End of August, End of Summer...

For fun, Colter and I babysit baby Lily every other Wednesday afternoon.  It gives us some baby time and gives Aunt Angela some baby free time.  Colter is so cute with Lily, he loves to make her smile.  One Wednesday we also watched a new friend's baby.  They had just moved in and we wanted to give her some time to get the house unpacked.  It was baby land at our house.  On the drive home with all of these babies Colter said "There are two babies and two humans in the car!" 

Colter and Will fixed the dryer.  While we were in Idaho the heating element broke.  After a lot of internet research and an order from amazon Will was able to fix it. 

Colter and Adell want to walk to school every day.  We have to leave a lot earlier if we want to walk and get to school on time.  Soooo, it doesn't happen very often. 

A bunch of police were at the elementary school one day to have recess with the big kids.  It kind of scared the crap out of me when I pulled up to the school and saw five police cars, a police SUV and a police motorcycle out front.  Thankfully, it was just for community relationships.  Colter got a sticker and to pose in front of the motorcycle.  Big day.

Our very dear friends, the Wrights, are moving to Alaska.  Lorien has been best friends with their daughters for years.  She did her homeschool year with them and we moved right down the street from them when we moved.  The news of their moving has been sad.  For the last four weeks or so every activity has been "the last before the Wrights move".  Lorien has soaked up every minute she can with them.  Her friend group is sad but they are having a lot of fun.

Getting High with Will Anderson

This is my husband's dream vacation.  Not a vacation.  He didn't go to relax or connect with nature.  He went to do a very hard thing, to push his body to its limits and see if he could survive.  This is Will Anderson's idea of fun.  Maybe not "fun" he just likes a challenge and would rather be challenging himself than relaxing.  

So off he and Alan went for a three day two night hike in the wild, rugged Montana mountains.  They left Idaho later than they wanted to.  By the time they needed a place for the night they couldn't find one.  Every where was booked.  So...they called Uncle Kenny back in Idaho and got his parent's phone number.  His parents live in Livingston, after a few minutes on the phone Will and Alan were crashing at Kenny's childhood home.  

They got up early the next morning and drove to the trail head.  I think they were in the Bear Tooth or Absarokee mountains?  I sure hope Will takes it upon himself to write down an accurate description of this trip...

In the mean time, here are a bunch of pictures.  Will and Alan did a very hard thing and it didn't kill them.

Winning:

Will met us at the Salt Lake airport.  First thing, before we drove back to California was to get Will a gigantic hamburger at Wendy's.  He deserved every calorie.

A few days with the Davises

After our day at Bear World we packed up and drove down to Pocatello to visit with my brother, Caleb, and his family.  Caleb, Shelley and their three children moved out to Idaho from Maine right before we moved out to California with our family.  It was a mini westward migration for the Davis family.  Both of our families moved west for school and both loved it out here and decided to stay.  We both added to our families as we lived in the west over the years.  We don't get to see each other very often.  But it sure it fun when we do get together! 

The kids had a great time running around with the boy cousins.  They shot nerf guns and played legos.  They climbed in the back yard and talked about video games they all like.  It was great!

We slept in Uncle Caleb's family room, all of us piled in on couches and air mattresses.  It was perfect!  The next morning was a school/work morning for Uncle Caleb's family.  We got up and visited while they got ready for the day. 

Once the Davises were off for work and school we rounded up our stuff and headed for Centerville, Utah to visit Uncle Chris and Aunt Annette.  Aunt Jenn and cousin Clara recently moved to Utah and we got to see them too!

Uncle Chris got a new dog between the last time we saw him and now.  The dog is named "Moose" and is a pretty good dog.  However, Colter has become deathly afraid of dogs.  He cannot be around them under any circumstances. 

When I was a kid, I was also so afraid of dogs!  I was terrified.  If a dog came around me I would try to climb to the top of the head of whatever family member was nearest me.  I would cry and feel sick if I knew we were going to a place where they had a dog.  It was awful.  Thankfully, I out grew the fear and can behave myself around dogs these days...but it took a long time.  Now I am paying for that with Colter.  He is just as scared of dogs as I was.  He asks if so and so has a dog every time we pull up to a house.  Poor kid.  He has a long road of dealing with dogs.

