SUmMeR SoFtBaLl

This year my sis-in-law and her husband were awesome enough to start up a softball team. They were able to get their work to sponsor us (Go Call Realty!) I was really excited, but it had been a good 10 years since I had played on a team, so I was a little rusty. But I can tell you that I looked forward to every single Friday when we had a game, it became the highlight of my week. The team was mostly Brent's family and then some friends. It was a great team and we had a lot of fun together. And can I say that my husband rocks, he's a pretty dang good outfielder! We ended up second in our division. The tournament was this weekend and since we opted NOT to play on Sunday, our two wins yesterday had to be turned in as losses, :( But we still had fun! Hopefully it can become a yearly tradition!

Wildflowers

Planting a lawn has been a challenge to say the least, but one of the things I love most about our property is this patch of wildflowers. Claire loves to go down and pick the flowers and there is nothing she loves more than having her picture taken!

SUNRIVER

This year was our 9th? annual sunriver trip. As usual it was fabulous and we lucked out with some AMAZING weather. Our trip was extended a few days longer due to the death of my uncle Jim from Bend. Jim spent most of his life in a nursing home after he was in a logging accident when he was younger. We grew up visiting him in a nursing home. It was a sad day for my grandpa (jim was his only child) but I imagine Jim is so happy in heaven!

The rest of the trip was amazing. We had perfect weather, we swam everyday, rode bikes and played tennis. Our tennis fun was cut a little short when my brother in law Garrick tore his achilles and was down for the count. He ended up getting surgery and is recovering from that.

According to my sister, when all is said and done he should be better than ever and hopefully will play us again next year!
Claire rode her first "big girl bike" on this trip. She LOVED it and wanted to ride everywhere.
The kids loved playing bingo together. Besides that, i'm not sure what else they did, I hardly ever saw them. (jk...sort of)

I went on my first white water rafting trip. My only complaint was that it was too short!! I loved it though.
Not much I can say about this one...
The boys taking a break from one of their bike rides.
:ast but not least, Brent's solution to not having a bike rack? DUCT TAPE. yes he duct taped

our bikes to the top of the van and it worked beautifully. He's such a macgyver type. It was yet another fun filled trip!

house projects

People often comment on the amount of work required to have some "land." I definately agree, it's a lot of work, but we are loving every minute of it. The last month has been spent trying to get a lawn to grow. Much harder in the idaho panhandle than in Oregon's Willamette valley! Brent has been working on building the kids a playset. This picture was taken in the beginning stages. It's looking pretty good now, we even snagged a free slide from my sis-in-law who happened to have one. Brent and I build a little rock retaining wall by hand and i'm working on a cobblestone path. Every day the kids have to fill me a bucket of rocks and every day or so I try to spend an hour on the path. Im sure it will take me all summer to finish. But that's what's happening around our place right now!