The New Mancave Garage

So this summer we have almost spend every weekend at our place

in Island Park. We decided that our 2 yr old shed wasn't big

enough to store our atv's including our newest addition ...our Razor.

So we planned to build a bigger shed/garage or what I call Scott's

mancave....lol.

Last fall Scott started getting a head start digging holes

for the foundation (the foundation is on cement filled sonatubes, because

it is going to be a wood floor, it would cost as much as the whole building to

truck in cement for a cement floor so we opt for a wood floor).

We also bought all the OSB

(plywood) and took them up and stored them in the shed up there over the

winter to lightened the load with all the materials to go up in the spring

or we'd have to make a couple of trips to get it all up there.

Then he also built the trusseswith the help from Jon (our son-in-law)

early in the spring and stored them in our garage here at home along

with the mandoor, felt paper, nails, metal roofing, 28 bags of cement, sonatubes

52-2x6's (can't use 2x4's because of all the weight of the snow during the winter).

You get the picture....our garage filled up with materials that our truck

sat outside until the BIG day when him and Jon hauled the load up to

Idaho.

Throughout the summer which has included 3 weeks of vacation

and many weekend trips up in Island Park, which I won't complain at all because we

have had fun riding our new razor, trips to West Yellowstone,

building flower beds and just enjoying the outdoors.....

We finally finshed it last week.

Putting felt paper on before putting on the siding

for extra protection from the winter snow.

Almost finished putting the siding on.


The finished project.

A better picture of our pride and joy,

or

Scott's new mancave.....lol

We still have a few minor things to do to it but

it seems so nice to see it done and looking so good.

Take The Time

This summer has went so fast this year. Every year

it seems to go alittle faster. Sometimes I have felt like

I've been swept up into a tornado.....which I have dreamed

this last week that a tornado was coming right for our house

but it passed us by but it got bigger as it went by. They say

dreams have meaning in how we feel about things...well I

guess I need to find peace and relaxation so I can dream of

me relaxing on a sandy beach with the ocean breeze comforting

my inner soul.

So my brother-in-law passed away a few weeks ago. It just

seems so unreal. Six weeks ago we were going about our daily

lives, when we received the news that he had cancer and it didn't

look good. We just take it that our lives each day will go on....

that we actually go on with our daily routines and complain about

the small things that don't go our way....the car that cut us off,

the groceries that keep climbing higher, gas prices, the stock market

that goes up and down like a roller coaster, the house is a mess and

no time to clean it....which I feel like my house has become so bad that

I feel like I am drowning in "the to do list" !!!

We get so busy that we miss the opportunities to get together with

our family, friends or neighbors, until reality hits you in the face.

You never know when the unexpected turn will come into our lives,

so we should make time to give each other a hug, kiss your children,

have a family bbq, make dinner for a friend/family member that could use a

home cooked meal, or to just give someone a call to just say HI!!.

