Birthday dinner with the Burkes 

Isaiah is my very favorite 14 year old. He stepped into the position yesterday on his birthday.  14?  14!!!!!  Wow.  This year, he wandered around in those size 12 jeans for about a week and then settled into the 14s.  At the end of each meal he asks me what’s for the next one; we are thinking that he must have little side pouches somewhere, like hamsters have in their cheeks, where he hoards food because we can’t figure what the heck he’s doing with it.  No one could eat that often and stay so skinny.  And of all the kids this year, he has changed the most physically – it’s just that time!  I’m not sure how it got here but KABOOM – he’s a young man.

homemade warrior of some kind helmet

 Isaiah is a great kid and a blessing.  Something that has always been evident in Isaiah is how thankful he is. One of our favorite Christmas home videos features him when he was four.  We all crack up, because every single thing he gets (and I mean EVERY SINGLE THING….toothbrush and toothpaste in his stocking, a little Matchbox car,  a kazoo, you name it) he gets all excited, jumps up and shouts “YES!  I’ve been looking for that!!!” like he just got a new puppy.  He requested pecan pie for his birthday yesterday so pecan pie it was.  He thanked me three different times for making them and thanked Elisha just as many for making the crusts.  The Burkes got him a book light and an iTunes card and he was beside himself – he thanked them over and over and was so excited.  I was just really blessed to see such sweetness in him at 14.  

Isaiah is also super motivated, not easily discouraged, and cheerful most of the time.  I know that when I ask him to do something it is as good as done.   Because Isaiah is finished with his work and responsibilities so quickly he often gets more work than the other kids.  I really have to work at not taking advantage of that, because what a bummer it is to get more work for being diligent!  Hm. 

I am so grateful for and proud of my young man.  We are looking forward to the things that are to come with him.  We cannot be more thankful that the Lord has entrusted him to us to raise and love and that he loves us back.  Happy Birthday, Isaiah.  I love you more than you will ever know – my life is infinitely richer because of you.  

Favorites Addendum

I knew I'd forget someone.....Samestate.  Another Skull Church offering.  We bought their album and even though we started out really liking them, they have even grown on us more.  They are in the CD tray rotation a lot lately.  I was feeling very un-loyal leaving them out, so now I feel better.  Thank you for listening.

New Favs

The past two years have been very fun musically.  I was involved in the music/talent industry for a number of years, but once kids started arriving and life became sort of blurry around the edges for a few years, my music repertoire was reduced to the likes of Judy Rogers, Silly Songs with Larry, Go Fish, and Classical Kids (all of which we enjoy!).  About two years ago, with the help of one certain teenager who happens to live here and who lives, breathes, eats, and sleeps (actually, he doesn't do much of that!) music I was happily escorted back to that musical thing that I had been missing.  I am so happy to be home.  It has been a wonderful year of discovering some new musical favorites.  It really started last year at the Crown of the Continent Guitar Workhsop here in the Flathead Valley.  Josiah received a scholarship and we were introduced to Joe Bonamassa....oh my.  Gotta love him.  At the workshop, he played his acoustic and quite honestly, we totally prefer that to his electric stuff.  Amazing.  Then, our lives were changed forever on that fateful Skull Church night in March when Eisley was the guest.  Oh, Eisley, Eisley...it's always an Eisley day in my world.  I love all their songs, all their albums, and everything about them....even Sherry's pink hair! Eisley is a 4 sibling + 1 cousin band who is way beyond creative and talented (and they toured with Switchfoot for a time....that's worth about 400,000 bonus points).  At the dentist's office this year, we discovered Dave Barnes and he makes me oh so happy!  The two albums of his that are my favs, "What We Need, What We Get" and "Stories to Tell" contain not even one un-great song.  Love them all.  Some other favorite discoveries this year include - Down Here (awesome lyrically, musically, performacely - I know, not a word - don't care),  Drew Holcombe and the Neighbors (no idea how we found them, but we are glad that we did!), Needtobreathe (gotta love them), and Ben Rector.  And, I know I probably don't need to mention this, but a Favs list wouldn't be complete without Switchfoot.  I know they aren't a new fav, but every time I see or hear them, their favoriteness is renewed.....again.....weekly......daily.....hourly.  We love their music, their lyrics, who these guys are and what they are doing - what's not to love???  So, there you have it.  There are others, but these are our/my current top picks.  I have been spending all of my Swagbucks Amazon gift certificates on music this year....gotta love free music!!