We spent the last three days of our trip with Uncle Chris and his family.  We went to the rec center pool one day.  Their community has an impressive indoor and out door rec facility.  Clare, Adell and Clara went on their own on the first day we were in Utah.  We all went together on the second day.  It was fun, but they use a lot chlorine to keep the pool clean with all of those bodies in the water.  After an hour some of us (Adell and myself) could feel our eyes and nose stinging.  After a second hour, Adell was in tears and we had to get out of there.  The kids had so much fun playing in the water.  They had a lazy river you floated around in and a big water slide to go down.  It was a fun afternoon activity.

The next day was Saturday and time to hit the road.  Will made his way down to us in Utah and we loaded up the van for the drive home. Wyatt had heard of Swig cookies and their mixed sodas another Utah food fad.  We found one close to Uncle Chris's house and bought some cookies and soda for everyone to enjoy.  We picked Will up at the airport (he had taken a shuttle from Idaho Falls down to the airport) and hit the road!

It was a crazy trip (per our usual) but a lot of fun.  We saw as many family members as we could and spent hours on end in the car...yep, sounds like a typical Anderson Family Vacation.  Someday we might just sit on a beach and relax for a vacation but I doubt it.

Bear World

Somewhere near Rigby, Idaho there is a place called Bear World.  It has...you guessed it..Bears!  It also has an albino elk, moose, wolves, swans, geese, ducks, and a petting zoo.  This is Grandma Judy's favorite place to take visitors.  So off we went!  

It was cool to see so many bears up close (from the safety of our moving car).

We fed the ducks and swans and took funny pictures.

In the petting zoo we fed baby goats, tried to get a fat pig to move (he would not) and looked at chickens and a few baby deer (fawns?).

Adell and Colter wanted their picture alone with this baby deer.  Adell was first...success...

Colter was second and that baby deer had had enough.  He turned on Colter and started chasing him.  Colter couldn't escape and the deer started trampling him.  Colter was freaked out!  I already had my phone out and was poised to take an adorable photo when the situation dissolved in an instant.  I still took a picture...high quality parenting right there.

As I scooped my terrified baby up off the ground to examine his injuries he cried and cried.  I took him out of the petting zoo and snuggled him on a park bench.  Through choked sobs Colter cried out "That baby deer was a SAVAGE!"  So much for any of the other kids dreams of having a pet of any kind.  Colter is going to be terrified of animals for the rest of his life. 

We went on a few little rides they have a Bear World, ate a picnic lunch and watched the baby bears being fed.  It was a cool thing to see...all of it...except the savage baby deer. 

After Bear World we packed up and said our good byes to our Idaho family.  It was time to get on the road and see some more family...that's how we vacation...seeing family...it is relaxing...

Oh, while we were at Bear World we got a text from Will.  He had borrowed a friend's satellite phone and was able to send a few texts.  Mostly to tell us he was safe or report an injury and request rescue.  Anyway, the first message we got from Will was something like "all is well. please report a fire at lat. something and long something"  So Judy and I spent some time looking up phone numbers and reporting a fire.  Later Will sent a message that all was well and that they saw the helicopters circling the fire...so I guess that worked.

Idaho Fun...

The real reason we are staying away from home for a week is Will and Uncle Alan wanted to take the hike of a life time up in Montana.  Apparently, Will had done this hike once as a teenager.  Then he and Alan tried to do the hike together when Alan was 11 years old.  It was too hard so they never completed it.  Now seemed like the best time?  You know, now that they both have a family to support and demanding jobs?  Sure, now would be a great time to take a three day hike far from civilization where bears could eat you or you could fall off a mountain to your death.  Brilliant.  

So as soon as we got back from Utah Will and Alan loaded up their packs and headed to Montana to find the wilderness.  Good luck guys...please don't die.

While Will and I were in Utah Grandma Judy took the kids to a place called Squealers.  It is a mini golf, amusement park kind of place?  I'm not sure.  I just know the kids loved it and Grandma sent me some pictures of their fun.

After Will and Uncle Alan left on their adventure.  Grandma Judy and I took the kids to the sand dunes in Idaho Falls.  It was a blast!  I wish we went sooner in the day.  The kids could have stayed for hours.  We stayed until the sun set and we all got too chilly and exhausted to run up and down the dunes.

