So Sorry…

…that I’ve been missing the last couple of days.  I mentioned that I was going to the fair on Friday evening with my sister.  Well, Rose, from Utah decided to come to Boise for my mom’s birthday.  She joined us at the fair!!!  We had such a great time together with the sisters.  My niece and her husband joined us as well.  I ate lots of bad fair food and we had one of those old fashioned pictures taken.  I’ll share that with you later after I get it scanned.

Yesterday, we left early (for me anyway) at 10:00 in the morning and took a beautiful mountain drive. 

 

On the first leg of our trip, we were stopped by a flagman because there was a forest fire right by the highway.  It was quite the site to see small fires and burned logs that had fallen down onto the road.  Wow!  We stopped at Crouch, Idaho, to visit one of my favorite quilt shops.  Crouch is one of my favorite places.  It’s a tiny town with a Trading Post, tiny grocery store, restaurant, video store and laundromat.  About a half mile out of town is a campground at which I’ve spent many a night!!!  It is owned by a family friend and it’s in such a great location.  It’s central to many places for a day trip and the little town nearby is wonderful if you don’t want to cook or have forgotten something.  We ate lunch in Crouch.  The restaurant was setting up a buffet to serve the fire fighters for dinner.  They had roped off the parking lot so that they could set tables up for the fire fighters.  The mountain towns in Idaho really appreciate our fire fighters!

Anyway, on to the drive.  The area that we were worried about was clear of roadblocks and pilot cars.  We did see some fire traffic though.  An ambulance, a couple of fire trucks and many fire fighters were along side of the road.  There was even a fire camp setup in one of the valleys. Most of the fires have been controlled but are still burning.  Evacuations have been lifted thanks to the cool weather!

We drove through the Sawtooth National Recreation area stopping several times to take pictures.  I forgot to bring my camera but I’ll be downloading copies of my sisters’ photos later this week so I’ll have some to share.

When we got to Sun Valley, we were surprised to find that we should have planned a place for dinner.  Just driving through town, we didn’t find anyplace that sounded good to mom.  It was her birthday so we were trying very hard to please.  We ended up stopping in Hailey, Idaho for dinner at a Mexican restaurant.  We ended up not getting home until almost midnight!  What a great day!!!  Both mom and I hand a bit of a bad night because the food didn’t settle very well. 

Then this afternoon, we all went to mom’s house for birthday cake.  We got home so late so we postponed cake until Sunday!!!  My brother, Ken, came over and we had a great time sitting outside and gabbing.  I think we embarrassed Ken a little every now and then!!!  I’m sure it wasn’t the first time!!!

Anyway, that was my weekend.  This afternoon, I organized my craft room a little.  Now, I’m going to figure out what I want to create.  It’s been three whole days since I made something!!!  I hope to have something to share by tomorrow.

I hope you all had a great weekend as well!!!!

Blessings,

Christine

A Day at the Pumpkin Patch

I took “The Aunts” to the pumpkin patch today.  (Don’t you like how I put a bit of the Walton’s in there?  If we’d only had John Boy with us!)

It was such a perfect day to go to the pumpkin patch! 

Wasn’t it gorgeous out!  Such a beautiful day to spend with the people I love.

 

Here we have “The Aunts” and my mother. 

From L to R, Sharon, mom, Ruth, Lorna, and in the back, Mr.. Scarecrow – Ruth’s boyfriend!!!  Aren’t they beautiful!!!

 

 

 

I took this one just to prove that we were on the farm.  Since it rained yesterday, it was a muddy farm!

 

And, what’s a pumpkin farm in October without a corn maze?  Can you see the corn stalks in the background?  This is a huge corn maze.  I don’t do corn mazes but if I did, this would be the one.  It’s a testament to Boise State University sports.

Have I mentioned that our non-BCS, not even close to being in the BCS, small University football team is #5… IN THE NATION!!!  Just had to mention that!!!

I don’t know when they took this picture but I can tell you that NOTHING, and I mean nothing, I saw today was green!!!  Well, except some squash I bought.  I’m working on my Autumn decor for my deck tomorrow so I’ll probably be showing off the goods I got today very soon.  I got almost 43 pounds of squash and pumpkins!  Oops.  But I thought they’d all look cute on my deck, not to mention taste yummy!!!

Now, can you guess why I had to go to the pumpkin patch to get photos for the Cricut challenge?  I bet’cha can’t!  Well, except the obvious that I’m going to do a scrapbook page.

I hope you had as great a day as I!!!

Blessings,

Christine

Bee Floatin’ the River

I’m having a mini giveaway, check it out here.

 

 

Have you seen the new summer images at Bee Crafty? They are oh so cute!!! I’m not sure if I’ve seen them all yet, but the ones I’ve seen are adorable. I had so much fun coloring Summer Ducky!!!

 

Where I live. in Boise, Idaho, we have a somewhat calm river that runs through the middle of town, the Boise River. During the summer time, on any warm/hot afternoon, you will see people floating down the river in a variety of implements -- rafts, tubes, you name it!!! I bet their were traffic jams this week with the temps near or above 100 Fahrenheit!

This little girl looks like she's ready to float down the Boise River. I've never floated the river. Maybe one of these days. But since I've gone 52 years without doing it, I doubt I will!

I colored her with Prismas and OMS. The DP came from a RAK and the flower is from my stash. The sentiment is Hero Arts (I think) and the little swirl and the brads are from Oriental Trading.

