January 2013

Welcome 2013!  This is what we woke up to on New Year's Day!  The boys were thrilled!

January was filled with snow and wind.  What else is new for this area.  Winter is so not my favorite season...especially when all of the snow boots, gloves, hats, etc pile up at the back door.  Not fun!  The boys love it when the snow drifts and Matt enjoyed being able to finally use the tractor to "dig" us out of the drifts.  But before he could do that the boys had to dig the tractor out.  Kind of funny! :)

Chase, Trey, and Layton talked dad into taking them ice fishing at Lake Walcott one Saturday afternoon. It was freezing cold, but they had a fun time.

Some fun pictures of Keely

4 months old

Mom and Declan drawing 

Toward the end of the month we made a quick trip to Boise to see Jordan.  He has just graduated from Coast Guard boot camp and was heading to his ship which was docked in Southern California before heading to Alaska.

Boise

While dad was in Wisconsin for work we took a few days during the first week of August and made a trip to Boise to play.

Time was spent swimming at the "Y"

Neighborhood "National Night Out" party (the local police came and brought along a couple police dogs for the kids to meet as well as the fire department)

Girls Night--mini golf and dessert (Declan had his first taste of lemon)

Lunch at the park and an attempt to swim at Jill's neighborhood pool which was unfortunately closed due to green slime on the surface. The kids made the best of it and played in Jill's sprinklers.

Dinner and bounce house at Derek's dental office--the kids had a blast despite the heat!

Spending time on the deck

As well as runs around the block, watching movies, playing Mario Kart, late nights, playing "What's Yours like?", and so much more! It was a great time with the Barnes side of the family!

Memorial Day weekend

We arrived in Boise at noon on Saturday afternoon just in time for me to run out the door to attend Jaron's high school graduation. It is strange for me to think he is graduating . . . he was 4 when I graduated high school. I don't feel that old, but I guess I am! It was a nice graduation ceremony and was surprisingly short for having more than 400 graduates.
We spent the next couple of hours visiting and doing a late "easter bag" hunt (a Blackhurst family tradition) before heading to Jeff and Amy's house for Deagan's blessing. It was nice to have it in there home. It felt very personal. Matt, mom, Jordan and I stayed up until almost 1 o'clock in the morning playing games (dad joined us for a while but had to head to bed so he could get up for meetings). Sunday evening everyone came over again to create "bunny hutches"--cute, little gingerbread cottages. I think ours won the most creative award. I guess that is what you get when 4 boys start throwing all the candy on without really caring what it looks like. Trey did do something pretty cute and creative though. He took the candy bunny and attached a piece of the edible grass to the rabbits hand and said the bunny was watering the flowers.
Monday was a fun day! We woke up to drizzling rain, but the boys had been looking forward to riding the greenbelt so we deciced to brave the rain anyway I am so glad we did (so are the boys)! It turned out to be perfect. We met at Veteran's Park and rode about 4 miles to Municipal Park where we met Amy for lunch. The kids, big ones included, had a lot of fun playing on the playground equipment. The big kids played tag while McKay, Zander and Maxton spent their time on the swings and slides. McKay preferred to slide headfirst, silly boy. After a while we loaded up and road the 4 miles back to Veteran's Park. What a fun day!
Zander and McKay had fun laying down on the sidewalk looking at the water and worms in the gutter.
Thanks dad and mom for a great weekend!!