Eclipse 2017

Monday was eclipse day.  We'd all been reading about the eclipse and all the cool stuff we'd see for months.  Everyone was excited.  We headed up the hill to Aunt Heather and Uncle Alan's house.  They have a lovely home with a big yard up on a hill.  We could see the valley below, it was perfect.

We set up chairs and started peeking at the sun through our protective glasses.  Soon a little tiny sliver was missing.  Like someone took a nibble out of the sun.

It was so cool to watch the light change.  The temperature dropped in a wildly noticeable way.  I was so cold I had to borrow a coat.  My blood is too thin (or that's what someone from Maine would have told me).

After about an hour of watching the sun slowly disappear it finally happened.  The moon covered the sun and we could look directly at it without glasses.  It was amazing!  My favorite part was watching all of our people freak out about seeing it.  It was wild.

This is a crappy cell phone picture so the sun still looks like a whole bright spot but it was just a ring.  We could see a star or two and the planet Venus.

We could see the sunset 360 degrees around us.  It was spectacular.

I could totally understand how things might have gone many ages ago when an eclipse happened.  The light slowly gets very weird.  It is like being under stadium lights, you can see but it feels artificial.  Then, all of a sudden you can look up at the sun and it isn't there...just a ring of fire.  I can see how people would start lining up the virgins for slaughtering just to make it stop.  And then, with a handful of dead virgins the sun would come back.  It would seem like a legitimate way to operate.  Thankfully, we know better now.  Virgins were safe this time around.

We documented the shadow of the sun on things like cardboard boxes, table tops and through the leaves of trees.

And slowly the light returned to normal.  I think totality was a minute and 30 seconds or so.  The whole eclipse was a couple of hours long.  It was fantastic and worth the drive and trip.

After the eclipse we tried to go out to the reservoir to go boating.  But we were stopped before we could get into the reservoir.  there had been a terrible accident.  A boat had been speeding across the lake and tossed all of the occupants out.  The boat then went out of control spinning speedy circles unmanned.  They had to wait for the boat to run out of fuel to climb aboard.  Some of the tossed occupants had been run over by the boat.  There were likely fatalities.  It was sad and scary.  We saw a life-flight helicopter leave while we were stuck in line.  So, we didn't go boating...

When we got back to Grandma's house I got a call from my dad.  His cancer is back and things are not looking good.  Grandma Judy generously offered to keep the kids with her so Will and I could make our way down to Utah to see my Dad.  We frantically got on the road for the normally 3 hour drive down.  Unfortunately, everyone and their cat were trying to leave Idaho after the eclipse.  Will was able to route us etch-a-sketch style through farm land to the freeway.  That saved us a bit of time but we still had to sit in a lot of traffic.  When Will could, he got off on surface roads.  As we were driving through Blackfoot, Idaho (stuck in traffic) we passed a bunch of little boys.  Most of them were sitting in the back of a pick up truck parked in the drive way.  One was sitting beside a utility wire spool (we had one of those when I was a kid) with a cardboard sign that read "Traffic advise 25 cents.  Kittens free if you can catch them"  We thought it was worth a quarter to ask.  I rolled down the window and inquired.  The boy sitting by the spool came over to collect the quarter.  He was nervous but he told us two roads to take to avoid some of the traffic.  It sounded like good advice so I gave him an extra dollar.  As we drove off I head the pick up truck full of boys exclaim "You got a whole dollar!" in shock and awe.  I wish we gave him 10 bucks.  We like to support entrepreneurs and his advice was sound.  We avoided a lot of traffic with every turn.

The drive ended up taking over five hours.  We rolled into Salt Lake in the middle of the night and ended up staying in hotel so Chris and Annette wouldn't have to wait up for us.  In the morning we went over to Centerville and spent some time talking with my Dad.  He isn't taking the news very well...no one would.  We decided to head over to see my sister, Jennifer.  She was setting up her classroom for school.  My Dad needed a project for a little distraction and working for Jennifer seemed to help. 

After putting a little work in the classroom we went to lunch with my Dad.  We talked a little more and tried to be cheerful.  Then it was time for Will and I to head back up to Idaho.

It was one apocalyptic Monday.  Eclipse in the morning, boating accident in the afternoon, cancer in the evening.  The eclipse was cool...I could do with out all the rest...