Now, head on over to Bee Crafty and see all of the other adorable summer time images and what each of the lovely DT members made! Every two weeks we have a challenge and you can use any digi image to enter. The challenge this time is Summer Time and I’m sure you’ll want to get one of these cute images to use in your creation!

Blessings,

Christine

1,000 Springs

As promised, I’m showing a few of my photos taken during my trip to Utah.  I took the long way home yesterday because I wanted to take some pictures of the scenic Thousand Springs area in Southern Idaho.

Thousands of years ago volcanic eruptions interrupted the flow of the Snake river causing it to form several under ground tributaries and reservoirs.  These waterways erupt out of the canyon walls (made of lava rock) at Thousand Springs. In the olden days (I said that to make me sound young), there were a lot of springs in this beautiful valley (I don’t know if anyone actually counted 1000). 

Yesterday, during my drive through the valley, I only saw two major springs.  However, I shot a couple of nice photos to show you.  Earlier in the spring I would have seen more springs.

After snapping these beautiful photos, it was time for the pup and I to take a well needed rest.  I can’t help it, I love to take photos of my truck, even as dirty as she is.  Yes, my truck is a girl!!!  I feel bad though because I didn’t snap any picts of Chloe.  Bad fur mommy!

I don’t know of very many rest areas that have views like this!  But I have to be honest and tell you that this rest area is on a rural highway in my beautiful home state of Idaho.  Yes, I’m bragging.

 

While walking the little path next to what I think is a tributary of the Snake river, I was smelling a sweet floral scent.  Looking for the source, I finally lifted my head and saw these beautiful trees in full bloom.  I don’t know what they are, except beautiful.

Many of the rural areas of southern Idaho are not fit for farming.  As is the case in this area, there are too many rocks left over from the ancient volcanoes.  Now, we are harvesting the wind!!!  GO GREEN!

I hope you enjoyed my little tour through Thousand Springs!  Expect more as the summer progresses.  I love to take drives through the countryside and through the mountains.

I’m off to unpack my goodies, and start crafting.  I have a lot of fun stuff in this mind that needs to come out!!!

Blessings,

Christine

Shoshone Falls

Look where I went today! My sis and I drove to Shoshone Falls near Twin Falls, Idaho. It's about 2 hours away from my house. The falls are on the Snake River.

For most of the year, these falls are dry. Just a trickle runs over the edge. Usually, you can only catch the falls at full force for a couple of weeks in May when the snow melt runoff is heavy. Some years they don't run like this all year. There are a series of dams upstream where the water is held in a reservoir for the farmers to use for irrigation and for recreational use in the reservoir like boating and such.

If you can see it, the little tiny dot on the falls at the left is a hawk or falcon flying in the wind created by the falls.

This year, they are dumping off some of the water because they will have to much when the spring runoff comes out of the mountains. Isn't the rainbow beautiful. I didn't think we were going to see the rainbow today but the clouds cleared just about the time we got here.

When I was a kid, almost every year my grandparents would bring us here for a picnic. There was always a lot of water running off the falls in those days. They also let people walk around the falls a lot more. We used to be able to walk out onto the rocks in the picture below. These days, they only have a couple of walkways that you go on.

When there is enough water, they harness the energy from the falls for electricity. I think they still use this old power house.

This is the view down river. A few miles down river, Evil Kenievel made is famous failed attempt to jump the Snake River Canyon on a motorcycle (in the 1970s).

Then we hit the a thrift store (didn't find much) and their tiny mall. My sis was looking for a new Easter dress. It was really a fun day to spend with my sis.

I know it's not like being there, but I hope you enjoyed the pictures.

Blessings,
Christine

Snow, Beautiful Snow

My sister and I went to McCall Winter Carnival today. It was a beautiful day but now I am really paying for it. My feet hurt at about an 8. Ouch!!!

I took some great pictures. I didn't know how they would turn out but they were all wonderful. There are a lot of strangers in the pictures because it was so busy it was impossible to get a picture without people it in. Enjoy!!!

The top picture was my favorite sculpture. I couldn't get a picture of the whole thing since I would have had to go across the street and it was literally bumper to bumper traffic. I would have had the same thing I have now but with cars on the bottom.

The castle sits up on a tree (those are leaves on the bottom of the picture) and under that were the branches with faces carved into them. It was beautiful!

This was one of my favorites being the outdoors gal that I am. It's hard to see that the bear is catching a fish.

This is in the parking lot of the pizza place. It's a big ole fish eating a pizza pie!

The furniture store had a speed boat with "Sum R Fun" written on it. People around were saying that they wish it was summer so they could be on the lake. This is very appropriate because there is a partially frozen lake directly behind the store. I think you can kind of see it if you look at the left side of the picture in the middle. The dark blue is a mountain and the silver of blue underneath is the lake. The building hides most of the lake.

At the Forest Service Office, they had a Candy Land game theme. It was very cute. As you can see on the ground they even had the spaces on the board. This one was on the shady side of the street so it didn't turn out that great. They even had an outhouse!!!

The grocery store had an ice cream sundae complete with a chery on top. Where's the whipped cream?

The window that let's you browse pictures only has teeny, tiny thumbnails so I didn't always get the pic I wanted but this is a pretty good representation. I'm not sure if I'm doing this correctly but I also had to put all the pictures in reverse order. Oh well, at least now I know how to do it.

Alice and I also went to the quilt shops in McCall. Alicia had been bugging Alice about bringing something home for her so we stopped and got some snow and put it in a ziploc. She also got something else to but I think the snow idea was great since it will be just water by the time she gets it.

That's all for now. I'm going to go soak in the tub and hopefully these feet and legs will feel a little better.