

Here are my little vegetables outside the Farm building.

I hope everyone had a great summer. I am excited for school to start again…I’m not sure the girls are, but we do have some fun stuff on the schedule.

Happy Birthday Ashley

And my daughter turns 11 today. My computer crashed a while back and I haven't put the baby pictures on the new computer yet, but lets look back....

12-2002

Christmas at Grandma's house

10-2004

Such a pretty flower girl in her Aunts wedding with her younger sister and cousin.  That hair took about an hour to do. She sat so nicely for the lady and it looked beautiful.  So long!

5-2005

6th Birthday trip to Las Vegas to visit her Dad. She was so excited to fly on a plane.

05-2005

 Shooting her bb gun during our annual camping trip.

11-2006

Sleep over at Grandma's house with her sister and cousin.

08-2008

Hiking in Yellowstone with some friends of ours. Eric was at the hospital when she was born.

11-2008

Family vacation to Disneyland.

08-2009

Super fun lake day.

4-2010

A fun family day a few weeks ago near Silver City Idaho.

Happy Birthday Ashley!

We framed a wall!

The basement project is moving forward. A few weeks ago Mark brought home all the studs we should need to frame the walls. We are using metal studs because we got a great price on them and some of the guys Mark works with gave him a quick tutorial on how to put them up. So late Friday night we headed down stairs to get to work. After I asked a million questions and Mark was very patient explaining it over and over to me, we got to work.

If you don’t get sick from the angle of this picture…I feel a little dizzy…you can see what it looked like after we removed all the old walls. Just a concrete basement. Very nice and clean.

And here it is with the first wall framed. I helped with that wall. I actually have my very own pair of work gloves. Some of those screws holding the wall up, I did. I can work a drill. I’m a builder!

We even framed windows. At this point in the project I was the level holder. Not an extremely strenuous job, but an important job none the less. Mark had the dangerous job of cutting the studs.

The sparks were very pretty. It did smell terrible and at one point the smoke alarms in the whole house started going off. So then I had the important job of fanning the smoke detectors.

It was noisy and smelly and smoky

But it was very pretty

And now we have the outside walls of the family room, bedroom 1 and bedroom 2 framed. Progress is a good feeling.

Perfect brownies

We have been on the hunt for perfect brownies. For some reason, Allyson is constantly asking for brownies right now. We haven't really been brownie eaters, but Allyson seems to want them now. So we tried out a few different recipes.

This recipe used melted chocolate chips. It looked really promising.

And the girls worked well together making the brownies.

It looked ok in the pan, however the girls used a pan that was too small and didn't cook the brownies long enough. So we had brownie soup. Not what we were looking for.

During Ashley's ballet class one week, Allyson and I went to a thrift store to kill some time. I started looking in the cookbook section and came across a sample issue of Cooks Illustrated. The cover promised

Classic Brownies, Not Cakey, Not Fudgy, Just right!

So I happily paid the 25 cents for the issue and told Allyson we would try again. And this is what we made..

They have a crunchy top and soft middle. The edges were crisp and soft. Really a perfect brownie.

Classic Brownies

From Cooks Illustrated

1 Cup pecans or walnuts, chopped medium (I didn't use any since Allyson doesn't like nuts)
1 1/4 cups cake flour (I used all purpose)

1/2 teaspoon salt

3/4 teaspoon baking powder

6 ounces unsweetened chocolate, chopped fine

12 Tablespoons unsalted butter

2 1/4 cups sugar

4 large eggs

1 Tablespoon vanilla extract



Heat oven to 325. Fit foil to lie in 13 by 9 inch baking dish, allow foil to hang over the edges so it is easy to remove brownies after they bake. Spray foil lined dish with cooking spray. Whisk to combine flour, salt, and baking powder in a bowl; set aside. Melt chocolate and butter in large heatproof bowl set over saucepan of almost-simmering water. Stir until smooth. Whisk in sugar. Add eggs on at a time mixing after each addition. Whisk in vanilla. Fold in the flour mixture in three batches. Transfer batter to prepared pan; using spatula, spread batter into corners of pan and smooth surface. If using nuts, sprinkle over batter. Bake 30-35 minutes or until toothpick inserted into center of brownies comes out with few moist crumbs. Cool in pan on wire rack until room temperature. Remove from pan by lifting foil overhang. Cut into squares and store in airtight container at room temperature up to 3 days.

Sunday was family day!

