July is always a busy month and I always take way too many pictures! We had the 4th of July followed by 10 nights at Banks lake, then the girls and headed straight to Montana for Bible camp and hanging with family. Then back to Washington for a bridal shower, hiking and hot temperatures and gardening.
So here is my review of the month of July!
The month started out with our refrigerator of 14 years going out. It is never a good time for your fridge to die, but right before you go on a 10 day camping trip is a particularly bad time. I was thankful that we discovered it was out and were able to save most things, minus some things that needed to be tossed anyways. But I had to use my two extra freezers in the garge and our camper fridges and freezer. So that is way it was particularly hard to pack for camping when my camper fridges were full of our regular food. But fortunately the fridge did not go out while we were gone and make a terrible mess., with all the food lost. And fortunately we were able to find a fridge on costco.com that was reasonably priced, the right size and what we wanted and could be delivered on the 2nd or 3rd I believe. Giving me enough time to move all the food from the camper and get the camper re-packed. Plus I do really like our new fridge. It is a bit bigger than our older one and it is pretty nice. It all ended up working out.
Well our trip to Banks started on the 5th, but we couldn't not celebrate the 4th, so we worked hard to get all the packing done and still have some time to have friends over for the 4th.
So here are some 4th pictures! First pretty flowers in my yard!
And this was Aubrey's bike she outgrew so we were seeing if Piper wanted it.
And I had to get my traditional 4th of July pictures!
That evening we had the Mills and the Kopps over for some fireworks! ANd I think Kopps came for dinner too!
Sparkler Time!
And now for the big show! We combined all our fireworks. We had some ok ones, but not as good as years past.
The trip went so great, I guess it was inevitable that something else would go wrong. We got the camper set up and then headed over to put the boat in and get a spot on the beach. Hans dropped Olivia and I off to take the boat over and would not start! I thought I had done something wrong and then I did probably flood it, but I was super frustrated. Todd and Hunter came and rescued us and towed us over to the beach. We did get it going eventually but it was not running good. This was just the beginning of our boat troubles over the 10 days that we were there. After that we discovered that we had not fixed the problem from the last summer when we had run out of oil. We were having oil blow by and all over the engine compartment. It was such a stinky, smokey, annoying mess to clean up. Our first couple days there were on the cooler side so it worked out that we had to do some boat fixing. Todd and Hans came up with an idea to help limp our boat along. But it really was a pain and we couldn't use the boat way we liked to. We would smoke terrible and we started calling our boat old smoky. And we would have to stop and pour oil back into the engine, clean up the engine a bit, and add more oil frequently.
Our first few days were just with Mills and my parents came on the 6th and Josh and his family came on the 7th. Ashia's parents and brother were there the 6th as well. We made the best of it even though our boat was broken. Here are some pictures.
We did get to play badminton some! We had a good grassy spot at Mills spot.
Another day in the sun! Off for more boating fun.
And playing and floating in the water fun!
Claire was still having some challenges with her ankle. Although she could put full weight on it, she was still not able to walk right. It was hard for her. She also could not do the boating activities because of her ankle. That was hard. She did get into the swimming more as the week went on. She did end up sitting and watching a lot more than she would have liked. It was hard for me that she didn't have as much fun as she would have liked. It was kind of the theme of our trip....broken!! Sniff, sniff...
The first couple days were not as hot so we wanted to sit in the sun and kept trying to move over to find the sun!
The cousins had arrived! Diedrich, Aubrey and Raelyn,
Headed out to tube!
And the next day was more of the same! Boating, floating, and soaking up the sun! These kids love tubing!!
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| Such a pretty place! |
Back on the beach....here is little Gabe (Ashia's nephew) showing me the big fish he caught!
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| Dirty little Piper! |
The evenings are so beautiful with the sun on the rocks! This night we saw some deer on the hill!
And then this happened!
And Piper came out of the water and thought that Diedrich had made the tube flip because he said he wanted it to and she was so so so so mad at him! I had to explain to her that it wasn't Diedrich's fault and that Uncle Hans had accidently flipped them, not Diedrich. Poor girl!
And then we were back to play in the water, dive, and play in the sand! It was great fun!
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| Here Liv is driving the jet ski |
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| My sis-in-law Carrie |
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| Mom and Dad |
I think this was the morning that D and Piper left. So we were half way through our trip! We were sad to see them go!! They had so much fun!
Just some boys fishing off the back of the boat!
That afternoon we road on Mills boat out to the rocks to swim and play.
