Thanksgiving 2004

Wonder why there haven't been any postings in a while? Nothing has happened in Boise! I guess we could post pictures of us cleaning up the yard and getting it ready for winter, but we didn't think that would be very interesting. If you really want to see that, we can find some pictures, I suppose.

Thanksgiving was the most excitement around here for a while. We had 20+ people over for the 24.5 pound turkey. We ate way too much - as did most families, I bet. (But it was goood!)

Since we have 2 cats and it's getting colder outside, it seems like we are either letting cats in or out of the house. So we decided to have them let themselves or out whenever they want. Now our laundry room window had a cat door. (In case you were wondering, the laundry room is in the basement.)







While there hasn't been much excitement around Boise, there has been some in Santa Rosa, California. Winfield (aka Scott) proposed to Tracy earlier this week and she accepted. Congratulations to both of them! That means there are going to be two Klein weddings in 2005 - Mike's will be around the 4th of July and Winfield's should be at the end of summer, maybe September. When it rains, it pours.

Boise State or Fresno State???

The game of the year (for some people) is here and today is game day! The Duekers have traveled to Boise to watch the big football game. (Actually we are more excited about the visitors than the game, but...) We get to babysit while they go to the game tonight. I think we got the better end of the deal.

Notice Jake's sweatshirt - it says Boise State on it. Lance wasn't very excited when Jake got it for his birthday a couple weeks ago. (Now who would give him something like that?!?!?)







Anyhow, we are having great visit!

Off to Jacob's Birthday Party

We arrived in Fresno late Thurday night, so we didn't get to say hi to the kids. But the next morning...







Then came the birthday party! Can you guess what the theme was? Maybe Erin's cake will give you a clue. (Isn't Erin talented?)





Jacob was lucky that his backyard is huge, because the Bounce House was huge too. Not only in size, but it was a huge success with all the kids too.



And he blew out all the candles - all three of them!



The party was a great success. There were tons of people, food and presents. I think everyone had a wonderful time. But after it was all over, there was bath time.



Do you think this will last? Just wait until they are teens!

Wow! Water!

We finally received the pond supplies that we ordered three weeks ago. That meant that we could work on the pond and get a lot closer to being finished. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Last weekend we got a permit to get some rocks from BLM property. These are beautiful rocks covered with lichen and moss which we will use around the pond. Once we loaded all the rocks in our little half-ton pickup, we noticed that the mud flaps were about an inch off the ground. That meant that we had more than a half ton of rocks but we knew (hoped actually) that our truck could handle it.



Then this weekend we lined the pond with the heavy rubber liner. We were planning on using one piece for the pond and one for the waterfalls. But thanks to the supplier, they sent us more liner than we had ordered which meant that there wouldn't be any seams that could leak. Then we used rocks to hold the liner in place while we set rocks all around the edge of the pond.



We knew the waterfall area would be difficult. It was. The idea is to keep the water flowing on top of the rocks as it cascades down the falls. It's going to take a lot more work! But at least we were able to fill the pond and see that the concept was good.



It was pretty exciting for us to have the pond full and get a better idea of how it will look when it is finished. We have a lot more to do before Fall comes. (What? It's Fall already? Uh-oh) Okay, before Winter then. We need to finish the falls, install the skimmer/filter, and plant plants in and outside the pond. But we are happy that the end is in sight!



The bird in the previous article is a red-breasted nuthatch. They are very cute. We often see them on tree trucks upside down, facing the ground.

No, it's NOT finished yet!

Just to show you that we are still working on the pond, here is the latest photo. The hole is finished, now we have to line it with a rubber liner. I already laid the water line - it's buried so you can't see it.



The hummingbird in the last bird photo was a Rufous Hummingbird. Now you have to guess what this one is. There were two of them. I think they were taking the sunflower seeds and caching them for the winter. What bird is this?

Fast Trip to Portland

This weekend we made a trip to Portland, Oregon with Jeanette's mother and her brother, Alan, for a wedding of one of her cousins. We stayed with them a couple years ago after the infamous Ride to Remember bike ride from Boise to Portland. Anyhow, the wedding was at an old poor farm that has been transformed into a huge lodge-restaurants-pubs. It is called McMennamin's Edgefield and was just crawling with people. It was built in 1911 and provided room and board for about 600 indigent people while they worked the farm. This was what they did before welfare.



While we were there we were facinated by some hummingbirds. They must have made their home in a thicket next to one of the buildings. We stood transfixed watching them. They flew right next to us and I was able take a picture of one as it hovered right in front of my face. Okay, who can tell what type of hummingbird this is?

Tomato Harvest

Our little backyard garden only consists of a few varities of vegetables - tomatoes, peppers, rhubarb and a couple lonely eggplants - and the tomatoes take up most of the space. This year the tomatoes did pretty well. This last week a bunch of them ripened. When that happens, it's time to make Spaghetti Sauce!

First we picked the tomatoes.



Then we set up a kitchen out on our patio. It was 100 degrees outside, so we wanted the inside of the house to stay nice and cool. We figured we couldn't make it any hotter outside. After cooking up all the ingredients in a huge pot, we started canning.



And the result was 23 pints of great tasting Spaghetti Sauce.



And we'll probably have to do it again in a couple weeks.

Hot times in August

Erin, Lance, Jacob and Allison rolling into Boise on the 1st of August for a week visit. Keep watching this site for new and exciting photos of their stay with us.

It's hot too. This is the temperature in the shade!

But we didn't let that stop us from eating our weekly dinner with family and friends outside on our patio under the misters. The Duekers actually look pretty good for driving 13 hours from Fresno across the desert of Nevada in the heat of the day with two little kids. Yum - corn on the cob, potato salad and grilled tri-tip. Oh yes, rootbeer floats for dessert.



Time for Allison's bath in a duck. It sure beats bending over the bathtub!



This is the first time that Melinda has seen Allison. And vice versa, I guess.



It has been busy - Jacob helped me clean up all the apricots that fell on the ground,



then we went and picked some blackberries,



we played on Erin's old balance beam,



and then we relaxed.



And we woke up ready to go again!



Then we took some family portraits - nice looking family, eh?



We went down to the local swimming pool on a hot evening and cooled off.







The next day we decided to make some playdough and create some Christmas ornaments. You don't want to leave Christmas projects until the last minute! Maybe tomorrow we will paint them.

July has been eventful!

So this is what has been happening in July.

The big news is the new pond, or more precisely, the hole in the backyard. It is taking a lot longer to create than I had imagined, but what doesn't?



And then a couple weeks later it looks like this:



The apricot tree has was absolutely loaded this year. I think more fall on the ground than we use. We dried a several batches in our new dehydrator - 3 gallon bags worth so far. I think Jeanette has made about the same amount batches of jam too. Yummy!









And then Melinda's big news is she bought a brand new 2004 Saturn Ion. Needless to say she is extremely excited and happy. And the best news is that it only costs her $150 a month (of course the insurance costs her about the same amount.) Grandma and Grandpa's old Saturn just had too many things going wrong with it. The man standing next to Melinda is Ray, the salesman.



In case you wanted to see some of the highlights of our trip to Chicago for Grandma's 98th birthday celebration, here they are.





Grandma's old sofa was very old and low and therefore difficult to stand up so Linda decided to get her a new one. Grandma was adamant that she didn't need a new sofa. So while she was napping, we took out the old and brought in the new. Of couse she loved it. Linda bought us all red Fourth of July t-shirts so we had to take a family photo on Grandma's new sofa. (Can you see the sofa?)