"Geneology, I am doing it ..."

One of my favorite activities at the reunion (besides the Make Your Own Deodorant Contest), was the slideshow about Great Grandma Kartchner and the rag-tag photo shoot.

Grandma held court in an easy chair and the grandkids and great-grands could approach her as beckoned.  Sydney and Great Grandma share a name.   This was a sweet moment.

Great Grandma is super old and it was a delicate art of posing the children around her without them smothering and squishing her at the same time. 

Appendages and heads in weird places in many of these photos.

Clara was bribed with a marshmallow to participate.

Blurry. And Drew is missing.  But you get what you get around here.

Luckily, there are a few photogenic people in the family.

After the slideshow, Grandma K led the kids in an action song about finding a bone.  More on that later.

The adults were also particularly captivated slash amused.

We interrupt our regularly scheduled programming to bring you...

Scout Camp: Wild West Rendezvous

 Night Hawks:  Kimball, Caleb, David, Davy, Talmage, Tarek

Making "bear bells".

"May I enter the range?" -- a review of BB gun etiquette.

Rusty Nail.  The boys really liked this guy.   He conducted their den group discussions every morning and played games with them.  Here, he's autographing Talmage's shirt - the standard procedure following each station.  This was a STEM class on weather.

Silver Stone.  Explaining the rules of Capture the Flag.

 

Or, Capture the Ball, as it were.

Up the Creek ...

 Paxman's backyard creek playground has taken many forms over the years and continues to manifest various levels of dilapidation.    I love that my kids can play where I used to play when I was their same age.  It's the magic of "Up the Canyon" that no one drowned, stepped on a rusty nail, or hooked themselves with a fishing hook (oh, wait.  That happened.  To my dad. "When he was a boy.").

Summer Vacation, Part last

We spent the first half of our trip in Farmington. Played Lagoon, which is becoming a tradition. Talmage rode the white roller coaster for the first time. A little too rickety for his liking. Clara was content watching the rides for the most part.  Miles loved driving the jeeps. Sydney is still a Bombora fan.   Didn't take the camera. But it really did happen.

I left the family in Farmington and flew to Spokane to cheer on Heather at her Ironman.   Here's her facebook link.  There are pictures and stuff about it on June 29, 2014.  And donate to United Athletics while you're at it.  Please.

https://www.facebook.com/heather.kartchner?hc_location=timeline

The Ironman.  Wow.  What an event to witness.   These are regular people who, for whatever reason, decide to do something pretty darn extraordinary.  Some of them over and over again ("It's a sickness," Heather says).   The dedication and determination to put in the 100's of hours of training and then putting it all together on this one day -- where they are GOING for 10+ hours.  "I'll just have a little marathon for dessert," they say, as they step off the bike, which was preceded by their little 2 mile appetizer dip in the lake.  The stories behind the athletes who cross the finish line have got to be poignant and amazing.  But I will always be mindful of the stories behind the ones who don't cross.  All that training for "naught" because the water was so choppy they couldn't finish the swim.  Or, like Heather, who had to watch from the sidelines as Rick finished the Ironman she was supposed to doing the first time. (click on her profile pic to read the "about me" write up).

I was with mom and dad and Heidi as Heather's tech support and personal cheering squad.  While Heather was gone biking for a long, long time; we volunteered at the Bike Special Needs at mile 63.  What a hoot!  One athlete stopped and pulled out a Subway sandwich, a big bag of chips and some coke.  "This is how I trained," she explained, as I searched for her red-and-white checkered tablecloth in her bag.  Another girl had 6 pieces of pizza.  Six!!!  Just in case.  We cleaned up with all the stuff they left behind that they were told would be "thrown away."  I came home with a nice pair of bike gloves, a brand new shirt, a barely-used windbreaker vest, a water bottle (Ironman brand!), lots of power bars and gu and stuff; and more CO2 cartridges and bike tires than you can shake a stick at. ($15,000 Ironman bike not included).  The trick to gleaning the goods, though, was to act like you were just "throwing away" what the athlete left behind, but really, you were slipping it into your growing bag of swag (quick! pop quiz!  what's the scientific definition?).  And then hiding it in the roadside bushes so the head volunteer guy didn't notice.
 
The second half of the trip was "up the canyon."  This is the last time we'll see Nathan and family for awhile, since they're about to move to Japan.   A good time was had by all.  Most the time.

Breakfast.

Since two of her grandkids sport the name ...

Pinning on Sydney's Pegasus wings.  "Don't stab me, Grandma!"

Parley and Talmage spent a lot of time working on this solar powered machine kit thing.

And a little drawing.

5 o'clock shadow.

Sweety-pie Clara.

Next up:  Up the Creek without a Paddle

Miles Post

4/8/14

He's asserting his independence.  One of his first phrases was: "I do". "I do" when he wants to try his hand at stuff.  Today it grew to "I do it."  He loves clipping himself into his car seat.  And then, "Did it!"

7/14
He's been motoring around the cul-de-sac on the plasma car.  If he could live outside, he would.  He sings along to household favorites - including, "Let it go".... which is hilarious coming from an almost-two-year old who isn't potty trained.  He's got "Twinkle, twinkle", "Row, Row, Row Your Boat,", "I'm a Child of God," and "Baa, Baa, Black Sheep" down.

He gets a kick out of making us laugh.  Speaking of kicking ... if someone crosses his path, he's learned how to slug.

His attitude for prayer is to cover his eyes with the palms of his hands.  Or plain ignore the proceedings.

Miles, generally speaking, comes with a very happy nature and strong determination.  He's a cool, little dude.

Talmage turns 8

 Talmage had a fun birthday.  And I know it's not about me ... but, I want to add that I wasn't even stressed this time.  My favorite part is that he planned and help decorate everything - from the games to his cake.  And Lisa came over to drop something off morning of, so I kidnapped her and forced her to make the frosting for the cake and make it look more "Snitchy".  So, I didn't even have to worry about the cake.  See if you can guess the theme, if you haven't already.

 Here, they are working on Aunt Marge,  the subject of a bean-bag throw into her open mouth.

Love the concentration.

 Clara, getting in on the action.

 The Golden Snitch.

 The driveway still bears the scars of the Killing the Basilisk game. They lit those black discs that turn into snakes.  And stink bombs.   8 year-olds and matches.  Genius, right?

 Battle of Hogwarts.  They went through 900 water balloons in seconds.

 Basilisk pinata and the Sword of Gryffindor.

"Wait!  That venomous snake looks suspiciously like a Winco Guitar Pinata.  I won't have it!"

Here's the thing -- Talmage was very particular about each activity relating to Harry Potter somehow.  Syd is busily planning her next birthday party on a theme of "Mushrooms" (e.g. "#2. Pin the mushroom in the mushroom pach; #4. Mushroom decrashins") The enumerated list is on the fridge for a daily reminder.   Her birthday is in January.  Where did they learn to be thematically correct, is my question.

Back to T's birthday. ..... Blowing out the candles.   It's official.

 "What do you wish for [friend], with a bump on the head?"

 "Everything is awesome."  Gifts from the grandparents.

 A riddle for the parental gift:  "WE BE KIN". 

Happy Birthday, Talmage.  We love you.

Blend Tec: they claim it purees nails.

That may be true.  But it does not puree spoons.  I tried and it's like a bomb went off inside the jar and blew those two holes.   A good trick to play on terrorists would be to replace the gunpowder in their ammo with spinach ... and spoons.

Also, that plate on the stove looks like a huge fried egg.