And the Mills boys took a bath in the lake!
Sun bathing beauties on the front of the boat!
This year the girls had Audina there part of the time and that was really fun! Usually there are no girls their age there.
More badminton fun!
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| Claire did not play a lot, because she couldn't move fast enough in her opinion. |
More boating! This time some knee boarding and wakeboarding with the younger 2 girls.
Guys working on our boat!! And talking!
And then it was time for evening badminton!
More of Raelyn and Aubrey wakeboarding. I don't think I got any pictures of Olivia wakeboarding although she did quite a bit. Just never on our boat and never when I was along. I think she went with the Mills a lot.
A bunch of kids on a paddleboard!
It is always fun to see the military planes fly by!
Rock jumping is another thing we do each time we go to Banks lake. It is always so fun! This time I just stayed on the boat with Stella and took pictures. Everyone had a great time! In no paticular order here are the kids and some dads jumping!
That night part of our crew hiked up to the top of Steamboat rock. Every year I want to do it, but then back out. Next year I think I really just gotta do it! This trip they saw 2 rattlesnakes! No pictures of those!
Meanwhile, back at camp there was lots of card playing going on. The teens were really into playing Nertz that week!
Another day of sun....and surprise another day of boating! The younger 2 did some more knee boarding and wakeboarding and this time we had their friend Audina along to do some stuff too!
And one of my favorite things to do...go out at sunset for some boating! I went out with Ashia I think and our younger kids for some tubing!
And then it was time to head home! Hans took off with the trailer for home. The girls and I headed to Kalispell. And fortunately our boat had been towed home the night before by our friends. Which saved me a lot of driving, because I had originally planned on towing the boat home and then turning around driving to Kalispell the next day. God worked it out for us!!
A few pictures from my friends....so not sure when they happened during our trip. But they are fun pics and I wanted to include them.
We left on a Friday from our camping trip and got to Kalispell that night. The next day was our only full day with all the girls so we headed to the maze with my brother and cousins (and all their kids) for our annual maze fun. We started off the day with the bumper cars. This year Raelyn decided to drive herself. Aubrey still wanted to ride with me. I didn't get many pics this year because I was on the race track with most of the people we came with, but here are a few.
Next up was the maze! We may do it every year, but I still can't remember how to get around it...lol! This year we did pretty good, but I had to beg and plead with one of the workers to give us tips on how to get places! Haha! We did finally get all the stamps and find our way out! The kids love to run around like crazy and did a great job! It was hot!!
Well naturally after you get all hot in the maze it is fun to cool off on the bumper boats! The kids are hilarious to watch on these and had a great time getting soaked!
Last, but not least was the mini golf! This is hard to get pics of and stay together because we have such a big group. But the kids had a blast putting their way through the mini golf. I don't think I finished the game. I got too hot and needed to find some shade and snacks.
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| The twins...Dillon and Conner |
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| Ryan |
After that we had to stop at Chick-fil-A for a late lunch and then Target on the way home. We needed to get a few things for the girls for camp and we had to get laundry done and them re-packed. Claire was tired and wanted to ride in the cart! Lol!
Sunday I took Claire and Aubrey to the all girls camp at Big Sky Bible Camp. I think they were a bit worn out after all our camping and then going right into a week away Bible camp, so they weren't as excited as I would have hoped for. Also Claire was disappointed that she was still limited by her ankle. Although she was walking ok, she couldn't really run or play many of the games and had to sit out. She also chose not to swim I think the whole week. So although she had fun, I know she did not have as much fun as she could have had she not been dealing with the aftermath of healing from a broken ankle. Aubrey had a great time, but she is so just so super shy, that she holds herself back in social situations, so she also probably did not have as much fun as she could have. Overall though I think they had a good week and learned a lot about God which is the most important part of being there.Here are a couple pics of them before I took left them for the week.
While Aubrey and Claire were having fun at camp for the week, Olivia, Raelyn and I had a week at the farm. The weather wasn't super hot and I wished I would have done more fun things with them. But my brother, Josh, had hurt his leg actually before he went to Banks lake wth us and it had gotten really bad in the last couple days to the point that he had gone to urgent care and was on crutches and unable to walk. This is not good when you are a farmer and need to walk to do everything. You can't just take sick leave. He was trying to get the irrigation going on his alfalfa fields to get them growing. So I decided to help my brother and sister-in-law, Carrie, out as much as I could. Here are some pics from my parents house looking out at the mountains.
