Magic in The Skies

One morning as we're driving Ashton to early morning football practice, we saw a hot air balloon. Eli was asking all sorts of questions about it and I only knew a few answers, but to explain air temperatures and hot air rising, was hard for a young one to comprehend.

 So I went home and google hot air balloon festivals. Luckily for me....one was coming up in a few weeks, just 30 minutes from my home. Only downfall, it was at 6:30am!  Because of said football practices and having to get up early for those, the one day this festival was, was on a "day off" (i.e. catch up on sleep day), but I wanted my boys to experience being up close and personal to a hot air balloon.

 and upclose, we were!

 It had mentioned that if you arrive early, some pilots need help crewing the balloons, and because I didn't know what that would entail, I wondered if we'd be taken up a few feet and then let out. THAT would've been cool!

 We found this guy, but he already had a crew. No worries, we enjoyed watching them fill up and take off.

 So close and big, I focused all the way out and still couldn't get it all in one shot.

 THIS was cool! Never seen a one man propelled balloon like that. And totally wished I was sitting there myself! I bet that guy feels like a bird up there in the early morning hours.

 Love the clouds, the rising sun, and the sillouettes. It was a gorgeous morning!

 The boys were more interested in the hill we were sitting upon.

 Maybe cause it was a better view to lay down and watch them float by.

 ...but probably not.

If the opportunity ever arises, it worth the lack of sleep, and cranky kids. I'm making this a yearly tradition!

It's that time again!

They make me heart happy!

Unfortunately, this is pretty much the only thing that made it to planting in my garden. But only because they planted themselves. No garden this year. Just too busy doing other stuff. We'll have pears and walnuts. And eggs. :o) So it wasn't a complete loss. OH...and big pumpkins!

...and since we're on the topic of hair...

I hate sleeping with wet hair because of how it looks in the morning after sleeping on it all night, so I thought I'd try and "curl" it for the morning. I've seen this done before and wanted to try it for myself. I took small sections of hair and just twisted them till they twisted right up to my scalp, then bobbi pinned it.

 It looked kind of cool like that but I'd never be brave enough to wear it out like that.

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 Next morning after taking the pins out.

Cute, wild, weird, messy,.....So I wore a headband that day. It eventually relaxed enough that I wasn't sporting an afro. I'll have to work on it a little more. So the curls are more uniform.

Barber School Graduate

Jared FINALLY finished Barber School. It was only supposed to take him 6 months, but a year later, he completed the task. I will say that it was SERIOUSLY difficult for ALL of us!

 Here he is with most of his instructors.

And his little cheering section!

He now has to take the State Board Test and he will be licensed!!

The longer I keep away from blogging, the harder it is to get back into it. This summer has been insanely busy, so it's not like I don't have anything to yap about. I guess I hesitate saying too much because a lot of potential cake clients still come here, and who wants to know that some crazy person might make their cake. (I'm not really crazy. I don't think) BUT...I'm considering going private for a little bit to get that traffic going to the right place. SO....if you are interested in continuing to hear about my meaningless daily routine. And chickens. Email me your email address and I'll be sure to get you added.

sunny1818@hotmail.com

Pioneer Trek Martin's Cove/Sixth Crossing

Our "families" "homestead. We were on the left. (we shared the vehicle)

The reason we went....to see her

and her.

Cute shot of Mykael's profile. All pioneered n' stuff. She was waiting for the square dancing to get started.

He was made to look like a pioneer. Freckles=authentic frontier mischief.

Frontier Mischief #2

And the ring leader.

Square dancing really was fun. Jaden, surprisingly, enjoyed it the most. He was hillarious to watch because he kept spinning in one direction till people told him to spin the other way....and kept spinning that way till people hollared at him to switch again. He asked if there would be more dancing another night.

6am line up. Heading out on the 15 miler

Wimps  Stowaways

Always needing SOMETHING.

This picture was taken because we had a really well used path to walk on. The early pioneers had this to traverse on.

Someone had to put them to work.

I was surprised on how pretty it was considering all the sagebrush and slow rolling hills.

If ther had been room, I would've crawled in next time him and shared some of his hat shade.

Waterline.

Potty break of such colorful people.

"Parking lot"

This was fun. Muddy. Slippery. Wet.

"Sixth Crossing". Where the Martin Handcart Company was rescued during the winter having lost many of their own and freezing and starving. They had to cross the Sweet Water River 6 times before they were rescued. Hence the name "Sixth Crossing. Because it was so cold, the boots of the men would freeze to their feet. And the ice on the women's skirts would slice their legs like blades as they walked in the snow.

Lunch break

Red Rover. Ash waited the whole time to be called. Never did before we had to head out again.

Beginning of the women's pull. Where the men and boys headed on up the trail while us womenfolk had to pull the carts on our own. It was seriously hard. We had Me, Mykael, Kathy, and Lilli (in the cart) to pull it on our own. My legs were SCREAMING in pain, but I had to keep going. Wasn't the smartest to stop on the middle of a hill and then have to start again. At the time, the men had lined up on either side of the trail and were silent as the women walked through them to the top. I was good until I saw all my boys lined up on the side that the tears betrayed me. Luckily this pioneer had sunglasses to hide it.

What we had already traveled.

Crossroads of the Oregan trail. If you double click on this picture and then zoom in till you can see the first ride, you'll see an elk.

*This is as far as I got with downloading. I've been really tired since we got back. I'll post more, later.