I've Got Your Back

Back to School ~ August 2011

The kids are mostly excited to return to school this year and with their loaded back packs and first-day-of-school smiles, we headed out the door this morning. I'm happy for the return to routine, the excitement and newness of these first days of school. And the learning, so many new and exciting things to know and do!

I can't help but feel sad too. Last night as I was getting ready to go to bed I wrote down some of my feelings. I just thought I would share it because I want to remember this as we go through this new year...

With each school year that passes (this will be my sixth year to send them off) I realize more what these days will be like. As this school year approached, I felt like I was getting ready to return to the battle. So many thing we face, so many things to overcome, so many fears and struggles along the way. The last months have felt like a rest, a peaceful calm, a time to prepare and to be encouraged onward.

So now we all must return to the fray. "We", because although I am not on the "front lines", I must keep the supply lines going. This may be as important, if not more so. Just supplying their little needs. My desire is that I would have an endless supply of patients, love, encouragement, compassion, understanding, and all the other things my little soldiers need to get the victory in their days, weeks, months ahead.

When any experience, either good or bad, brings us to our knees, it can be considered a good thing. I want to be willing for it again... to go forward, knowing that as I have my needs supplied, I can supply the needs of those who depend on me. Victories and defeats will come but we will bravely go onward.

Alison

Bunny Birthday

Kyla's a pretty typical 11 year old. She had a whole list of things she thought she would like for her birthday... $ for clothes, a cell phone, iPod, laptop, horse... With the exception of the '$ for clothes', the answer on everything else was "no" for various reasons, etc, etc, etc...

Then one day a cousin mentioned giving her a bunny for her birthday. After that it was bunnies, bunnies, bunnies... She talked about them, researched them, and dreamed about them. That was something Randy and I could live with.

So her birthday celebrating started out last Sunday night when I took her and 4 of her friends/cousins out to eat together at a restaurant. We had a great time and our table was very lively, giggly, and silly. I just kick myself that I didn't get a picture of everyone but I totally forgot. Driving everyone home afterwards was a great time too! Then Kyla and I enjoyed a beautiful drive through the country on our way home that evening, talking about many things including...bunnies. I really value these times more and more with my sweet young lady.

Finally Tuesday evening it was time to go pick out a bunny! (Thank you Sage and Heather!) That evening Daddy put together the new bunny hutch we got Kyla for her birthday...

Her birthday was actually Wednesday so we fixed curry pork and rice (her choice) for supper and then went to Mom and Dad's after Bible Study for cake! Rich chocolate cake with strawberries and Bunny Tracks Ice Cream...
Here we are gathered around the table. We got to celebrate with Loren and Dustin too!
Kyla spent yesterday with Grandma, going shopping and meeting Grandpa for supper. She got to spend the night at their house too. I told her we are going to celebrate all week and we have! ;)

So, we've been taking care of her bunny since she's gone and we all think she's pretty cute. I hope little Kalula likes her new home as much as we like having her here...

Happy Birthday my 11 year old!
Alison (aka "Mom")

t-skirts

Are any of you mothers having a difficult time finding "back to school" clothes for your girls like I am?

If you have a sewing machine you can make these t-skirts in just a short time. They're oh-so-easy! We think these skirts have an athletic look about them, similar to these at Athleta. I like them! They like them!

T-skirt tutorial to come... Stay Tuned,
Alison

Melita: Oatmeal Indulgence

Someone pointed out a while ago that there is a German Coffee brand called Melitta which we had no a clue of when we named our baby 'Melita' back in February. Apparently they sell coffee and coffee products and one of their slogans goes like this... "Melitta: Coffee Indulgence" -hence the quirky name of this post. Another slogan is "When it's time for Me, it's time for Melitta". Whatever...

Really, babies and coffee obsessions don't have anything to do with each other, so I have no idea why I'm going on about this...

Or do they? What happens if you throw a half cup of Stone Ground Oatmeal into a little coffee grinder and turn it on for a few seconds?

It grinds the oatmeal to powder, just perfect for making baby cereal! That's what we've been doing here lately.

And she seems to be pretty happy about her "oatmeal indulgence"...
Yes, we have finally started Lita on "real food", as the kids call it.

In reality, she hasn't been enjoying it completely. Most of what goes in, comes out...still after two weeks, which is a great source of giggles all around our kitchen table. So, we scoop it back in again and slowly, she is taking to it more and more these days. The kids think it's great fun to help feed her...
Avocados, sweet potatoes, banana's, apple sauce, and cereal. That's what she's been introduced to so far. Yum Yum!!!