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| Shadow their kitty |
THis was the first day on the irrigation job. We had to put on some wheels on the a couple pieces of pipe that had recently been fixed. My dad and mom were also there for this. It was a little bit challenging to get the pieces all lined up and then the bolts through but we finally got it done. And this was just a warm up for all the fun that was to come in getting the lines all set up and actually running!! We put two wheels on and then got then lines out there, but then when we were walking the line we found that a pipe had the worn wheel on it so then we had to take one of the wheels off that we had just put on and put it on a different pipe. The joys of farming. But I was glad that were were able to get done what we needed to....for that day at least!
After setting the line and putting the wheels on we had to get over to Josh's house as his sheep were being brough home from a pasture they had been at. Unfortunately where they had been had not been very safe from predators and he lost 5 or 6 lambs I think, so they were bringing them home, which was needed but Josh wasn't quite ready for either and with his leg hurt it made it hard to get fence fixed or different things that were needed when caring for animals. They sure are cute though!
Meanwhile we were working in the fields Diedrich had tae kwon do camp all week. Which made Olivia have to be the babysitter of Piper and the driver and picker upper of Diedrich from camp. Olivia was very helpful taking care of her sister and cousins.
The next day the real work began and made the first day look like a piece of cake in comparison. The next day we needed to go along the wheel line and make sure there was a plug at each spot and if not they needed to be fixed. This meant taking the pipe apart at that joint and putting in a new plug. Sounds easy but when the clamps that hold the pipes together were so hard to get off and then often hard to get the pipes and clamp back on once the new plug was in. We were also moving the pipes to straighten out the line so when you move it would roll right and stay relatively straight. But even this paled in comparison to when we then turned the water on. Once the water was on you could see where plugs were either blown out as water was blowing out the bottom, or where the sprinkler was plugged because it wasn't moving. Some of the fixes were easy and others not so much. Where water was blowing out the field would get so wet and muddy so fast because a lot of water was blowing out so you had to try to work fast. But we had to turn the water off and on and try to get the different spots fixed. My brother was getting so frustrated with Carrie and I because we were slow, but also just with the pipes because there were so many problems. And can I just tell you now about how terrible the mosquitos were?!! I had so much spray on (the non-deet type) but it wasn't not doing anything to sway these terrible mosquitos. We were being eaten alive!! Raelyn came along this day to help for a bit and get the farm girl experience. After awhile I had Olivia com down and get her. She left Diedrich and Piper home while she drove down to get her and when she got back Piper was crying outside because Diedrich had locked her outside! Oh BOY!
Trying to get the pump going...which also had trouble if I remember right and he had to go get a part the next day.
We got this far pipe all straightened and the plugs all fixed at least we hoped but then had to do some problem solving to get it hooked to the main line. We moved these pipes and tried a lot of things. This was super frustrating as well!! Finally Josh and Carrie found a solution, I think after I left to go home. I must say that this was quite the bonding experience for Carrie and I. We worked hard, felt frustrated, complained and had some nice chats as we worked. It is hard being a farmer and really hard being a farmer's wife I think. Things you never thought you would do. My mom took these pics. At this point we had not turned on any water. And this was hard!! We were going to find that the turning on the water was not going to work out great like we wanted it to. We just wanted to get that water going for the parched alfalfa plants.
So the days are running into each other. I am not sure if we had done water yet at this point or not. I don't think so. I had gone to town I think earlier in the day, but then got the call that Josh needed help getting the water going! And boy did he!! And this was the super frustrating day and also the day I got the most mosquito bites ever!! This was the day that took farming and irrigation fixing to the next level. When we turned on the water we had to quickly look down the line to see which heads were stuck, which were blowing water and what needed fixed. Then we would have to turn the water off and do the fixing. There was SO MUCH mud! And SO MANY mosquitoes!! We had one set that we pulled apart to fix the plug and then because it was at the bottom of a small slope we could not for the life of us get it back together!! We (Carrie and I) kept getting stuck in the mud and falling down. It was just terrible! And Josh was so frustrated with us because we couldn't get it back together. He hobbled down there and lifted it up and it fit together and we were able to put it together finally. Carrie and I just did not have the strength we needed to do the work! Anyways we worked and worked to get all the sprinklers unplugged from crap, fix all plugs and get the sprinklers going. It was such hard frustrating work!!
And then this happened! We took apart a pipe to fix the plug because it was just blowing water out the bottom and the pipe was broken! We sent a pic to Josh and he said let's go home. Talk about the feeling of defeat! I went home and just broke down crying. We had tried so hard and worked so hard and to go home without the water going was JUST SO HARD!!