So thank you for being a friend and taking the time to visit me:)

~~~~~~~~~~~~

So a week after my brother-in-law passed away, his daughter Staci

had a baby shower. It was one of the best baby showers I had been

to. She got some cute and beautiful items for the soon to be little girl

in our special family. Boys seem to out number the girls 7 to 2. She had

Ebony almost a week to the day after Conrad's passing. I am sure they

had their own special time in heaven before she came down to stay with us.

So I made a receiving blanklet to put with the items I had gathered

through the last few months. I made them bigger than the normal standard

receiving blanklets, which seems they outgrow and a foot keeps popping out

here and there. I started making them 28 yrs ago when I was about to have

Kimberly, then I made some for Shauna also. I have made a few here and there

for other members of the family. Usually I get carried away making them,

I see all the different cute designs. I probably made 5 or 6 for Landon.

So this is the one I made for Staci.

It has butterflies on it.

The cycle of life continues.....

Sometimes it is hard and sad but then there is the
times it is happy and joyous.

Just make each moment count
Be Happy not sad
Love one another

Reality Check

Sorry followers that I haven't posted lately but the past few weeks have been
a reality check in my life.
We all get up every day and go about our daily lives
of going to work or doing every day chores of dishes, washing, vacuum etc. Then
one day the unexpected turns in life appear in your life which shakes you up.
Recently I found out that my brother-in-law has lung cancer and the outlook doesn't look good.
This man is such quiet polite man that has provided for his
family all his life while working in a harsh environment that may have contributed to his failing health. He never has said a negative word towards anyone. He has been such a good father figure to his 3 children. He has enjoyed many trips to Wendover to just enjoy plopping a few chips on the tables and a few coins in the slot machines. It is just hard to believe that he has been dealt these cards in life
when this is such a quiet unique humble man who loves everyone.

Then..... a week ago while preparing to go to Idaho on our vacation to build a
shed on our place I got a unexpected trip to the ER the night before leaving.
It is hard to talk about this but I hope people will learn from my mistake.

I suffer from diverticulitis (which I found out last year when I had a colonoscopy).
I have never had one moment of pain or problems from this problem until around
5 pm one night while taking a bathroom break and started having alot of rectal bleeding which scared the daylights out of me. So it happened that Scott was in
the kitchen which I yelled at him that I needed to go to the ER. The last time I was in the hospital was in 1985 when I had Shauna, so this was new to me and I
was scared out of my wit's of what was happening to me. To make the story short, I ended up losing alot of blood (real close to having a transfusion) but luckly it started healing on its own but also during the colonoscopy they actually found the ruptured area and clamped it off. So after 2 days in the hospital I got to come home with orders that I was good as new but to add lots of fiber to my diet. Which my diet hardly contained any fiber in it before which is sad to say but I am going to be more conscious of eating more fruits and vegetables now.
Avoid foods that is hard to digest like corn, nuts, popcorn hulls, sunflower, pumpkin or sesame seeds. That must be true because I hardly ever eat nuts and the last month I have ate pistachio, cashews and peanuts then I ever have.

You get diverticulitis as we age unfortunately. If you eat more fiber the less likely you will get it and have any symptoms of it. I just turned 53 two days after getting out of the hospital.....and yes today I feel 53. I still get tired and weak from the loss of the blood and that it will take 30 days to get back on my
feet. That is how long it takes for our bodies to make a new red blood cell.

I did end up going to Island Park for my birthday, I figured I can recover in a recliner under a few pine trees better then at home on the couch. This way I can enjoy the cooler weather, mosquito's, and the birds singing in the trees.

I am back home to the every day chores of washing, watering the lawn, etc. I
do feel better but still get tired at times but I have also learned that I need to start taking better care of myself as well as I do the other members of my family.

I hope to start posting my money saving finds as well as any tid bits of info I think you'd be interested in.

and to those living in Utah.... HAPPY BIRTHDAY UTAH!!!

Island Park, Id

So I have been waiting all winter and spring for all

the white stuff on the ground to melt so we could start

making plans to go to our place in Island Park, Id.

It all started the year after we were married that we

made a trip to Yellowstone for our first vacation. We took

our small boat and fished on Yellowstone Lake. That is where

I caught my first fish.

The next year we went to Henry's Lake (14 miles south of

West Yellowstone). It is a trophy lake with big trout in it.

So for the next 7 years we camped at Henry's Lake in our

truck and camper. Every evening the sky would turn dark,

the wind would kick up and it would come in and rain. The

lake made its own weather for some reason.

In 1989, we decided that we LOVED that area with its lucious

green fields of grass with antelope grazing, the forest tree's

blankleting the mountains and valley's and the crisp air carrying

the smell of the pine tree's is unbelievable, that we bought a place

that we call home for the summer. We're always doing something

to improve it so that maybe when Scott retire's it'll all be done and

we can just sit and enjoy the birds and the wildlife all day long...

So we took our fifthwheel trailer up a couple weeks ago and stayed

up there for the 4th of July holiday. We got surprised a few days

into our vacation when the kids decided to show up with their trailer

and enjoy the holiday with us.

So we took a few rides in our new Razor and even found that white

stuff called SNOW!!

Landon had a blast up there, playing in the creek, smelling the

wildflowers, watching the birds and even seen a mother cow moose

with her new calf the size of a medium dog.

Landon playing in the flowers

Landon smelling the flowers

The river that runs by our place

Kylie riding in the razor

One of our favorite trails

Kylie having the time of her life....she isn't spoiled is she???

Sawtelle Mountain

The trail going up to the top of Sawtelle Mountain.

White elephant where they measure the snow

on the mountain. There was 4 feet of snow

according to their measuring stick.

Trail going to Sawtelle Mtn, we let Kylie out

