Arrow of Light

Porter earned his Arrow of Light on Tuesday! He loves scouts and everything he learns there. Some times when I need him to do a better job at something, I will ask him what the motto for scouts is...Do Your Best and he will change instantly, it's powerful. I love what President Benson said about scouting, "It's better to build boys then to mend men." That is so true. What an amazing program scouting is, even the people that are so against the church will let their kids come to scouts and we can talk about prayer and God because the B.S.A. includes it as part of the program. Any way I do have a testimony of scouting...I know round table has a bad rep. but Brother Dalquist (the old presiding Bishop) said, "if you have ever gone to a bad round table go again, if it is bad, go again, if it is still bad, VOLUNTEER!

Memorial Day

We went riding with the Power family and then had a b.b.q. at their house, the food was sooo good! Raygn was a little scared to ride down in the crater so Ryan helped him and Raygn made it tears and all and then had a ball. I am not a very experienced rider so I was a little nervous in the sand. It was fun, my kids want to go back!

Porter turns 11

Porter had a birthday on Friday, he was so excited to not have to go to school on his birthday! We went to the show and then out to eat for his birthday. We got home at 11:00 and the kids were asleep so we had cake and ice cream & opened presents the next day. (I did ask him if he wanted to open his presents before the show but he wanted to wait.) He said his b-day wasn't until 9:59pm, when he was born! He is such a good boy. He is growing up. Ryan told him to go start a pivot and check somethings on the farm and I really couldn't believe he knew how to do everything. I love you tons Porter. What a good boy you are!

Track & Field, Swimming @ Nat-Soo-Pau

I don't have very many pictures this year of Track and Field day because I tried to video all their events. It is always a fun day for the kids...well I did have one little girl tell me she got last in every event. ( I told her it was o.k. because she still competed in every event and finished them.)
Then the last day of school the kids got to go swimming if they met their A.R. goal. My kids did...Porter just for the last semester had over 400 points. He is an amazing reader, have you ever read 20,000 legends under the sea? I haven't! No I didn't throw anyone in the pool this year. O.K. if you call this it, I guess I did. I had Kyle Perron come up to me and say, "Mindy how come you haven't thrown anyone in this year?" I told him to put his shoes down and threw him in, he was just getting out so he was already wet!
Come to find out Janace Astle had brought her bandanna just in case I did this year & she wouldn't have to steal Aleigha's again!!

Famous Idaho potato Marathon

Waiting for the start!

Ready. Set. Go...after about 35 sec. or more we crossed the starting line.

I ran the 1/2 Marathon in Boise yesterday with my friend Dolly. I placed 19 of 111 in our age group. I ran it in 1:52:09, I felt really good and am a little sore, stairs are hard, but NO VOMITING!!! If you know me, I do that often after I run, this time I was in better shape and felt good. Dolly is so tough and at 4 miles she started feeling blisters on her feet. At 6 miles she started to slow down a little and she told me to keep going. She finished and had about 6 or 7 blisters on her feet with one popping and bleeding. She is so tough. We have been running together once a week for about a month and a half. She is a good running partner, she placed 49th of the 111 & had a time of 2:08. Thanks Dolly that was fun!

We went down the night before and we were so nervous we had a hard time sleeping. We were talking and then my dad (who came with us last minute) kept waking me up with his snoring. We finally did get to sleep & were up/awake by 5:30/6:00. Thanks dad for driving us to the start and taking pictures of us!

On our way home

On our way home I wanted to stop and get a picture of the sun going down...By the time I pulled over & ran up to the tracks this is what was left. It was still pretty. I love the sunsets and sunrises out here. Then Addie wanted to take every one's picture! She loved her funny face, she is a lot of fun. We went to twin, got her pictures taken, run errands, go out to eat, & then violin lessons.

Ryan's thunb

On Friday Ryan broke his thunb. You can see the break up at the top, it's at the start of his nail bed. He was doing something with a valve and it fliped bach and pinned his finger to the metal stop...or something like that! He only had to get one stich, he never took any pain medicine(I even had one of his two filled and he wouldn't take them.) He's pretty tough!

Yard work & 4-h pigs

We are building a deck & fixing the windows in our kids bedrooms downstairs. Ryan was digging out around the windows, and planning out how things were going to look. Logan wanted to stop for some lunch...(cereal) so Case and Aleigha joined him!! Thanks for sharing Logan.

We needed to weigh the 4-h pigs to see where they were. I let the kids take my bathroom scales out there but the pigs were to big for them, they had to call Ryan to come help. He just lifted them up by their hind legs and stood on the scales. They are growing fast, eating a lot of feed. We only have one bag of feed left so I was telling the kids that I would get them more, (I needed to know where they wanted me to get it.) They called around to see what everyone's prices were. Porter called a few stores and this is what he would say. "Hi this is Porter, I am in 4-h, can you tell me how much your pig feed is?" It was really cute to listen to him. They would usually ask him if he wanted grower or starter and he would ask them if they gave him the 4-h discount! I thought that was a good experience for him. Now we know where to get pig feed!

Boise Zoo

The kids got to go to the Zoo in Boise with the school. I am so thankful for my little kids...that they still want me to come on their field trips with them! We had a good time. Heather was thoughtful and called Jocelyn to come meet us there, that was fun we got to hang out with Fallon and her for the day.


Aleigha was scared of everything but the little prairie dogs, she loved them!
I thought it was cool...another day at the zoo! Thanks Dolly for going with me!