Taking a ride on the Crazy Train

I did something just a little crazy the day before we left San Diego.  Some of you won’t think its crazy at all…it wasn’t a tattoo or those crazy ear hole things. I have one friend who might just have a different hair color every time you see her AND she has tattoos.  If there are any more of you like that out there tuning in, then just go ahead and laugh at me and my idea of crazy.  I'm okay with that.  So the story is that I have started to get some gray around my temples.  My mom grayed the same way – racing stripes, like Flash Gordon, at her temples.  I have talked about dying my hair for a while when the gray gets bad.  It hasn’t gotten bad yet, but one of the J girls is just about finished with cosmetology school, so it was a good excuse to color my hair while we were in CA.  Brad has always said I ought to dye my hair red just for fun.  He saw some gal on Balboa Island who was a bright red/dark pink that he wanted me to try….um, I screamed and ran away.  instead, Jeriel and I picked out a demi-permanent dye (it will fade over 4-6 weeks) that was my own base color with red undertones.   What we actually got in the end was more mahogany/purple – probably because of how dark my natural hair color is.  So, I now have sort of purple-y hair in the sunshine.  And I really like it (Sharon and Carla – no need for the Oops)!!  So, for someone who hasn't dyed her hair since she was young and single and did if for fun, it feels like I am taking a ride on the crazy train.  Maybe I’ll try pink next time!  Just kidding, Mom!  Maybe green would be better. 

The Long Trip to CA

For those of you who don't know, twice a year, we deliver grass fed/ grass finished bison (and this time beef and Icelandic lamb too) to wonderful people in Southern CA and then stay in our old stomping grounds of San Diego for couple of weeks.  This June, we left Kalispell in a downpour that had already lasted all night and most of the previous day.  We (well, not all of we, actually) loaded the rental truck, our trailer, and the Dunham fun bus with beef, bison and three weeks worth of our stuff in the pouring rain.  Super fun trip already, huh?  We headed out in the rain, got snowed on in Marias Pass, about blew over near Browning, and finally hit sun (and wind) in Valier. Welcome to MT.
After loading up the other 10 ½ beef still at the butcher's (cut and wrapped, of course) we blew into Butte, MT (pronounced byooooooot, but everyone affectionately calls it butt - who could resist?) for the night.  The drive between Valier and Helena is beautiful.  Josiah took these photos of Wolf Creek pass (I think that's where it is). Beautiful.  You probably can't tell in the photo above, but there are little white specks...that's snow blowing sideways.  Then, below, look how sunny it is. Crazy? Yes.

Day 2 we drove from Butte to Cedar City, UT, and then after day three on the road (there are no good photos between southern Utah and our destination unless you like cactus, shrubs, and billboards that I won't let my boys look at) we arrived at "the resort" - the home of our good friends the B's.  More on that later. 

Where are we again?

This would be weird just about anywhere in America except for a zoo, but Elisha and I saw this on a property while driving down a back road between Whitefish and Evergreen.  For those of you who are out of towners – that’s in MT.  Weird or what?  Pretty sure there isn’t snow in the areas where zebra and camels usually live.  Not sure how that will work out for them in winter!!

Dress Up Wars

category: wizards

It started out with just three of them; they amused themselves Saturday with a great idea of Elisha's.....Dress Up Wars. Eventually, Elisha herself jumped in. The idea was to put dress up categories in a hat, draw one out, dress up the best they could and then have Mom judge the best costume. You gotta love it when they get creative and have fun for hours without the use of any technological devices. Here are the categories and winners.

winner: Elias

winner: rockers

winner: Isaiah

category: Medieval

winner: Princess Elisha

winner: Isaiah

taker of blurry photographs: Mom

and an honorable mention: Elisha from the Revolutionary War

category: Star Wars

winner: Micah as Princess Leia as she looked in "The Empire Strikes Back"

category: western (3 cowboys and 1 indian)

winner: tie between Elias and Isaiah

category: rangers (inspired, I believe, by the Ranger's Apprentice books)

winner: Elisha

The category: business people

the winner: Elias. The tie and briefcase sealed the deal

Category: NERDS

Clearly, we have been watching a bit too much of Blimey Cow.