Second Snow Day in a Week!

Look what can be accomplished on a snow day!

My house is going to stay so much cleaner. Now that the kids have their own house and all!

Paige in her bedroom.

Snow snow and more snow has been our life for the past week! Snow days, snowy roads to Utah, snowiER roads back from Utah. We made it home Sunday despite running into two closed roads. The freeway was closed, so we took a side highway. Sneaky us, we thought. Imagine our despair when after 2 hrs on it we came upon another ClOSED sign! Darren, upon seeing our "side"road being shut down, flipped a U turn and took us over Conner Summit - he had ridden it to Malta a few summers ago. Guess I am grateful he rides hundreds of miles. Total white out, but it was open!

We got within 1 mile of home and came upon 4 ft. drifts! Apparently our ward had sent everyone home after Sunday School because of the drifting. We would not be thwarted from reaching our destination as Darren plowed us through the drifts. It was actually fun. We were so glad to be home!

Now we get to be home some more! No school today for the second time in a week! We could get used to this!

Snow Day!

Monday night the word spread like wildfire about the SNOW DAY! on Tuesday. Text messages, automated school phone call, neighbors! Woo HOOO!!!

Not willing to miss out on anything, she talked her brothers into pulling her in the sled to the neighbor's house (they're not close) to try their sled hill. They pulled her back too. Such gentlemen.

This is the bottom half of a two part slide. We are instructed not to step on it! Smooth is faster!

I loved this day. We got lots of snow and then the wind kicked up. Perfect recipe for a snow day here. The drifts get crazy across the roads. Darren barely made it out the end of our road because of a huge drift. I told Darren this morning that I wanted to move somewhere where we could get snowed in all winter long. We had such a great day.

The boys were in and out of the snow all day. They trekked up the road on skis to try the neighbor's hill, tried the bungee sled, soaked in the hot tub then ran around in their swimming suits. Paige and I baked bread, then snickerdoodles. I put in a P90X DVD, plyometrics, yikes. Had to do something to justify all those cookies. I have to admit I was glad to have Diet Coke in the fridge, I wouldn't have trekked all the way to Sonic, but I have been known to do dumber things.

The Time Has Come

When I start finding lines like this strung throughout the house

I know it is time.

Snow kite season has begun!

Tonight was the first snow kite day of the season. They met out by the church on Falls. They have been scouting out farm fields all year.

Today had plenty of the two things you need for snowkiting:

Wind and Snow.

I guess I should add a third: Ted, who has all sizes of kites.

Chillin'

We decided to just hang out and watch a little TV yesterday.

Just chillin'.

Monster Cross Race

Today was Twin's first (I think) Cyclocross bike race. Our friend Jerrod Kuerth organized it. It was held at Dierke's Lake. A cyclocross race usually involves a cyclocross bike, sort of a road bike with fatter tires. Most people around here don't have them, a lot of us rode our mtn. bikes. Even if I owned a cross bike I wouldn't have ridden it around Dierke's Lake!

Darren and a few friends have spent some serious time working on the trail. They have cleared sagebrush, moved rocks, opened up narrow areas in an effort to make the trail more user friendly. People walking and hiking around the lake have been thrilled. The trail has needed some work for a while now.

The race was free, Jerrod was just feeling out the interest for something like this. It was a better than expected turn out on this freezing cold day!

I run around Dierke's, I swim in Dierke's, but have never had a desire to ride/carry a bike around it! There are 127 stairs! The newspaper was taking pictures first step on the first set of stairs is about waist high to me! The newspaper was there on the second lap. I thought, you've got to be kidding me, take pictures of my TRYING to get up this thing with my bike? Not very graceful I will tell you that! The race went clockwise around the lake. I did the 30 min course, where we did 2 laps. Darren did the hour course with 4 laps.

Darren and Terry on their twinner bikes. So special.

Darren and I both rode the same bike. I warmed it up for him. The bike and I were so muddy when I finished that everyone asked me if I had crashed! NO! Hello people, it just took my whole body to carry that bike over 1/3 of the course! Hence they called it a MONSTER cross race.

Darren spent some time with me on Thursday riding the course. I tried three different bikes, always sure that the next one would be easier to carry! Darren showed me what side of the bike to get off and when, where to grab on the bike, etc. I went over my handle bars once and have a plethora of bruises all over my legs from hoisting the bike every which way to be able to carry it. After today the biggest bruise is on my right shoulder, where I learned the rest the seat of the bike for the carry.

Darren can ride the loop in under 12 min. He is a little insane, riding some of the stairs. But what do you expect from Darren. Nothing less than insanity.





Darren did awesome staying up with those young Ketchum guys! He crashed twice! The course got pretty muddy after the first lap of my race. Even the stairs were getting covered. Since only 3 women entered the 30 min. course (1 woman in the hour race, go girl whoever you are!) They raced us with the guys. I came in about middle of the pack overall. Darren came in 5th. The first place finisher, Terry's son, Brad, raced in Europe in his teens and is a serious competitor.

This was really fun and I'm so glad I did it, even though I was really nervous! There will be another cross race next month at Rock Creek, and one in January at O'Leary. Neither will be nearly as technical. I'd like to get a hold of a cross bike. I think I'm really liking this new challenge!

