Another extreme sports weekend

Terry decided to kayak Pine Creek this spring. Thankfully the creek wasn't totally at high water stage.

It did take him a bit longer to make the run because he came around a corner and a tree was blocking the creek from bank to bank. He had to get out and portage around to finish his run.

He wore his Alaskan dry suit cause the water is only about 40 degrees.

More Extreme Sports????

Not really an outcome of anything dangerous or exciting.....just picking up sticks and trimmings from the yard. He whacked himself in the eye...pretty nasty looking but it didn't hurt. He still looked like an alien. I make him wear his sunglasses cause I don't like to look at it. Yuck.

Terry's Extreme Sports Weekend

Terry decided it would be a great idea to ride his bicycle over Windy Ridge. So I drove him to the top of Kleinschmidt Grade and dropped him off.

He pedaled his A** over the top and saw herds of elk and of course beautiful scenery.

And to prove he did it on his bike, he took a few shots of his bike posed at scenic spots

The proper technique for roasting homemade marshmallows

First you roast it.










Then you blow on it till it is cool enough to eat.






Then you carefully take it off your stick.















Then you pop it in your mouth.













And if you are really lucky, you may get to even lick your fingers!

Hiking to the Snowline on Windy Ridge

Melissa and Dan hiked the basalt covered hill. I also liked that nice flat piece of basalt behind them...It would look really nice in my yard.

I think Bear Grylls said it was ok to drink from natural water sources...didn't he??

Jeanne used her stick to "pole vault" over Blue Creek. Isn't that how Bear did it??

It was windy on Windy Ridge (duh) and mom was using us as a wind break.

Here is the girl picture.


Here is the boy picture

This is a picture of Em and her dogs from the first good look out over the ox-bow. (This is the river formation that gives our little community its' name.)

Dan is overlooking our favorite fishing spot. You can just make out the rock we like to jump from.

Melissa, Emily and Me

I found a piece of column basalt that made a natural bird bath in the top depression. I would love to have this in my yard, but Dan wouldn't carry it home for me :(

Melissa and Dan

This part of the trail was full of goat head stickers. So we had to stop frequently and pick the stickers out of the dogs feet.

This tree was quite pretty. It is a hack berry and looked quite dead, but isn't. It is surprising the shelter it gives underneath. Apparantly it has protected the grasses and plants under it from the frost. Looks like a little eden of spring.

This is the view from the back seat of the truck on the way home......

Except for Sassy, who jumped through the window so she could sit on Emily's lap. What a brat!

Easter Weekend Festivities

Time to color eggs.

Melissa and Dan getting set up for some serious egg coloring.

I had gotten out of my muddy pants and got comfortable. You can't be restricted when you are in the midst of creative genius.

Mom, Lisa, Seth and Cutter(one of the neighbor kids)

The kids make this a legitimate event. It just wouldn't be right for all of us adults to color eggs all afternoon if we weren't "doing it for the kids".

Although we only have one member of the family that is "age eligible" to hunt eggs, we usually end up with about 4 dozen colored eggs. Somethings you just don't out grow!!

This egg says "Dan Rocks". But of course it does.......
Here is the finished product of our efforts. We had some dye that made camouflaged eggs. Have you ever dyed eggs using black dye...some were very.......well, we'll just call them interesting!

Here is a action shot as Seth drops his egg gingerly into the green dye. And if you all didn't know......a Mr Clean Magic Eraser cleans dye from countertops like....Magic!!

We actually had quite a busy day on Saturday. We got in a hike to the snow line on Windy Ridge, then we rushed home to dye eggs then Lisa and Seth had to rush to Halfway for play practice. The Missoula Childrens Theater comes to the school and puts on a play using all the students. This year it was Pied Piper and Seth was a Rat. But we got it all done!

The picture shows Mom, Emily and Lisa.

"Cloudy With A Chance of Crappie:"

As I was looking off the deck this morning (we finally have a sunshiny day although the temp was 30 degrees) I saw something weird shiny in the yard by my flower beds.




So I went down to investigate. It was a crappie! Apparently a bird (could be a bald eagle since they are all moving back in. We have about 4 in the area swooping around) had caught his breakfast and as he was heading for his favorite tree to land in, his slippery tid bit got away....unfortunately for the fish he landed not in the river but in my yard. I am just glad that bald eagles don't catch larger things or else I would have to adopt the attitude of Chicken Little....or at least the latest Movie, but always my favorite book....Cloudy With A Change of Crappie???!!

Spring Break Hike

A group of our friends came down last weekend, when the weather was still pretty nice and we did a hike to McGraw Creek and had a picnic. It was Emily's spring break and we had a great time hunting for rocks, and roasting marshmallows.