Some of life's amazing moments!

July 20th, 2010

I sent off my babies
to spend a few days with their grandparents. This is always SUCH a bitter/sweet time for me.

SWEET...that my kids get some "one on one" time to create memories with their grandparents
SWEET...because Tracy and I get some great "alone time".
BITTER...because I MISS my kids greatly when they are not here and I always tend to worry about them more than usual....
However,
the bitter always turns to SWEET once they are home safe and sound.

I came home to an empty and QUIET house.
I actually can say that I miss the "noise" of kids.
I missed coming in the door and hearing Ethan's same greeting that he has said everyday this summer:
"Okay mom, close your eyes...I have a surprise to show you"
and then he opens the dishwasher and shows that the dishes are all neatly put away.
I missed Jade saying: "So mom, how was your day today" as he comes over and massages my shoulders.

I always wonder how well I'm teaching my kids to do chores and be a helping member of our family and then when they are not there, I realize REAL QUICK just how much my sweet little kids do.

Ethan always empties the garbages, takes care of dishwasher duties, folds and puts his clothes away, waters all of the trees in our back yard, fills the Dixie Cups in the bathrooms and MANY other things we ask him to do.
JADE always does the animal chores of making sure our chickens and dog have fresh food and water every day, mows the lawn, does his laundry, takes buckets of water to a tree on the side of our house that we are trying to keep alive, vacuums the house and cleans his room, etc...He is always quick to help in "tidying things up" when the house has got disorderly.

My boys are awesome and amazing and do SO much to help our home run smoothly and help their parents out.


Anywho, last week we had two amazing moments...

I was fixing dinner in our kitchen
and looked out our back window and noticed that everything had a weird orange cast to it.
It was strange because the sky was bright blue and there was no hint of color at all in the sky.

I walked out our garage door
and here is what I saw...
this gorgeous beauty!!

There was a several thousand acre fire going on in the Arco desert and the way the sun was reflecting off the smoke created these amazing colors.
I have never seen such
an electric, colorful sky in my life.

My handsome hubby
with the gorgeous colorful sky.

The view to the East of our house.

The view to the West of our house

I LOVE how the sky goes
from the smoky clouds to the vibrant blue.

The view to the North of our house
and my cute little Ethan enjoying riding his bike enjoying the unique sky.

Truly amazing!!

We sent Jade off to his weekly Young Men's activity and the headed into Rexburg to get some parts so Tracy could get our garden watering system up and running...

There were SO many cars up by the Temple
and people all over taking photos trying to get that PERFECT photo...it was truly astounding!
(I wish I had my camera with me but at least we had Tracy's iPhone)

Another great photo...

And the last of the FIRE and colorful sky!
Within an hour the sky was hazy and the color was gone.


Saturday July 17th, 2010
We went to a family reunion in Alpine, Wyoming over the weekend. One of the activities we do is float the Hoback. My cousins love to take everyone that wants to go for a run down the river.
We went on the last run on Saturday afternoon.
We took 2 rafts and there were 13 people on each raft.
Barbie and Boston
were our Captains...we rode on Boston's raft.

I have to chuckle as Tracy always writes in his Journal about the weeks activities during Sacrament meeting and showed me what he wrote about our river adventure. He said "Kimberly had a great time, although she was a little tentative".
Well, if that didn't have me fuming mad...."tentative"?!??
REALLY, that's what you thought about your wife?

I mean, I am an adventurer...
Kimmie is a "YES" girl!!
I love to backpack, I'm perfectly fine to pee in the woods, camp and sleep in a tent in the mountains for days with no shower, go on the "Sky Coaster" at Lagoon, Ride the "Big Shot"on top of the Stratosphere, jump off the highest platform dive at Lava Hot Springs....you name the event, I usually won't turn it down and I will love every moment of it!!

SO, as I've had time to reflect this week about being "Tentative", yes , I can say I was a little apprehensive...not that I don't just LOVE going out on the river.
I LOVE IT!
Some of my first and favorite memories from childhood were on the seven day rafting trip my parents took me on when I was nine. Tracy and I have LOVED each year at the reunions and never missed one of the float trips when we have gone to the reunions.

HOWEVER, this time I had a different variable involved...
this was the first time my babies were on the raft with me.
I was a little nervous because I know going over "BIG KAHUNA" there would be some pretty rough rapids. Ethan's life vest was a little bigger than it should have been and so I was being a little more cautious than normal. Mainly, because Ethan is a little bit of a dare devil and didn't quite understand the danger of the river. He kept on wanting to have us let him jump in the river when we were going through the rapids.


NEEDLESS to say,
we had one AMAZING time and my kids LOVED the river and BEGGED to go back the next day.


Happy that my kids love the river,
because we are going to be filling our summer-time with rafting trips now...

with Tracy's amazing "score" of a
12 foot, seven person
Avon Redshank Raft
that he purchased at a garage sale.
It's in great shape, been taken very well care of, holds air perfectly and he got it
for the amazing, out of this world price of $25.00...you read that right... twenty-five dollars! (New in the mid 90's this raft would have been nearly $1700 and even today, they go for half that much.)

Can't wait to have a weekend where we don't have any other plans and we can take a nice float down the river as a family.
I need to hone up my rafting skills so I can be Tracy's "First mate" in our river floating adventures.

And for memory sake,
I came home to this sweet note from "Mr. Smith" lying on my kitchen counter. Since mornings in the summer are hectic for Tracy, with getting kids lined out with chores, morning walks with Jade and getting to work earlier than during the school year, it means, I usually don't get notes left too often.
When I do get one,
especially when it's out of the blue
these are TREASURES to me!

I'm so lucky,
so in love and all I can say is
LIFE IS WONDERFUL
with all of it's "amazing moments"!