Mother of the Year

Paige has been complaining about foot pain since the Magic Mtn. cross country meet. Her achilles hurt. Her heel hurt. Her calves hurt. She stopped going to cross country. We iced. We stretched. I have had achilles/foot pain. I know what to do for it.

A few weeks ago she called Grandma Smith to see if she could borrow their crutches. We all just chuckled. The complaining worsened in the last week. She wanted a wheel chair. She started to walk with her feet turned out, kind of hobbling. Guess I should take her to the Dr.

We came home with a boot and instructions to be on crutches for at least 2 weeks. Stress fracture in her heel. I am thankful to friends with kid sized crutches. They even deliver!

As a mom I filter a lot of what my kids say. Once I filtered "Brady has a BROKEN ARM!" Sure he does I thought. I guess I'll walk out and see what happened. YIKES! Arm broken completely in half.

Other times I rush out in panic, only to find a little bruise, scrape. This time I filtered "My foot hurts." Over and over. Yet she walked, ran, sometimes. How's a mom to know?

The other day I came home from a run to see this.

My heart was filled with gratitude. I love where I live. I love that my kids can drive around and pick up weeds. Lots and lots of weeds, debris, tree limbs. We wanted to provide a place for them to work, to make their lives difficult. Give them a chance to feel a sense of accomplishment. There isn't quite another feeling like the one you have after finishing a job that took a lot of hard work.

It didn't hurt that they had a bunch of friends coming over that night for a Halloween Party. A good motivation to do what mom and dad said!

I Love Google

You can learn how to do anything on the Internet. I was getting a new dishwasher and had to unhook the broken, piece of junk, dishwasher. I only had an hour until the delivery truck showed. I googled "how to unhook a dishwasher" and did what the video showed me. Unhook water, turn off electricity, unhook drain hose, take off front panel, unwire.......I did it!

The best part was when the new one came Justin and I had it mostly in when Darren came home! I learned about all sorts of new tools! I had never even heard of a nut driver before. Now I don't see how I could live without one!

OK so, I saved us $129 on installation. Then as I was feeling so proud of myself, the first time I ran it a big SPARK came out and it stopped working! Darren and the boys were on their way to Scouts so I just had to wait.....was my new dishwasher broken? Worse, had I done it with my amateur install?

Darren came home and tightened down the ground wire, now it works perfectly! Whew!

Go Domestic Engineers!

Quite a Contraption

Can you only guess what is going on in this picture?
I will say this. I will have pumpkins sprouting up EVERYWHERE next summer!

Work So You Can Play

Saturday SIMBA had a trail maintenance day. Darren took the boys and met some friends to work on the infamous "Smitty" Trail. Yes, it is named after us! Darren and Brady mainly. The year Brady was in Kindergarten he and Darren spent countless hours building this trail. I've only ridden it a couple of times, it is pretty far back in this system of trails. But it is dang fun!

Cross Country

Justin and Paige ran Cross Country this year. Paige got to run in one meet (she is only in 5th grade) but they let them practice with the Middle School. She loves to run!

This was Justin's first year with the high school.

Justin is a "little" on the small side. Can you see him? HINT: he is behind the fro and is wearing red.

Here comes Paige. She took 20th out of 70 6th -8th grade girls! 4th on her team. As a 5th grader that is pretty amazing. I was SOOOO proud of her. Before the race I tracked her down so I could remind her that IT IS A RACE! I pulled her aside and whispered in her ear that she was to do her best and run her fastest! That means you don't wait for your friends! Girls! They practically hold hands at these things, she had been known to slow down and wait to cross the finish line. She is a bleeding heart. I'm glad she is a kind person. But it is OK to beat peolple, that's why they call it a RACE!

Justin coming down the finish he did awesome. He was pleased with his race. Magic Mtn. is the toughest race in the district. They run straight up the ski hill! I am so happy to see him doing so well. He and his body have had rough year.

Kimberly made it to State. At districts they race and take the top seven runners. The eighth runner is the alternate. I told him to take 7th or 9th. I didn't want to drive to Soda Springs to watch him not run! Terrible parent. Maybe so. He gave it his all - and 9th place it was! Whew! He had a great season and made some fun friends. The older boys really took the freshman in and made them feel important. Kimberly is full of great kids!

Favorite Girl

My kids are pretty healthy eaters. I just had to post this picture so I would remember Paige and some of the bedtime snacks she comes up with.

Avocado and tomato. A girl after my own heart.

Go 'Dawgs

Brady finally got to play football this year. He was dang excited. He was a receiver and free safety. He learned a lot and even scored a few touchdowns. I really enjoyed watching his games and now I have someone else in the family who will sit down and watch a football game with me!

A few more Middle Fork pics

Happy girl.

Fisher girl.

Me drinking "Gilbert" water. (You'll have to ask Paige about that one. She wouldn't touch it if her mouth were caked in sand and she was dying of thirst in a desert.)

Per request of "the boss" I did a write up on our Middle Fork trip for Frontierplay's blog High Water Lines. More of the same, just a little different. Read it here.