What we've been up to.

This post is going to be a mess- so sorry!  I'm not what you would call very computer savvy.  It's ridiculous how long it takes me to post stuff, which is why I do it like once a month, which in turn could be why it takes so long.  Anyway, my pics are out of order, and randomly placed, but you get the idea. 
So, the last couple months have been busy as usual. Dax's turned one, Mike and i celebrated our 4th anniversary,  and we took two vacations in August.  One to what Mike likes to call it my "Unabomber Cabin" with my family.  It lacks running water and electricity.    We use a natural spring nearby for our water, we cook on a wood burning stove, and use kerosene lanterns for light.  It's quite the shack, but we love it!  
Oh, so good story for you about the trip, there was a black bear and cubs that had a den about 40 yards behind our cabin.  My genius husband and bro Brett heard some rather large animal wrestling through the foliage behind our cabin and decided to go check it out, thinking it was moose or something.  When they were only about 20 yards from it they realized it was a bear and freaked out.  Mike said they just froze out of shock and she slipped back into the trees.  It's pretty dense forest, so they lost sight of her and they started to creep back up to our cabin, when she came out of some trees to the side of them, less then 10 yards away.  Brett was closest to her when she decided to charge them, he took off so fast that he plowed through Mike, knocking him down.  Luckily she was just trying to scare them, because when they both got there wits about them, she had retreated back into the forest.  They did both have guns but said their instincts just said run, luckily they didn't end up shooting each other.  they both have never been more shock, or more terrified before.  They both were shaking for a good hour after.  I say, be careful what you wish for, Mike has always wanted to see something like a cougar or bear.  Every year we go up there he's out in pitch black with a flash light and gun just looking for stuff.  Well he finally found something... and just about loaded his pants!  So lesson learned hopefully, but he is a man and they do tend to forget things quickly. :)  Because the next day Brett and him were down there looking for her, not so close this time though.   We didn't get any stills of her but we got some video, I'll have to have Mike show me how to download it off our camera and post it.  Anyway, surprisingly she stayed back there the whole time we were there.  We would hear her cubs crying in the day, and at night we would hear them around our cabin.  Thankfully she didn't seemed to want anything to do with us.

"You look like a total dork!" - Ed

 I

On Our way up we stopped at the Food Ranch in this po-dunk town.  It was a grocery store and it said on the front, food, sporting goods, and racquetball, we all thought that was so random to have a racquetball court in a grocery store.  So we took some pics in front of it

  The day after we got back from my cabin we drove to Oregon again, on Dax's 1st birthday.  I felt really bad for sticking him in a car for 7 hrs on his special day, but we didn't really have a choice.  Mike only had two weeks off from school, so we were maximizing our time.  This time Mike's parents rented a cabin up at Wallowa Lake, it is so beautiful there!  It's a glazier formed lake that is about 300ft deep. So it's pretty cold, but not too bad this time of year.  The cabin was right by the lake, and there is a bunch of touristy things to do within walking distance.   Like go carts, mini golf, horse back riding etc.  They have this tram that takes you to the top of this mountain. It is the steepest incline in North America, and the view is absolutely beautiful!  At the top they have a restaurant and some hiking. Oh, and tons of chipmunks, that feed out of your hand!  Taylor was in Heaven!   We don't have a lot of pics from there either because we mostly used Mike's dad's camera, being that it is a lot nicer than ours, and we forgot to download them before we left.  So those pics will be posted later as well.   Here are the pics from our camera, they just don't even do it justice.  Tay got to go on her first horse ride, and finally got brave enough to get in a tube behind the boat.

  

 

Taylor also started preschool, and is loving that!

 

Random pic- Mike took the kids to some motocross race couple weeks ago.

Dax, like i said turned 1 on August 18th.  His b-day pics are also on his parents camera.  But he is just started really walking two days ago.  It's crazy how fast they pick it up.  He was just taking a couple steps last week, and now he's walking all over.  He had is yearly check up a couple weeks ago, and it's official his head is huge!  Nah, it's just funny he is in the 25% for height, poor little fella, 10% for weight, and then 65% for his head.  

 

The last couple pics were taken at Antelope Island on Labor Day.  Taylor loves to go see the buffalo so we decided to go out there, not knowing they were having some hot air ballooning and kite flying festival.  It was kinda lame,  they had some creepy clown that Tay insisted getting a pink poodle balloon from.   I wish I would have got a pic of him, he wasn't just creepy clown creepy, more like creepy Chester creepy!  Anyway, we did that, let her ride some little train and then checked out the buffalo.  Good times.

Other than that, Mike is back in school, staying busy with that.  He is doing clinicals at IMC, on the trauma floor.  He's had some pretty crazy stories already, I'm sure there will be plenty more.  But he's loving it!

We've finished watching all episodes of Arrested Development, so now we're watching it again. We just can't get enough!  I'm looking forward to fall T.V. starting again, I've really been missing my shows.   They keep me going through the dark gloomy months of winter.

I've been doing a lot of hair lately, which has kept me pretty busy.   I've also been trying to help my dad paint his house that I started painting for him almost a yr ago, isn't that sad.  I really don't even have a excuse for it taking me so long, other then the couple months after Dax was born being kind of a adjustment.  I just really haven't wanted to do it, but I've made it a goal to have it done before a yr.   Well I think I've made some sort of record for longest/most random post.