The Third Full Week in June.....We must be in Weiser!!!!

If it is the third full week in June then we are in Weiser, Idaho once again. We have been going to Weiser as long as I can remember and my family have been going for the last 16 years.

Why are we in Weiser? Because they love their kids!! But seriously there can only be one reason why we are once again in Weiser...

Yes it is Fiddle Festival time again. We spend a lot of time at the high school helping Grandpa Frank do his stuff. Each year Rob seems to become more and more involved. He now is an emcee during the day. Sam is there every morning to pull the rope for the microphone. I go up in the evenings to pull that same rope.

This is the door where the fiddlers and music groups go in to the gym to compete and entertain.
This is kind of Grandma Julie's domain!!

Some interesting things to see in Weiser? Well there is this dinosaur!!

And of course you have to stop in at what was once Fawn's Fudge Factory but is now the Weiser Chocolate Company. They have these chocolate mints that are to die for and grandma's favorites the haystacks aren't too bad. They also make a good sandwich! You can't miss it. It sits right on Main street just past the only traffic light in town.

Here I am talking to Hannah on the phone. She had to stay home and work and we really miss her. This is at the RV camp where we stay in a borrowed RV thanks to our good friends the Bennets.

Isaac and Luke spend lots of time looking for bugs and making them little homes and then letting them go to find bigger and better bugs. This is one such beetle. This was not the biggest beetle they found but the only one we got a picture of!!

We spend lots of time at the City Park. This is our favorite bench right by the toy structure. David loves it!!

Right near by are the booths selling just about everything you did not know you needed. Here is Sam checking out the Grandma's Quilts booth.

And Luke looking over the blow up things which I am proud to say we did not get home with one this year!! Yeah for us.

And every one loves the swings. Sam....

And David....


And Isaac and Luke!!

This year Frank and Julie were the Grand Marshalls of the parade! Pretty exciting.

Here they are after the parade. Frank is quite well known for his different outfits that he wears through out the week. He has at least one hat for each day and probably 2 or 3 for each day.

And of course we always have to have a picture of the kids waiting for the parade to start. What a good looking group of boys. We had a lot of fun in Weiser and are all ready planning next years trip!! Millie

Isaac's pictures

What happens when you let the 11 year old have control of the camera on the bus ride home from the zoo field trip? You get some interesting pictures! Here are a few! Isaac and his good friend Seth.
Close ups of various facial body parts!!



Lots of side way pictures of cool cars...

garbage cans (this was not the only picture of a garbage can!)...

The speed limit!

Friends in the mirror!

Isaac's new shoes!!

And of course Isaac!! He wants his own camera!! Maybe we will have to get him one and let him start his own blog!!

Things I am oh so ready for...

I am so ready for....

....school to be over and summer to begin!!

....no alarms going off at 4:50 am or 6:00 am!!!

....staying up late watching all 3 Lord of the Rings DVDs!!!

....fiddle festival in Weiser!! with fudge from the Weiser fudge factory!!! and Fat Boy ice cream bars!!! (My mom and dad are Grand Marshalls of the parade this year!!)

....summer salads, for example: pasta salads of all kinds, potato salad and oriental chicken salad.

....fresh strawberries right out of the field and blue berry picking!!!

....boys jumping on the trampoline with water on under it and getting to sit in the shade and read!!!

....going camping at Cape Lookout in July!!!

....sitting on the beach reading!!!

....the Tillamook cheese factory, oh yah!!

....ice cream bars and popcicles!!!!

....two days with Rob at Skamania Lodge to celebrate our 24th anniversary!!!

....sitting in a nice cool house reading!!!

....warm summer days and time spent with my kids without having to always be somewhere!!!

Our family's dam trip!

On Memorial Day our family took a trip to Bonneville dam. Here is the dam entrance.

We saw some dam art work in the dam parking lot.

Here are the guys in front of the dam turbine while on the dam tour.

Here's Isaac with a dam fish, well okay a picture of a dam fish on the wall in the dam stairwell.

Here is cool Luke posing with some dam fish. We could not get any pictures of actual dam fish.

Here is Rob posing in the dam door with the dam notice about not feeding the dam squirrels.


Here is Sam on the dam roof.

Here are some dam tourists from Japan that went on the dam tour with us. They were fun to watch and very entertaining. Not to mention stylish.

Here we are all are sitting on the dam bench (Luke is taking the picture) waiting for the dam tour guide to go on the dam tour. What a nice looking bunch.

Here is a dam tree. Can you tell which way the wind blows at the dam?

Here are Dave and Sam leaving the dam. Our dam trip was over!! We had a dam good time!!

Isaac's Birthday

May 14 was Isaac's 11th birthday. Here he is ready to open his presents!! We had already had his birthday dinner of Cheese potato soup and rolls and a salad that Far Mor made.
Here's his dad Rob and Uncle Jeff and his brothers waiting to watch him open his presents. Stina is sitting in the back ground.
Now he can play with dad and Sam and David. Just what we needed another guitar in the house.
Here he is with his cake. He wanted chocolate cake with chocolate frosting and reeses peanut butter cups on it.
It was very chocolately and very good.
On Friday of last week Isaac had three friends over for a sleepover. They had a fire and roasted hotdogs. We also had s'mores. They slept in the backyard in the tent and played lots of kickball. David played ghost in the graveyard and capture the flag with them well into the night.

Here they are on the trampoline. They spent alot of time on the trampoline also.
The next morning they had chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast. It was a very successful sleepover!

Just over eleven years ago I went into the Dr. for a normal appointment and they could not find Isaac's heart beat. They did an ultra sound and found that he had turned around and was not heading the right direction. (A week before I had gone in and had him turned, not a pleasant procedure and he had turned right back.) So, the doctor decided I should come in the next morning and they would turn Isaac and induce labor right away. But Isaac did not want to turn. So they brought in a Dr. that was expert in delivering breach babies and took an x-ray to see if that is what they wanted to do. But they did not feel comfortable delivering him that way so we stayed around until 5:00 pm and had a c-section. It was a good thing they had not tried to deliver him breach because he was sitting with his hand behind his head and they would have had to do an emergency c-section anyway. He weighed 6 lbs and 5 oz. And we were so happy to have him here. Isaac was born with the best dimples ever and has the best smile.

Idaho's Potato Museum

While traveling through the area of Blackfoot, Idaho for Chelsie's wedding and reception, Hannah and I happened upon the Idaho Potato Museum. We thought how fun and decided to stop in and learn a little more about the Idaho Potato.
Her I am in front of the store. Does this not make you want to visit the museum?
Now this would definately draw you in. Here is Hannah with the giant baked potato in front of the museum.
Here is Hannah entering the potato cellar. To get this far you have to pay $3 a person and walk through a hallway explaining how the potato came to Idaho and the history of the potato from the early Aztec people. It was all very interesting.
In the "cellar" Hannah sat on an old potato harvester. She would make a great little farm girl.
This a potato masher collection. Yes those are all potato mashers. Each one is labeled telling you who it belonged to and where it came from. The little cards on the case explain that the case was an Eagle project!! Now why can't we find a project like that for Sam?

This is the world's largest potato chip made by the pringle company. Wow!
Hannah found a little spud to love while we were there. Is he not a cutie.
The museum gave us free boxes of hash browns when we left but we needed something we could sink our teeth into right then!! We highly recommend the museum while you are visiting Blackfoot, Idaho. Millie