Giving themselves a Time Out

Truck Projects are cool

Smile...

Coming up w Essential Oil Recipes

It's been weeks but the girls finally got together.   They spent the afternoon at Kelli's, making hand sanitizer, body and face oils, and mixes for their diffusers.  They also went on a nature walk, schemed outside by hiding in the sage brush and calling out like hawks whenever a hiker came by, and eating fajitas and ice cream.  It was a pretty good reunion after being apart so long. 

The best part of the day for Kelli was sitting on the deck over dinner, talking.  It is impressive how mature the conversation can get.  Being ten years old is a pretty cool place to be.

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Olivia & Elsinore

little weirdos

COVID Birthday

Elsinore turned 10 and it was an emotional struggle for Abbie and Steve to figure out how to make it special.  There is no such thig as planning in the COVID era.  It feels fine to all get together but you just don't know, and in the end, it was decided it was too soon to have a party with friends.   

The last minute decision was to make it a family event, and Scott & Denise dropped by for a patio pizza.  Somewhat spur of the moment, the Uncles created an ad-hoc zip-line which, aside from the COVID cake, was the highlight.  

The story  went down like this: Scott's gift to Nut was a pulley.  He had seen the photo of her climbing the tree and lowering the food to Juno so he thought she could engineer something more sophisticated.  He suggested to Olivier that the three of them brainstorm the ideas on how to do that but Olivier being Olivier, inserted scope creep.  Before Scott knew it there was a rope involved, the pulley was cast aside for later, and Elsinore was in harness and helmet zipping down her backyard.  It was actually quite hilarious and helped make an otherwise mellow celebration quite exciting. Points for the Uncles!

COVID Cake.  (nice work, Mom!)

Treat Driven

Mushroom Hunting, Movie Watching, Rock Climbing & Biking Birthday

Watching Babe

We got skunked looking for morels but did find some edible false morels.  We figure we were about 10 days too early with the amount of snow that was still around.  Two of the three places we discovered were good finds, though, and we will go back.

Elsi liked this photo because it was as if the flower wanted to model for us.

Recovering from a Parker move.  It was one of a few falls during the weekend (for both Elsinore & Tia) ensuring we had enough bruises to prove we had a good time.

Our intention was to do a little climbing in McCall but there was so much snow still on the road that we couldn't get through.  Spontaneously, we decided to head the back way to Hell's Canyon which was both beautiful and fascinating.  

When we got to Hell's we grabbed our picnic, hiked up, and began climbing.  It wasn't long before the we had to move for more shade because it started to get hot (really hot!).  There's a reason this place has the name it does.

One other discovery we made was a new greenbelt/bike path in McCall. 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ELSINORE!

Celebration Park

After driving around Swan Falls, looking for birds, we went to Celebration Park for a little hiking and exploring of the petroglyphs.  Elsi had been to the park before so she was able to act as our tour guide, which was awesome. 

Looking for Birds of Prey above the Snake RiverUn

Uncle O & Nut