What?!?! Baby food isn't for you?

Well here's some things we've been enjoying lately that you might like ...

and

Made from rhubarb and raspberries fresh from our garden. You can find these recipes and many, many more at www.countrykitchenrecipes.blogspot.com.

We are also enjoying potatoes, onions, yellow squash, peas, cucumbers and beans from the garden. The apple tree has the biggest crop of apples yet on it and we may get more than one plum this year on our plum tree! Yay!

Yes, we are indulging in all these good things that don't necessarily have anything to do with coffee, Melitta coffee that is...

But I have to agree, "When it's time for Me, It's time for Melita" She's pretty fun to feed! ;)

Alison

A New Day...

our new day
has turned into six months
in the blink of an eye,
Alison

Love is Sweet

Thinking of you as you begin your new life together!

♥ Alison and family ♥

Mountain Music

All is well in the valley...

Recently we were at a beautiful wedding and had the privilege to see and hear these. Do you know what they are?
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Used by mountain dwellers in Switzerland and elsewhere in Europe, the Alphorn is produced to play in a specific key signature. Alphorns have no valves and are played simply by blowing into the instrument. The full range of the horn is several octaves. When they are played, the notes are produced strictly by lip control.

Collections of alpine myths and legends suggest that alphorn instruments were frequently used as signal instruments in village communities since medieval times and earlier. Long ago instruments in the mountainous regions of the Alps were used for signaling and to announce daily activities. Since ancient times the alphorn was sounded as a part of the daily activities of the shepherds and cowherds of these mountain people. The horn was used to calm the dairy cow at milking time. It was the twilight signal for the flocks of sheep to settle in for the night as the shepherds exchanged rustic melodies across the valleys. Such melodies became ritual signals for "all is well in the valley" and were passed down from generation to generation. The sound of the alphorn called people to gather for council and the men to gather for war. To this day, alphorn music is enjoyed throughout the mountainous regions of the world.*

Music is the universal language of mankind.
~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Alison
*this information comes from here

Baby's Place

We have three bedrooms upstairs. The girls have one with no space to spare. Colter has one room and we have the biggest room. I had to shuffle things around a little but came up with the perfect 'shared space'.

Above our bed is a "remake" headboard that I made from an old door back in August of 2007. You can see how I made it here.
Twinkle, twinkle little star...
The changing table is an actual table that I had in our room. I got it and the two chairs that match it for $75 dollars at the thrift store a couple years ago. I just added the changing pad and some storage bins and drawers for diapers, wipes, clothing, etc. The total cost of this set up was around $40...
I like the way the room is arranged. The changing table is easily accessible through out the day, right inside the door...

This bassinet was the one that I slept in as a baby, as well as my sister and brother. The covering of the bassinet was made by my mom just before Kyla was born. The bassinet sits on the other wall right inside the door, so I can easily pick her up and exit the room when she's fussy during the night. It's also easy to peek in and check on her during her naps...

I wanted to share this way back when I was getting ready for Lita to arrive but she came early, and, well... I never got back to it until now.

Very soon she will be moving out of our room to her crib across the hall... post to come. I like to think that I will have this post to look back on so I can remember this space and time.

From betterhouskeeping in MT,
Alison

Yellowstone Park: Day Four

Our last morning in The Fishing Bridge was spent working on this fort (above) which the kids had worked on during their mornings while we were here. I think it had been started by some kid in the past and was a work in progress by the kids coming and going in the Park. :) We noticed several of them around.

Randy and I got the trailer ready to go...


We headed to West Yellowstone. This is a place Randy spent lots of time at during his collage days. He used to work in the summers, logging in the mountains around West Yellowstone. We enjoyed driving around and seeing the places he remembered so well.

Here is the road he used to take out to his job/camp site each week...
West Yellowstone has a few attractions to enjoy. Here we are ready to watch an IMAX called Yellowstone. Randy and I had both seen it before but enjoyed watching it again along with the kiddos. Lita wasn't to sure about it though...

Then we went to the Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Center. Here we are learning about them and their habitats...

Out with the bears...




And watching the wolves...


Back on the road again we headed up the beautiful Gallatin Canyon. We stopped in Four Corners at a KOA for our last night of the trip...
Lita enjoyed her swim that evening in the hot-spring heated RV Park pool much more than in Holter Lake. It must have been the perfect temperature...

The next morning we ate a quick breakfast and headed home. Back to real life. The end.

Alison
(moving on now ;)

Yellowstone Park: Day Three

Seriously, when I went to bed the night before, I couldn't imagine how the next day could even compare to the day we had just had. But, this day turned out to be the best day yet...

