Huckleberry Picking

Huckleberry picking is alway on our list of things to do in the summer.  Some years we make it up and some years we don't.  Today we did!  It has become an activity we love to do with Grandma and Grandpa Ricks.  We sure miss them when they are gone!  It was raining so we decided to stop at the Heise Pizza Parlor first and hoped the clouds would break, and lucky for us our plan worked!  However, when we got to "our spot" there was a red truck parked close and as we got out of the car there was somebody picking right in the good spot.  Bummer.  So we walked across the street and started picking.  It was not near as good as across the street, but what can you do?

Ashlynn, Analee and Brooklyn.

This is about all we got from picking on the wrong side of the street :-)

 So Todd got frustrated and walked back to the car to leave I guess.  Anyway, he wasn't going to leave without taking a better look at the invader.  So the closer he got he recognized the man and his two daughters. . . . .

Our neighbors and friends the Johnsons!  What are the chances?  They have been picking in the same spot as us for 5 years.  Soooooo funny.  So we got to share "our spot" for the rest of the afternoon.  

Todd was so much happier to be in his traditional spot and enjoyed the conversation with Aaron.

What a fun treat!  We ended up with more than 1/2 gallon of Huckleberries!

 
We sure missed the boys today.  The buckets sure fill up faster with the help of these three kiddos.  Braeden drove the three of them to Boise today to the Boise Music Festival.  They saw Carly Rae Jepsen and Jason Derulo.  How crazy is that, my boys are old enough to go on their own?  I'm not sure how I feel about that.  But I am glad they are having fun!

Garden Time!

I really do like to garden.  My favorite part is to eat what we produce!  We have potatoes, tomatoes, carrots, beans, peas, cucumbers, spaghetti squash and zucchini. 

The raspberry garden is doing so good this year.  Putting in the drip system has worked great!  I pick every other day.

Strawberries are doing ok, I am going to try more water and see if I can get more!                     

 We are currently enjoying zucchini, cucumbers, peas, beans and raspberries!!!

                                                              YUMMY!!!!!!!

Ziplining

Ziplining was on our ABC list and lucky for us Heise has a great zipline coarse.  They don't have an age restriction and you only have to weigh more than 50 lbs to go, so that meant that all 7 of us could go together.  And what a great day it was to zipline.  A little breezy (that's nothing new) but the temperature was perfect.  They have 8 ziplines and you do 2 of them twice so you get a total of 10 zips.  It took us about 2 1/2 hours and all the kids loved it.  They started out riding hanging on and sitting straight up but by the end they were all upside down.  Very fun day, I would recommend the Heise Zipline to anyone!!

Tyson and Carson racing each other!!!

Ashlynn riding cannon ball to go faster!

Analee upside down!

Carson upside down!

Tyson flying upside down!!

Braeden hanging upside down!

4th of July

We are all about traditions on the 4th of July.  We always go to the parade, Wendy's for lunch, do whatever in the afternoon, BBQ with family for dinner, watch the fireworks from Broadway Wendy's at night then come home and light our own fireworks.  This year was no different and it is always a great time.  We are so thankful for this country that we live in and for all the men and women who fight to protect our freedoms and all that we enjoy here in the good ol' USA.

We went to Rexburg for the parade this year.

They got to be in the parade to hand out coupons with the Wendy's float and they loved it!

Ready to watch the fireworks.  The firework show started over an hour late this year because a guy decided to jump into the river to swim to a little island about 1/2 hour before the show was to start.  Anyway sadly he didn't make it and the search and rescue team were looking for him so hence the delay in the fireworks.

Lighting our own fireworks.  Our kids love to light the fireworks, I don't think they care at all
about watching they just like to light them!

And last but not least, the sparklers.  I am learning and think I will be able to take
some cooler pictures next year with the sparklers.

Cress Creak and Big Springs

We can not get enough of the outdoors.  It is interesting how summer works, we get up earlier and stay up later and we are busy all day long.  Spending most of the day outside.  We drove to Island Park today to float Big Springs with the Evans family.  The weather was beautiful.  The boys pulled us down most of the river and I enjoyed laying on the raft soaking up the sun!!

Evans family in front of us

Carson taking his turn pulling our raft!

Tyson, what can I say? I asked him to smile normal,
and this is what I get.

Just hanging out

We saw 5 moose along the way.  Two mothers and babies and one by himself.

Last week while all the Pincock cousins were here we went to Ross Park, Rigby Lake and Hiked Cress Creek.    We hiked to the creek, played for a while then hiked the loop back to the creek.  We played some more then a couple boys said, "time us, we are going to run the loop again.  So we did and they were fast.  So then the race was on.  I ran it twice and it was not easy.  Too fun!  We are getting lots crossed off of our ABC list!

All my boys were at Scout Encampment so it was a little quiet around here, but as you can see we kept ourselves plenty busy.