Motivation

One of Gavin's favorite pastimes is "playing" legos with his dad at Grandma's house. They have one of those under the bed totes full of legos. Gavin's version of playing is having you build him something and then he plays with it. Lucky for him, Matthew loves to build with legos. My husband is awesome! You can see that he has the brains for building and that we are getting Gavin started in a career in engineering at a very young age!

By the way-Matthew wants Gavin to have legos for every Christmas and birthday for the rest of his life! I wonder why?

Above: this pic was taken by Janean while they were playing. Nice shot!

Below: I took this one after I saw what Matthew was building! Amazing! That is not following some pattern book-that is straight out of his head! (Matthew's, not Gavin)

Below: McKinley sneaked into this picture! She has such a silly grin cause she is saying "cheese". The real creator of this plane! You've got to admit-it's awesome!

Oh-note to people-McKinley is the stylist of Matthew's hair-another favorite pastime.

Below: here we see the plane ready for take off. I'm still amazed! You're a genius love!

Here ducky, ducky, ducky....

This was one of the last nice days that we were out and about. We had been saving the heels from the loaves of bread for quite a while so we had a pretty good stash to feed to the ducks and geese. This is at the nature park. They had a lot of fun. Gavin got his finger nipped the last time we were there so he was telling me that ducks have teeth. Sharp ones! It made me laugh. He got nipped again but it didn't bother him too much. The kids like to be up on the bench so the ducks aren't in their faces.

Winter is getting closer, its snowing right now a little bit. I really enjoy winter but the inbetween days are not so fun when it is not fall anymore but there is no snow on the ground. Hope everybody is getting ready to have a Happy Thanksgiving. May your naps be long and restful!

Lucky guy-not so lucky fish!

Matthew is very lucky they caught so many fish! I have a limited understanding of how going fishing for 4 days and only catching 1 fish is fun! Even if the company, scenery and boat rides are great! Anyway, I told Matthew that he'd better bring more than 1 fish home this time, or else.....As you can see, the fish obliged!

And can I give a shout out to any single moms who may read this! Or people who know single moms, pass along my admiration. 4 days with two children is daunting. And getting to church on time!! I was happy to get there only 10 minutes late! Big thanks to my sweet husband who helps me so much with the kids! He's a great dad and a great house keeper when he has to be! Love you, Matthew!

Steelhead Fishing

We had an excellent semiannual steelhead fishing trip last week. I used to go when I was in high school and never caught too many. Usually one or two per trip. Then I was in college and on my mission, and then in college again. So from 2001 to 2008 I didn't get to go. I've been three times since we've moved back to Rexburg. Every time, I've only caught one fish on the morning we were leaving. Sad huh?

This trip was different though. Between me, Dad, and Devin we brought home 18 steelhead. I tagged six and turned two wild ones lose. I had about six more on that got off before I landed them. It was a lot of fun to be catching so many fish. Erica always wonders why I go when we drive for six hours, stand outside in the cold and rain or snow, and only catch one or two fish all weekend. There are several reasons. The first is good company. I love spending time with my dad, especially fishing. Devin just got back off his mission this spring so it was fun to spend time with him. My grandpa and two of my uncles also go in their boat and we spend the evenings with them. I love the company and meeting new and old people out on the river. Secondly, the Salmon River is beautiful even when its 35 degrees and raining and the wind is blowing. Third, the boat ride is a blast going through the big rapids. With names like the Rock Garden, Killem, Gunbarrell, and the Inviscerator how can you not have fun? Okay I made that last one up. And last but not least, the actual steelhead. You can catch fish 40" long and 20 lbs. That would be a really big one. Most of the ones we caught were more like 24-28" long and less than 10 lbs. Grandpa hooked into one that took off downstream and he never got it stopped, it just kept running until it broke the line. We had fun catching and netting fish.

What would be a good fish story without a few pictures. Enjoy.

Here's Uncle Rodney fishing below the Horse Creek Rapids
Still water above Horse Creek Rapids
One of the fish I caught
A nice wild fish that Devin turned loose. The hatchery fish have their adipose fin clipped. (The adipose fin is the small fin on top by their tail)
It's important to show the steelhead love
Another wild one Dad and Devin turned loose
This is a big bull trout that I caught. You have to turn them loose
Devin fishing at the Trout Hole
Fishing at Bean Creek. I liked the yellow bushes and green trees.
Here's the rig. Dad's truck does horrible on gas with the camper and boat. We had to stop on the top of Gilmore Pass and dump the leftover gas from the boat into the truck to make it to Mud Lake so we could gas up again.

McKinley wouldn't touch the fish with her hands but she finally agreed to hold it up on a string.

Here is our catch. Except for the one we gave to Devin and Garrett's friend in Salmon. Sorry if this is disturbing to anyone. Just know-they will all get eaten!

Silly Little Girl

We have noticed that McKinley has funny dreams. Some mornings she will call us in and ask "Do you remember when...." and then proceeds to tell us about her crazy dream. Yesterday she was asking if I remembered going for a walk and seeing the tiger and cheetah and then going on the boat and seeing the two big fish that almost ate the paddle. I have no idea what she was talking about so it must be her dreaming. Funny huh?

My little snowmen! (And a very big one!)

Okay-so 4 days after the event we are finally posting our pictures from Halloween. I find it interesting that we rarely blog unless we have pictures to go along with it. Sorry-just a tidbit of information. Below you see our awesome pumpkins. Matthew did the three faces in the same time that I did my window pumpkin. The candle wasn't very good in mine, so it didn't photograph very well.

Here are the two little snowmen! The costumes were made by me and Matthew. I'm very much an amateur and Matthew pointed out several ways to improve them-but we ran out of time. I'm a professional procrastinator. Matthew hates it! He says we have to have our costumes done next year by labor day. Great! McKinley wants to be tigger! I'm sure she'll change her mind over the year.

Here's the whole family-and since no one here understood my costume-i'll explain. I'm the little kid who built the snowmen. Okay-so I know it's lame, but we ran out of time and resources to create a snowman costume for me. Matthew wasn't very happy that he had to dress up as a huge snowman, but McKinley loved it! She is such an easy kid to please! Stuff yourself full of pillows and blankets and she thinks your the coolest thing ever!

We knocked on our back door neighbor's house as we were trick or treating. This family has 3 kids under the age of 3. Cute kids! Anyway, we knocked on their door and the whole family was dressed like vampires! And i'm not talking minimal costumes! They were decked out! Even the youngest! And they all matched! It was awesome! I don't know if she bought or made the costumes, but regardless-they were the coolest looking vampires ever!

Hope you all had a great and safe Halloween! Happy upcoming Thanksgiving!