Little Red Hen

Isaac loooooves black caps; especially juiced ones.  He went out with me yesterday and we found the mother load of berries.  Between the two of us, we picked 12 cups in 1.5 hours.  We found a few new spots that no one knows about in our neighborhood (maybe they do now though).

I juiced the berries last night, making a gigantic mess.  I was telling Isaac how it felt like the Little Red Hen.  We spent all this time picking berries in hot humid weather with mosquitoes and who knows what else bugs crawling on us, and getting repeatedly scratched...and we'll go home and everyone will want to indulge in our labors.

So this afternoon after church, I called Isaac up and we made our special drink, just the two of us.  

Then we shared.  

 It makes a beautiful wine red color.  Isaac's favorite part was adding lemon lime pop.  Oh yeah, we also experimented and made some into icees, and also froze some for popsicles. 

Ammon's Birthday Party

He's 5!

Since our trampoline broke and we can't fix it, and nothing was showing up on Craigs list, we ended up buying a new one last night at Sam's club.  Justin cooked up an idea that we could put Ammon to bed, then set it up and have him find it in the morning.  

So that's what we did.  

Jacob watched a Blues Clues movie with him while Isaac occasionally helped us while he filled water balloons. 

We only messed up a couple of times (because Justin was too cool to read the directions at first), and after two hours finished.  We had to battle mosquitoes and the dark, but it's done!  Okay, we still have to tie the net down, but that's for another day.

This morning, we wouldn't let Ammon out of our room while Isaac set up the traditional string game. 

This one didn't lead to presents, but to the trampoline.

Here's a short video clip.

It makes me laugh.  He didn't look very excited.  We visualized more.  I love that you can see a glimpse of him running holding his pants up.  That's the norm around here.

A big thunder storm hit right at the beginning of his party, so we went out on the porch for a few minutes.

Used their binoculars to go on a jungle safari and find animals.

This party is a re-run from Isaac's party several years ago, so decorations were a breeze.  

We played a game that used sticky stretchy frogs that you throw onto a jungle wall.  If the frog lands on a leaf with numbers on it, you get those points.  Isaac was the game director and made sure that most throws were generously given points.

Ammon up to bat.

 Bunny ears!

Took Ammon about eight tries to get the candles blown out.

Water Balloons!
It stopped raining just long enough to do water balloons and swim.

Fathers Day 2010

Justin, Isaac, Ammon, & I walked over to the field by our house to look for berries, which weren't ripe, and the boys rode over the tiny bumps in the trail a few times.

Crash and burn

 Justin got in on a bit of the action too.

and then had waffles with blackberry syrup for dinner.

Jacob's 14th Birthday Extravaganza

That might be putting it a bit on the wild side.  Jacob invited only a few friends and didn't want any games planned; only to hang out.

A. from school, Jason from church, and R (his friends brother because his friend couldn't come).   Oh yeah, and Tony happened to be over so he was in on the fun too.

I loved that when they showed up, two of them had their Nintendo ds's out, so we got one out for Jason.  Then they sat around playing Pokemon for a while having a great time.  I loved the "Pokemon Lingo" they were using.  I had no idea what or who they were talking about.

Of course, Jacob got Legos

and Pokemon cards

We enjoyed Little Caesar's pizza, fruit punch, and hoping this becomes a tradition:

donuts for cake.

R.

Jason

Tony

A.

Nature Valley Grand Prix

Had to hustle to make it in time for the kids race.  Last year, we missed it by minutes.  Made it in time by about five minutes this year.  Ammon was our only Dittmer contestant.

Ammon was apprehensive until we told him Jacob would ride his scooter along with him.  

Justin ended up running along too.  He also ended up sweaty.  

He is so proud of his medal.

After this kids race, then we were able to take our time, ravish the booths of peanut butter samples and other swag.  

 Speaking of freebies, Ammon was walking along getting jelly bellies out of his pants pockets, but his pants had been on back wards most of the day.

Then off to enjoy the men's time trials.

Justin took this awesome shot.

Cheering the peloton on.

Watched a bit of bmx tricks.  I am a sucker for flat land.

Nice Summer June Day

Got Ammon to swim with the life jacket again today.  Finally.  A tree up the street cracked off and fell on a power line, blowing up the transformer, so we were out of power for a couple of hours.  

I went swimming with Isaac, Allison, and Ammon for about 1.5 hours.  Ammon jumped from the second step down.  It was great.  Totally surprised him; he went under water, but obviously came back up.  For an orange tootsie pop, I got him to jump again.

He wanted to show Justin later in the day, but they had to swim quick before a storm came.

Allison is my little fishie.  She would swim every day if I let her.

Video clip of kids swimming.

First T ball attempt

One of my activity day girls is heading up a preschool sports weekly activity, which is great!  Today was the first week and they played T-ball.  Ammon has never played.  They started off reading a Froggy book.

Love the stance.

Short clip of Ammon running to first base for the first time.

Trash Pick Up

Several times a year, we take a family walk and pick up trash.  The kids love it.  It's great to hear Ammon's enthusiasm for finding a piece of cut up plastic cups on the ground.

What the...

Dumb things I let my husband do.

Obviously I made Isaac wear a helmet.  I told him a life jacket too, but he wouldn't do it.  I let him squeak by with just the helmet.

Incidentally, before I got this live on the internet, this happened:

A coincidence?  Possibly.  Probably.  The welding was rusty.

4th Annual Backpacking Trip

Memorial day approacheth and plans begin to blossom. 

Justin schemes and plans the next chunks adventures along the Superior Hiking Trail.  Jacob and Isaac must be getting used to back packing due to the lack of whining and complaining when planning commenced.  They have seemed to accept the inevitable.

The boys didn't want to miss a day of school, so they left directly after school on Friday and stormed up 35W.

This is the start of the 2010 4th annual back packing trip.  Got a bit of a late start, but only had to hike .7 miles to the campground.

Justin's trekking pole picked up a friend for a few miles (bark).

Isaac's trail mix produced a chocolate chip disguised as a peep.

Bug alert!  Jacob loved his mosquito net.  This is shortly after visiting a campsite we renamed 'Ticky Leach Campground' due to the abundance of leaches in the lake and the eight ticks we found in our 30 minutes eating lunch there.

In yo' face.  Gum Gum/Dumb Dumb made many special appearances on this backpacking trip too. 

The approach to Carlton Peak, that we had to hike over.  Phew!

Justin loves the capture of Jacob's face in this one.

 Getting in a bit of ds time.

Dumb Dumb needed some zzz's after all the photo sessions and game time.

d

On our last night, our tent was on a "gentle" slope.  Jacob and Isaac both woke up find they used the bottom of the tent like a hammock.
We covered approx 27 miles this year in three day three nights.