Grandma and Grandpa's house #2

Well, this is another big post with lots of pictures.  I think that all of my vacation posts will be like this, so just be patient.

At my Grandparent's house there are 2 ponds.  They are on the other side of the creek and pretty near the house.  We took advantage of those ponds and swam in them every day that we were there.  The water was surprisingly refreshing but not cold!  Grandma swam with us and we had so much fun with her.  Isn't she beautiful?  I hope I'm like her when I get her age.  She has more energy than anybody else I know.  I really do need her endless amounts of energy.  I always tell Randy that I wish I had my Grandma's energy.  It's funny because it's true.  Who can really say that about a Grandparent?  Her and Emma are good for each other. 

A little family picture.

One of our boating excursions.

This is the lower pond.  Grandpa built that gazebo and bridge that goes over it.

This is the upper pond.  There are 2 islands in it.  One of them has a bridge that goes right to it, and that is the one that we swam off of.  The other island is accessible by boat only.  Hmmm, it is so peaceful out there.

My beautiful Grandma and their newest addition-Roy. 

Here are a few more things that you can find around my Grandparent's house.  Funny signs like this one.

Beautiful and intricate art.  My Grandpa painted this one and the one below.  I wish I could get a better picture for you to see.

These two are done by my mom's cousin, or my first cousin-once removed.  She does pencil.  The one above is of Cindy, Grandpa's dog.  The one below is of Tara, Grandma's horse.  

Lastly, but not really, we played a game or two every night.  Usually cards.  Notice Emma steeling cookies out of the cookie jar?  

Anyways, that's our visit to my Grandparent's in a nutshell.  Can you tell I enjoy it there?

Congratulations Chase! (multiple post day)

My sweet little (bigger) brother has gotten his mission call!  He is going to leave November 10th, and he's going to the Richmond Virginia mission!  I am so proud of him.  He is a good boy, and I know that this will be great for him and the people who's lives he will help touch.

Grandma and Grandpa's house

We spent the first 2 days of our trip last month at my Grandparents farm, and I spent those days remembering all of the things that I love about visiting them.  I took pictures like crazy and thought that I'd do a post or 2 dedicated to our grandparents. Do you have memories and things that you love about your Grandparents and their house?  I do.  I rarely get to visit them anymore, and so this time I just wanted to take pictures and capture everything that I love about my Grandma and Grandpa and their farm.

  My grandparents live on a farm that was purchased and built by my grandma's grandpa.  He built the house which is now historical.  It was built by cement in 1913: 4 inch walls on each side of a 4 inch dead air space for insulation.  My Great-Great Grandpa Rusho mixed a railroad car of cement (not all at once) and poured it all himself.  After pouring the bottom 4 feet of house, he built a pulley/elevator system to pour it for the rest of the house.  It is 3 stories high with a basement/cellar.  Huge for the time that it was built in.  And still big.  He also placed a dam and water wheel in the creek behind his property to operate a water pump for the new house.  He installed a table saw, grindstone and other equipment that were operated by waterpower.  I love their house.  It has so many memories that come with it.  The pictures above are of the house.  The funny thing is that I took pictures of it from all angles, except the front of it. Woops.

This is the little shop that goes over the creek that houses the waterwheel and blacksmith thing.

The waterwheel, obviously.  I know that my Grandpa did some work on it to get it running again so they could use it to power the house if they needed to.  I don't know if they've used it since then.

The milk barn.  My Grandma and Grandpa had a dairy and they used to milk every morning and evening at 5.  I would always wake up early and go out to watch them and drink warm milk when I was little.  They don't run the dairy anymore.  Instead my Grandma uses this barn for her woodshop, and she is quite good.

The tack barn.  I love the silhouette that Grandma made for it.

Some of their many horses.  My grandma trains and rides horses like crazy-when it's not hay season.  The barn in the background has been a subject for many photographers pictures.  It is historical, and it is being taken apart and moved to southern Idaho.  My grandparents used it forever, but I guess the lady that is having it moved is the Grand-daughter of the person who built it.  Isn't the scenery gorgeous?

And again-the scenery.  You can see Randy and my Grandma changing pipe.  While we visited Randy got to go back to his roots and change pipe morning and night.  He did enjoy it.

Here are some things we did.  The girls played on the many toys.  This motorcycle my Grandma built.

Grandma pulled the girls around in this old VW.  They loved practicing how to "drive".

There was lots of time for talking.  I caught Randy and Grandpa deep in conversation here, and had to enjoy a picture of it.

This is Grandpa consoling Kenadi after I traumatized her by trying to get her to go for a ride on the lawnmower.  As soon as I started the thing up she went screaming and crying until Grandpa held her.

Emma and Kenadi enjoyed throwing rocks into the creek.

There are so many neat antiques around the farm.  The neat thing is that they were all used by ancestors or family members.  This is my Aunt Carmen's tricycle.  Isn't it neat?  I think all of us grandkids have used it too.