We started out heading back North through the Hayden Valley (above). By this time in our travels, we had seen many, many bison roaming through the Park and had countless pictures of them. This morning however, they decided to cross the road up ahead and we were stuck in a traffic jam for quite a long time as they made there way along. We noticed our fellow Yellowstone tourists were most patient so we all enjoyed our "slow" morning...
The attraction for the day was The Yellowstone Grand Canyon. First stop of the morning gave us this view of the lower falls...
I only barely remember seeing this exact view of the canyon as a little girl...


Here is another view from a different place. A sign nearby read...

Before the earthquake of 1975, this observation platform extended 100 feet further into the canyon. The main tremor... shattered a portion of this cliff, tumbling it into the gorge... this section of the Yellowstone overlies a major fracture zone, and the park records thousands of minor tremors annually. Do not assume the scenery will be the same when your return.

Finally we stopped at the trail for The Brink of the Lower Falls. This lazy fellow was making his way through the parking lot. We gave him plenty of room...

Remember this view of the lower falls that we saw earlier?..



Here we are now standing at the top of it...

Yes, we felt like we were standing on the brink of being completely washed away...



Here is a video I took as we stood by...

There is no way to describe or capture the way it looked this time but this quote comes to mind...

"...As I took in the scene, I realized my own littleness, my helplessness, my dread exposure to destruction, my inability to cope with or even comprehend the mighty architecture of nature..."
~Nathaniel P. Langford, 1870, one of the first explorers to record his impressions of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone.

After supper in Canyon Village, we headed back west to see the "Artist Paint Pots". Again we took many pictures of the sites but I like this landscape picture the best...

The kids thought this video of the mudpots was cool...

Back on the road and headed back to our camp we saw more bison and elk along the way...

We would see these Yellowstone busses often on the roads and I had been wanting to get a picture. Finally Randy was able to get one for me...

Back at our trailor, we headed to bed and crashed after another full day.

To be continued,

Alison

Yellowstone Park: Day Two

Our morning (July 13th) started out with a drive around Yellowstone Lake on our way to visit Old Faithful. It was a beautiful drive. We ended up in the Upper Geyser Basin around lunch time so we found ourselves a bench, sat down, and ate our packed lunch. It was still over an hour until the next eruption of Old Faithful was predicted, but already the benches were filling up.

The picture below shows as I look left a few minutes before the eruption. It is said that sometimes up to 8000 people gather to watch the famous geyser do it's thing. On an average, around 2000 spectators show up for each eruption...
Old Faithful didn't disappoint...
Eruptions can shoot 3,700 to 8,400 gallons of boiling water to a height of 106 to 185 feet lasting from 1.5 to 5 minutes. The average height of an eruption is 145 feet. The highest recorded eruption was 185 feet high. Intervals between eruptions can range from 45 to 125 minutes, averaging 66.5 minutes in 1939, slowly increasing to an average of 90 minutes apart today.*

We watched the eruption 4 times that day. While walking on the boardwalk behind Old Faithful, we watched the second eruption. Here is a video I took of it...

Too many pools, geysers and mud pots to share all of them on here, but here is a neat heart-shaped one that the girls wanted me to take a picture of. The really blue look in the water means the water is REALLY hot...

As we were enjoying our walk on the board walk viewing all the other geo-thermal features, a storm started brewing. You can see it building in the picture below...

It wasn't long after that picture that the rain and then the hail started pelting us. We started to run back to the lodge as fast as we could go. By the time we got back to the covered veranda, the camera and all of our faces, including Lita's, were dripping wet. She was still smiling though. :)

Handfuls of hail...

Waiting out the storm...

After the storm we walked around and saw some more geysers, visited the new museum, watched the eruption again, saw a film about geysers, ate supper and watched the eruption one more time.

Then we left and headed back to camp the long way, through the Firehole River valley. We just couldn't get enough of the evening beauty and perfect lighting. The kids were very patient with us as we played photographer...

(above picture by Randy)

(above picture by Randy)


(above picture by Randy)

(above picture by Randy)

Somewhere along the way we picked up a bicyclist. He had promised his wife he wouldn't ride after dark and as the darkness fell he still had a bit of a ride ahead of him. Turns out he was from Pennsylvania and he had ridden his bike most of the way from Washington D.C. and was headed to Astoria, OR. He wrote in his journal about his ride in the back of our pick-up to Canyon Village. You can read about it here (about halfway down the page).

Needless to say, we got back to camp quite late. We were glad to be back "home" to our own bed's for the night!

And, another day to follow,
Alison

*this information comes from Wikopedia