to play in the snow.

Happy 4th of July

I hope everyone had a Happy 4th of July celebration. We are so blessed living in a country that we have our freedom of many choices in life. It is also a time to think of our soldiers who served and serving so we can keep our freedom. When your younger you think of the holiday and the
festivities that go along with the 4th..... Parades, candy, family and friends gather together for the big barbeque and later on the fireworks.
When you get older you tend to start thinking deeper in thought, like what the holiday truly stands for and at what cost. You tend to treasure the time you spend with your family and watching the younger children enjoy the festivities. I must be getting older because the last
month or so I've really been a person in deep thoughts and trying to take in the moments of
personal events that have been happening for me and others.

I hope everyone can see what a blessing it is to live in America, with such freedom's we have.

Happy Birthday America!!

Spring and The Baby Birds

So I love Spring.

Flowers are blooming, the grass is getting green,

the leaves on the tree's are coming out of their buds,

birds making nests for their baby chickadee's.

So a month ago I seen a bird fly out of the tongue of

our fifthwheel trailer. Then a few days later I started noticing

that she would fly away when going to the mailbox or

getting into the car in the driveway.

I looked inside the tongue but couldn't find any nest so I just

thought she was using it to perch onto. Well this scernio continued

all week. One night at dinner I told Scott about what I had seen

all week long. So later on he got a flashlight and went out to investigate

to see if their was indeed a nest in the tongue. He came back with the

news I wasn't prepared for.........

"She has a nest built up inside the shell of the trailer"

So I went out to check it out for myself. There it was....... a big nest inside

the undercarriage of the trailer.....with baby birdies chirping away.

Noting that this could become a problem if we decided to

take our trailer out camping,

what would happen if we took off with the nest inside with the babies

and the mother bird wasn't inside, so we decided that we wouldn't take the trailer out until they were gone and to leave her and the baby

birds alone so they wouldn't go further into the trailer.

So tonight after Scott got home from work, he walked out to the tongue of

the trailer and couldn't hear any birds chirping, so he looked inside and

couldn't see any birds either. So after dinner we went out to check again

and still no birds, so we decided while we had the chance we pulled down the skin of

the trailer and he pulled out the nest with a metal rod.

This is what we ended up with.

4 individual nests and more

The hole into the trailer (the size of my thumb)


We determined that they have been making

nests in our trailer for a few years (our trailer is 5 yrs old).

There was lots of pine needles to lead us to believe that

a few nests were built in Idaho at our place where we leave

our trailer throughout the summer.

Scott took some caulking and went all around the hole and

the seams to make sure that there won't be any more

birds trying to make the trailer their home.



To discover that we had a nest of baby birds inside our trailer

was such a surprise but to discover how many nests were inside and what

we pulled out was even more of a surprise.

It figures.....

So this last week has been one of those weeks that you're glad it will be over not to soon. The weather has been great here, warm and sunny. I've been waiting all to long to welcome this warm weather and plant some flowers in my flower gardens. I had half of a big flower garden weeded out (the weeds took it over last year) but still working on the rest here and there when I can. I got the flower garden by my deck almost done (needs a couple more plants that I usually plant but no one in town carries them this year) and one tree circle pretty finished (needs some bark). I am making progress but its been hard because........

the DRUM ROLL PLEASE~~~~ I've caught a cold and feel like crap. It all started with allergies but I think my precious loving grandson gave me what he's been fighting for a month
now also.

I was fine all day Tuesday and around 10:00 pm I started getting a sore throat, then started getting all stuffy. You know how stuffy it gets when you can't breath through your nose so you start breathing through your mouth....which makes the sore throat hurt worse. So eventually I feel asleep...TILL 1:30 I woke up with the most painful sore throat I have ever had. It hurt to swallow so bad that tears came out of my eyes. I even thought about taking a pain pill to make it feel less painful. I eventually got out the ice cream out of the freezer and slowly ate a spoonful bite after bite, which helped temporarily. I found some cough drops in the medicine cabinet and that helped a bit also.

Since then I have gotten the croup cough which means your head is full as well as your chest with that green stuff we hate. Of course your tired but you keep going because you always have stuff that needs to be taken care of.

So I my kitchen counter looks like a cold section out of a pharmacy. Cough drops, cough medicine with chest congestion reliever, sore throat spray, kleenex's, vick's vapor rub, NyQuil (I don't know what I would do without you), and vitamin C. The fridge is stocked with orange juice and the freezer with ice cream.

My homemade remedy that I still use to help sooth my sore throat come from my childhood. My grandmother would always make it for me when I was sick and it always seemed to help.
You heat up a glass of pure orange juice (no Sunny D) and add 2 tablespoons of honey. It soothes your throat but also opens your nasal passages so you can breath for awhile anyway.

I even went Wednesday to the Dr. The strep throat culture came back negative and apparently I hadn't been sick long enough to get treated with antibotic's yet. It's a cold and just needs to run its course....give me a break....I already had a mild fever and green stuff meaning I have infection. My daughter and grandson was put on antibotic's but I guess you have to be on your death bed or close to it to get antibotic's.
I know the Dr.'s don't want to over prescribe antibotic's but when you open your eyes in the morning to see and their glued shut from the green stuff oozing out I think its time to give them some antibotics so I don't get phenomia.

It seems ironic, I went to the dr. to get some medicine to get a hold of it before it gets to bad but the Dr.'s want you to wait it out till your really bad and then they'll treat you...

So it is beautiful and sunny outside and I am inside with my box of kleenex's and cough drops to keep my company.........IT FIGURES!!