One of my Grandma's favorite horses.  I had to take a picture of this beauty because her name is- Tara.  Well, it's Wind-Tara's Delight.  Tara for short.  

And I love this old phone.  Ok, I know there are some random things here, and the next post has more to come.  I just love visiting here so much that I was hoping to share my enthusiasm about ALL of it.

I'm sure we all feel that way about our Grandparent's and their houses, just because of the memories they hold.

Hey! Some food for thought!

Well, I finally got my pictures all uploaded to my home computer, and boy is this overwelming!  I have so much I want to share!  So, to make it easy on me I decided to share my favorite food adventures from our trip.  I can't believe that I didn't get a picture of it all, but it's the taste that you will miss out on most.

Since being pregnant, I have had the strongest aversion to any Mexican food.  Just the thought of it made me want to puke.  However, within the last month (basically since I started feeling better) I have been craving it.  Lucky for us, we got to get our Mexican food!  I was in heaven.  Randy's mom and step dad took us, and we all thoroughly enjoyed it.  The girls got some fried ice cream, and that's about all that they ate, but they were happy.

I think that this picture is funny cause you can see Emma teasing Randy with her ice cream.  She was going to wipe it on him, and he's ducking.

Isn't that thing HUGE?  

My next craving I got to indulge in was FRESH SEAFOOD.  I miss it so much since living in Oklahoma.  When we were at my parent's house we drove to the coast, a fishing town, and got the freshest seafood you could eat.  Oh, I'm drooling just thinking about it.  I ordered seafood chowder, and randy got fish and chips.  The girls got halibut and crab legs (kids sizes), and it was all done to perfection.  

Next, is blueberries!  My family LOVES blueberries too.  Ok, well, we love all good food.  We went picking and got 70 lbs.  They were big, and beautiful, and juicy, and we probably all ate about 5 pounds each while we were picking ( I know, bad), they were sooo good.

Here are the 70 lbs.  There are some under the van seats, if you can see them.  We froze most of them, ate a box, and then mom made a cobbler with blueberries and blackberries that we had picked.  It was the best and freshest cobbler I've had in at least 4 years.  Oh, and the blackberries were so sweet and big and juicy.  

We went on a hike and guess what I saw?!  Huckleberries.  Tons of them.  However, this was the torturous part of the trip, because they were there to taunt me but they were all green still.  Not ripe at all.  I was so sad.

BUT, we DID get fresh Washington peaches from Royal City (Randy's home town).  They have orchards like crazy there, and I PROMISE you, there is nothing like fresh produce.  Straight from the plant.  Those peaches and nectarines were so sweet and juicy and good!  It was like eating a cube of sugar, they were so sweet.  Mom and I made a batch of peach jam, and I got to bring it home with me.  I'm hoarding it.  I really miss all of that good food.  So, if you see me and wonder if I'm looking bigger because of food or pregnancy, don't worry.  It's all baby.  =)

I think it's time to let you all know...

First, let me tell you that we're on vacation, and having so much fun with all of our friends and family.  I was hoping on doing a blog post every couple of days so that I could keep up on every thing, but it's been busy, and I don't know how to add pictures without downloading my 200+ on to everyone's computer.  So, if Randy can figure it out for me, I've got some good blog posts coming for you.
Second, but MOST important, I'm pregnant!  We are expecting baby #3 end of January/beg. of February.  I am now 15 weeks along, and finally past the awful morning sickness.  So, anyways, we're excited.  Kenadi has named the baby REEbecca (not Rebecca) and says it's a girl, so it probably is. 

Nature Week

One of my good friends, Allyson, did some fun summer camps with her twins every summer.  SO, I stole her idea and did some summer camps with Kenadi and Emma.  We only did 2, and I felt like they were probably weak attempts, but we had fun.  For our first one, we did an arts and crafts camp.  We made t-shirts (well, craft painted them), hair accessories, foam crafts, "cutsied" some sandals, and I think that's it.  The second week was last week.  It was Nature Camp.  The first day we went on a hike in the woods and looked at all different leaves and trees, smelled all the smells, listened, etc.  We loved it.  We also spent time in parks, swimming, and went boating.  That counts for nature week, doesn't it?  Yesterday was the day we went boating with our dearest friends, the Novotny's.  They are so good to us.  We had a blast with them.  

I wish I thought of taking a picture of Randy before he tried slalom, and this is the one picture I got.  He obviously crashed.  He did get up on the water skis a couple of times.

We swam in the nice warm lake.

I wondered how Kenadi and Emma would do in a lake verses a pool, and they did great.  Kenadi is a fish since we did swimming lessons this year.  She used to be afraid of putting her head under the water, and now it is her main goal.  She's funny.

We went on a SLOW ride on the tube.  Randy did get a wild and crazy one in with some great crashes, and I had a fun one too.

I don't think Emma smiled the whole time we were on the tube.  She looked nervous.

This was our hike in the woods.  We stopped by and picked up Whitney.  My girls just love her, and her them.  

Of course we got good and dirty.  It was a fun and busy week!