Last Sunday we had all of our house chores done and there really wasn’t anything new to start on the basement project, so I packed some sandwiches and we headed out for a drive. Mark was driving and we had no real destination planned. It was nice to just get away and do something fun. We ended up on the road to Silver City, Idaho. A few years back we drove up there to see the ‘ghost’ town. It was interesting. I need to remember to take more pictures out the truck window so I could show you how treacherous the road was. About 14 miles into the 20 mile journey I had a huge panic attack and forced Mark to turn around. For the first 10 miles I tried to nicely tell him that I wasn’t really up to this journey…so it really started at mile 1 when the sign on the side of the road said something to the effect of “Road travel impossible from September to June due to hazardous conditions. Travel at your own risk”.

Somewhere around mile 6 there is a sign that say “Travel past this sign at your own risk. You will be responsible for all cost incurred for rescue”. I read these signs to Mark and he just kept on driving. I nicely pointed out the mud pit in the road at various points and reminded him to be watchful of places the truck would get stuck in the mud. He just kept on smiling and looking out the window. Looking back at it now I really think he thought I was being helpful…he had no idea my panic attack was escalating to catastrophic levels. Near mile 12 I pointed out how hard it would be to turn around on such a narrow, twisting, mud laden road, but when we turned a corner and encountered snowy icy mud laden twisting narrow road I had enough. I actually said “I’m telling you now I am out of my comfort zone”. He just kept on smiling and driving. Did he not notice I was dying over here?!? I think he said something like “It could get better in a minute.” I didn’t have a minute. I needed out of the truck RIGHT NOW. We turned a corner and the road did clear up, it also opened up for a perfect place to turn this huge truck around. But Mark wasn’t slowing down; he made no attempt turn the truck around. I saw all my common sense fly out the window. I had to get out of that truck and quick. With panic in my voice I told him he had to stop the truck NOW. I was getting off this crazy train. I think that was the first time he actually noticed I was in a full blown crawling out of my skin panic attack. Where the heck had he been for the last 14 miles, enjoying the scenery. Did he not know we were going to DIE here on this muddy snow covered icy mountain road? Finally he understood the grave danger we were in and he pulled to a stop; carefully he turned the truck around and let me get out.

I know from the pictures it doesn’t look like we were in danger, but these are some very frightful parts.

While I was coming back to my senses, the girls climbed the near by mountain.

the decent

We then got back in the truck and drove down the mountain. It was much easier driving down then up...and quicker. Why does that happen?  Maybe because the fear of dying had left my body.  We found a nice little hill off the main road and had a wonderful lunch in the back of the truck.

Then the girls went looking for rocks.

Look, hitch hikers looking for ride back to town.

Does she look trustworthy?  We picked her up anyway!

On the way home we took a detour and looked for fun stuff on the river bank.

The cows on the opposite bank needed a little drink.

I love relaxing Sundays with the family they seem to be few and far between with all the busy schedules in this house. Hopefully we can change that soon.

If only I was younger...

As I watch the kids on these wonderful sunny spring days...yes the sun has finally decided to stick around for a few days now...I dream of days when my body wasn't so old.  Days when I could do this.

Ok, so maybe not EXACTLY this.

Or this either.  That looks like it hurt.  In reality it did hurt and she took a break from showing me her new 'trick'  I don't think this is what she envisioned in her head when she told me to "Come Quick"

While Ashley took a rest, Allyson took over.

  Good rotation

I think the look on her face shows just how much fun this jumping is.  Lets take a closer look at the joy!

Honestly, she though that was fun.  I would hate to see her do something NOT fun.

Feeling brave again, Ashley jumped right back in it.

I love that it looks like her hair is holding her up.

Again where is the joy?

AH, there it is. The joy of knowing you have lived through the trick.

All the time the kids were jumping, the dog was doing this...

She's actually jumping at the bugs she sees.  She likes to eat them...but that's an entirely different story.

Spring has arrived...I think

As usual in Idaho the weather doesn't know what it should do. April came in with a bang, but then a day later it was a nice sunny day. The flowers in the front are showing their pretty little heads.

There is a little tiny spider on tip of the daffodil.

He's so cute and just hang in out on that leaf. I didn't even know he was there until I transferred the pictures to the computer.

When we replanted this flower bed I had no idea what was in it. The girls and I just pulled everything out one fall and tossed all the bulbs in a bucket. Once we were sure we got them all out, we just started putting them back in the ground. I'm just loving how low maintenance everything has been.

Notice the dark grey sky in the background...a few minutes before it was nice and sunny. Idaho in spring time is so unpredictable. But the tree has such pretty blooms on it. In a few days these blooms will drop and be swirling around the neighborhood looking much like a snow storm in April.