SWAGGER WAGON

Watch this, it is great! To all of you who have a swagger wagon out there, you're great too!!!Turn my sound down at the bottom of the page.

Just a bad memory...

    I have postponed writing this, but someday like all of my disasters it will be funny and I will be able to laugh about the happenings of my DISASTERS! I don't want people to think that I have a perfect life, and for my posterity, I am going to write this because someday they will talk about Grandma's disasters and maybe think some of their disasters aren't quite so bad. A couple of weeks ago, we went to Henry's Lake, (check out the previous post.) I guess I am getting ahead of myself, because I must first tell you about a previous disaster. This one happened about 20 years ago and we had been on a trip to the Uintah's and had been gone for about 4 days. We had a great time fishing and camping and when we returned home, we came into the house and found that someone had forgotten to close the back door tightly when we left. We had about 20 to 25 chickens and they roamed freely about the back yard and by the river. We let them roam freely because it was summertime and they kept all of the bugs down around our house. Because some one had forgotten to close and lock the door the wind must have come up and blown the door open. When we walked into the house we found that the chickens had been roosting in the house at night. There was chicken poop everywhere in my house and they especially liked my dropped counter top and stair railing to spend the night sleeping and pooping. I spent months trying to get rid of the green stains in my carpet. I can laugh now, because we live in another house and we have new carpeting and it is just a bad memory.

     Well, fast forward to Monday evening, when we returned home from Henry's Lake. I did notice that the dogs did not come out to greet us. Caitlin had left her 2 dogs and we have 2 dogs and 5 puppies in the garage. I worried a little about not seeing the dogs, but didn't think much about it until I opened the back door and Maggie came running down the stairs. Now, she is the mother of the 5 puppies in the garage and I am sure she was frantic being inside and them being outside. I walked up the stairs thinking Oh, no, the dogs have been in the house the whole time we have been gone! I walked around the hallway and into the doorway of my bedroom and was met with a horrifying sight. Okay, I was hoping to see the sight below, because this is how I had left it.

No such luck, what I saw was this!!!

     The four dogs had been in the house for the 4 days that we were gone. Then the smell hit me and I saw all of the dog poop. Yes, I know dogs need to eat and drink to stay healthy so they had pretty much found whatever they could find to eat, which was mainly oats, pearl barley, wheat pasta, chocolate protein powder, and a box of Snicker candy bars in the bottom of Ryan's closet. Now if you give a dog this diet they are going to be sick and they had, it wasn't just runny dog poop, but vomit as well. Of course, I started screaming and literally was viewing "My Hell!" I really think this is what hell would be like. As Ryan came around the doorway he thought that someone had broken in and ransacked our house.

     The only reason I took pictures is because it was a disaster and I was sure that the insurance was going to have to cover the damage to all of the carpeting in my home. I'm sorry Caitlin, I am blogging about it only because it is pretty unbelievable. Caitlin was feeling pretty bad and responsible, because her dogs were here too. We  started cleaning and I didn't take pictures of every room, I now wish I would have, because it was unbelievable around every turn. We picked up about 3 big garbage bags full of things that had to be discarded and then set about cleaning the mess. Caitlin would not let me touch the carpets, because she was determined that it was her fault and she didn't want me to have to touch the poop. I will be eternally grateful for her and all of the hard work she did that night. She worked her little tail off.(no pun intended) Ryan ran over to the store and got special pet cleaning and deodorizer. He cleaned all night as well. We didn't find Lola (Caitlin's bulldog) until later when, we found her locked in the pantry.  You can imagine what the pantry looked like.

I was glad that it had rained while we were gone because the little puppies at least had some rain that had drizzled through the garage door and they were able to lick it up.

This is what the master bathroom looked like if you notice there is no toilet paper left on the roll and I think every magazine I had in the house was dragged into the bathroom.

 Again, I can't thank Caitlin and Ryan enough for all of the hard work that they did that night. Caitlin vacuumed and cleaned every carpet in my house! There were some stains that I thought she would never be able to get out, but after she was finished my carpets looked better than they did before. So, thanks Caitlin, I love you for all of the hard, stinky, work you did that night.

Now, isn't that better!!!!!

Henry's Lake!

Over Memorial day weekend the Jones' had a family reunion. Everyone was there except for Jon and Mel's family and they just moved to Nebraska, so I think they were a little tired of being in the car and traveling. Next year, maybe all of us can be there! We drove to Henry's Lake and rented a lodge that had 11 beds in it! It had 4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms and plenty of space for all of us to sleep in a bed and stretch out. I think even some of the beds were empty, ( that's amazing!) It was a cold rainy weekend but we didn't let that spoil our fun.

Here is McKenly and Caitlin having some fun! There are a lot of pictures so get ready for the show!

There was a hot tub right out side the door so the boys thought that was pretty fun

We celebrated Rainee's birthday and she made this great Cold Stone concoction. It was German Chocolate cake and she mixed brownie, pecans, coconut, and Carmel into chocolate ice cream and it was "To die for".

On Saturday the fishing season opened and these die hard fishermen were up at the crack of dawn to get a jump on those biting fish. I think it was 36 degrees outside but this didn't slow them down. Don't you love Nate's "stretchy pants!"  We just wished we looked that good in them!

Here is the crew ready to go! Kace is still in his pajama's, he just wanted to get in  the picture.

Yes, it was freezing!

Later on in the day it warmed up so we went outside exploring, here are the 6 ban dido's doing what they do best, posing and climbing!

The fishing was good even though it was so cold they had a difficult time holding on to their poles!

