Silver City Adventure

Last weekend, the "big girls" and I enjoyed a day trip to Silver City with several other families from our church. Other than the fact that our church bus broke down on a windy, dirt road about 5 miles outside of the ghost town, we had a great day! Thankfully there were several other vehicles that were able to rescue those of us who had been stranded in a cloud of smoke. We ate a great picnic lunch before walking all over the quaint little valley that was once a busy mining town.

At the Dan's Ferry Station before crossing the Snake River.

The Owyhee Mountains were beautiful!

On the porch of Pat's What Not Shop.

Sierra standing in front of the old hotel which is now home to a small museum.

Other views of Silver City:

Warm Lake Camping

Finally! We have officially been on a full-fledged camping trip as a family of five. (The little stint at Brownlee a few weeks ago was just a practice run.) This time we spent four glorious nights at Warm Lake. We couldn't have done it without Chuck and Missy. Our car was packed to the gills with foam mats, sleeping bags, camp chairs, food, a cooler, clothes and our tent. They brought the cook stove, pots and pans, chainsaw, water containers, etc. We shared a beautiful camp spot just above the North Shore Lodge. The weather was perfect - minus the insane windstorm the first night that we were there. In my ignorance I had packed watercolor paints, kids chapter books, and several games for the kids to play when they got bored. HA! They were entertained from dawn 'til dusk with water, dirt, rocks and sticks.

Here's a look at our awesome camping scrapbook:

The scenery was spectacular.

Camping activities: throwing rocks, minnow catching, hiking, lots of swimming!, house building, playing hide and seek, star gazing, eating ice-cream on the dock, hot-dog roasting, napping, reading, and playing games.

Butterflies

The monarchs are making their way through Idaho this month. They were THICK up at the cabin last week. Sierra enjoyed chasing them with a net and was successful in catching several for closer observation. We noticed that they liked to "sleep in" until the weather is nice and warm. We couldn't find any butterflies until about 11:00 a.m.! After that they liked fluttering around any puddles of water that the sprinklers had left behind.

Being tickled by a butterfly.

Cherry Season 2011

Friday, July 1st, was opening day of U-pick cherry season at Tyler's Orchard in Emmett. You can bet that my family was there bright and early. After a long, cold spring the cherries were finally ripe!! The branches were HEAVY with the beautiful fruit. We spent 1.5 hours and $14 filling our buckets to the brim. Susie and Annie met us there and took home even more cherries than we did.

Marc says that in his next lifetime he would like to be a cherry orchard farmer. :)

These two ate about as many cherries as they put into their buckets. I still think that the good people who run the scales need to weigh their customers before and after they go out into the orchard.

Time for a pit-stop! (Pun most certainly intended.)

Tangled

Last weekend we hosted a Tangled theme birthday party

in honor of

Sierra's seventh

and Ally's fifth birthdays!

(The cake looked much better in my mind than it actually turned out in reality. Oh well! It tasted good with purple ice-cream.)

The ladies wore beautiful purple gowns.

(Mom found hers at Goodwill!)

We had lots of fun presents to open.

(The paint sets were party favors for our guests.)

And we ate lots of yummy treats!

After lunch, we started with a Pascal Hunt.

Annie found the extra-special card with a picture of the enchanted flower.

Then it was time for a golden yarn braiding race. Even the adults got in on this game!

Chuck and Dad's braids were quite impressive - for boys, that is!

Next, it was time for a pine-cone toss. Check out the amazing job that Marc did on Rapunzel's tower. He drew it free-hand and then I painted it. We were quite pleased with ourselves and couldn't stand to throw it away, so it's going to be used a few more times during the summer.

Valerie didn't score any points, but she looked good trying. Nice form!

The last game was "Pin the Nose on Flynn."

"They just can't get my nose right!"

After games it was time for cake and presents...

...followed by the world's greatest water fight.

(The river is still too high for swimming so we had to improvise. The kids had sooooo much fun!)

Chuck and Valerie set up a great ambush!

Cold watermelon was the perfect snack in the heat of the afternoon.