My shorts were covered in mud! My arms were covered in mosquito bites...you can kind of tell in the pictures but the girls counted like a 100 bites.
Another great story from our time there was there was once again a bat in my parents house. I think this was maybe the 3rd time that a bat was in my parent's house when we were there. I got a text one of the first couple nights we were there that my mom had seen a bat. I was not down there and then we didn't see it the next few nights although we were looking for it. Then one morning I came down and found this sign on top of a bag of cat food. My mom had been up by herself and found the bat. Trapped it in a net and then put a bag of cat food on top of it. With this sign..it was quite funny!
I love where I grew up! It is so beautiful there!
We finally got in a little fun for the two girls that weren't at camp. We went down to the bridge to do a little fishing. The girls caught a few little pee mouths which was just fun to catch somethings. Here are a few pictures in no particular order of the girls and mom and dad fishing.
That afternoon we picked up the girls from camp. There was a final chapel and we got to sing some neat songs, hear about what they learned about that week and see a video from the week. They had a great time, but were ready to go home. I didn't get many pics. Should have gotten one of me and the girls and my favorite camp.
That night was our last night there so we had to go to my favorite restaurant...MacKenzie River Pizza. Unfortunately, it was a long wait to get in, but we finally did. We were hoping Josh and Carrie could come but they were back at working on the irrigation again. Josh had fixed the pipe we found broken the night before.
When we got back I drove down to check and found the irrigation going! Josh and Carrie had gotten everything fixed and it was up and running! It was such a beautiful sight!! I was really happy it was finally going after all that work!
It was such a beautiful night!! I had to take some pictures from my parents house.
The next morning it was time to head home. We wanted to get home for bridal shower on Sunday so we had to go. I was sad that our time was over and we didn't get to do as many fun things as I would have liked, but it was also good to help my brother and connect with my sister in law and have a deeper appreciation for hard farming is.
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| last view of the lake before we headed off towards home |
Later Josh did get the irrigation going and moved across all the whole field. I got these pictures from my mom.
Back at home I was glad to see my flower looking so beautiful and my dahlias were starting and my garden looked amazing! It was hard being gone almost 3 weeks, but fun to be home. We were fortunate that our fish had survived the week because didn't feed it all week, because he didn't know we even had a fish!
The next day was a bridal shower for Marissa whose wedding was coming up in August. It was a nice day to be outside and was fun to visit and see all the fun gifts she got.
A couple days later we went on a hike, the girls and I, to make sure that Claire was ready to do a hike on her ankle with the church backpacking trip coming up the next week. We did the Gold Mountain hike. It was an almost 5 mile hike and it was HOT!! We tried to get up there early, but it wasn't early enough. But the hike went well and we determined that Claire could do the backpacking trip as long as we kept her pack as light as possible. We had a fun time on our pre-hike and I was glad to get out with the girls and I was actually able to keep up with them ok. Downhill was the hardest mostly because of my knee.
I started this a little late, but it was fairly accurate.
My garden was so little when I left and so big when I got home!
This was the next day we went to scenic beach with the Mills to get in some water time. It was seriously so hot!! It was nice to be out there. The views were gorgeous and being by the water was so cooling!
It was so hot the girls were just wanting to get cooled off! I even got in the little pool because I was just so HOT!
That night was a Wednesday night connection. I loved seeing all these kids up on the hill hanging out together!
I got so many blueberries this year of my bushes! They were just ripening up as I was getting home so it was perfect timing.
Stella was so cute hanging out in the little pool floating in the bigger pool.
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| Silly little Oliver cat |
I don't know what this is. I think we had Kelsey with us and we went over to Mills to hang out one night. I am kinda remembering this...lol!!
Can you tell how much I love my flowers and yard?? My hydrangea bushes were beautiful!! And I had so many pretty flowers to cut and have on my island and in my house. I really love summer!!
The end of July and it was so HOT!! I can't remember the temps, but I remember it was up there. Maybe upper 80s or low 90s. Our friends the Kopps were all in a 3 on 3 basketball tournament so we decided to brave the heat and go watch for a bit. They did really well and it was fun to watch them all play basketball. They are an athletic family!
And they didn't play a lot in the pool, but they did like cooling off in it on those hot hot days!
Well I finally made it through the July post! It only took me all week of (after Christmas) winter break. Hopefully I can get a few more months done here in a quicker fashion... we will see!!