Here is Rainee and McKenly, I have a hard time getting a good picture of McKenly because she loves to pull these funny faces and when she looks at the camera she starts to go cross eyed and her eyes get really big trying to focus on what I am doing!

On Saturday afternoon the fishermen were froze so we decided to go into Yellowstone Park. At Old Faithful it was snowing until right before the geyser was to erupt. Evan wouldn't look at the camera because he was afraid he would miss the geyser going off. He stared at it for ten minutes watching very intently and kept asking if it had gone off yet.  Then right before it erupted he said"Grandma I need to go potty!"  We convinced him to hold it because he would miss the whole show! Doug then quickly ran him to the bathroom.

Kace and Carson striking a funny pose. We had to have our traditional ice cream in the lodge, even though it was cold, the ice cream is delicious, Thanks, Grandpa. A funny story about the ice cream. The boys all had their cones and went out by the large rock fireplace in the lodge to finish eating their ice cream. I looked over to see Tydon on his hands and knees licking the floor. ( I wish I would have had a picture!) I guess he dropped some of his ice cream on the floor and didn't want to miss any of the goodness. Rachel then yelled at him to stop! and then Kace who was standing next to him said, "It's okay he learned it from my Dad!' Then Nate said, "No, I just do it on the counter, not on the floor!" It was pretty funny to see the old people's faces sitting in the chairs by them. Mary and Isaac were sitting in the chairs by all of the boys and the people around them commented on how many boys they had. ( They thought all of them were theirs!)

Here we are in our familiar picture taking place!

Here is a cute headband that Jessica gave McKenly.

Grandpa and McKenly.

After church on Sunday, Oh, by the way, in the Island Park ward on a holiday Sunday there was about 3500 people there! We saw the Taggert's from Liberty and they were all there with their family as well. It was good to see them, their family all grew Up! On Sunday afternoon we had a game marathon playing Bang! and the Great Dalmuti! Sorry, Mary for shooting you in the game, Bang but I was pretty sure you were the Renegade and the Sheriff can't take his chances with those type of people.

Isaac played a great "Pecan" in the game the Great Dalmuti. Pecan was the word Kace used for "Peon". I decided if Isaac was the "Pecan" I might as well be the coconut!

This out side the Lodge where we stayed and the gazebo thing to the left is the hot tub.

The sun came out and we decided to take a walk.

The lake is beautiful and there are tons of pelicans.

The boys loved looking at the fish, there were many that you could see from the bank that were spawning.

Here is Bryce checking out the "Dead Tish Head". I think he is going to grow up to be a plumber!

Mac and Jessica jumping with the boys, there is that plumber Bryce again.

We had to have a silly group photo, those are the ones that we do best!

I didn't realize how much like Father, like Son, these two really are. They even sleep the same!

Layne caught a fish!

This is the before picture!!

This is the after picture! Caitlin had a hard time getting out of the boat and she got dumped in the lake. Sorry, Caitlin! Now it is funny but it scared her pretty good.

Grandpa and Tydon.

The Fishermen.

Evan is determined he is not going to look at Grandma's camera!

Tydon was so cute with McKenly, here he is rocking her to sleep.

WE had a great  time and it was so fun to vacation all together!

Happy Birthday Rainee!

Today is Rainee's birthday! She is the oldest of my three daughters and is the wife to Doug and the mother to 4 boys and now a girl! She lives in Reno Nevada and we wish she was closer but she makes every effort to come and be with us, which we are very happy for.

She is a great Mom and her house is always full of lots of activity (you can imagine with 4 boys.)

She is always busy with taking her boys to all of their sporting events and many of her days are full of repetition. I think all Mom's at sometime or another feel like they are in the movie "Ground hog Day".

This last picture is a picture of 4 generations of first born daughters. We are so happy that she got a first born daughter! We love Rainee and hope that her day is full of happiness and birthday surprises and if she doesn't get to celebrate her birthday we will help her celebrate this weekend!
Have a great day Rainee!

Happy Birthday Dad!!

Today is my Dad's birthday and we all want to wish him a very HAPPY DAY!

If you know my Dad you already know what a great man he is. He has always been a man I look up to, I guess literally because he has always been taller than me. I wish I could have known him when he was younger because seeing old pictures of him he was a real heart breaker. He is still the most handsome grandpa, great grandpa, and Dad out there. We all love his stories that he tells, especially those about the 3 toe grizzly and the grand kids all have memories of helping him with the sheep. He is a great athlete and still can outwork anyone his age. I learned my work ethics from him and I will always be grateful for that.

He now spends time with his great grandchildren and they love him as much as his grandchildren do. He has a great heritage and it just keeps growing and we will always be so grateful for him and the great example he has been to all of us!

So, Happy Birthday DAD! Hope you have many more birthdays with us!!

Ellis Island

After we finished at the statue of Liberty we took the ferry over to Ellis Island. That was quite fascinating to see how the immigrants who came to America in the early history of our nation were treated.

It is quite a grand building and I wish I would have known if any of my relatives came to America through this island because I would have loved to look them up on the computers they had there.

Does it look like Caitlin is holding up the world! The statistics and displays in the museum there were quite interesting and I really liked the one below where the pictures of people from all over the world are then changed to a picture of the American flag depending on where you are standing in the room.

See, here is the flag view.

The brick work and tile in this building is amazing, I don't know if you can see the tile on this arched ceiling but someone had to probably stand on there head to put each of those little tiles on the ceiling and make sure they stayed where they were supposed to stay!

Here is a view of the Island on the ferry.

And here is another view of that grand hall, I am supposing all of those immigrants were herded into. I am glad that I was born in America and didn't have to go through this process. I guess I am glad this isn't how

we still do it.