Last Minute Camping and the Start of Fall

This will be my last Garden Valley post... at least for today, haha.

A couple weeks ago, Matt, the boys, and I decided to go on a last minute camping trip. We LOVE that our property is close enough to just go up spur of the moment. Since it was just one night, we took a tent, but then also hauled up the Razor. We found a couple of beautiful trails. Our favorite took us to the top of a mountain that had the best views.

And of course, every time we go up, we work on at least one project. Matt has been busy cutting trees both big and small (again, stinkin' beaver!) into smaller sections. The boys and I decided to use some of these to make steps down to the creek.

We also went up again yesterday for Bradley's birthday. We only had a couple hours in the mountains, but we made the most of it by working more on our fort. The leaves are starting to change and the fall light is just so beautiful. I wish I could capture the beauty in a picture.

The Creek

The creek was the selling point of our property, and has easily been the kids' favorite place to hang out. It is nice and shallow (at least at this point in the year) and it's nice to not have to worry about the kids getting swept downstream if they were to fall. They can play in the water on their own (with adult supervision of course) for hours.

Bradley's favorite activity is throwing rocks in the creek. He could probably just sit and do that all day!

Tyler loves floating little plastic boats down the creek... we just have to make sure someone is at the other end to catch them! I bought a bunch at the dollar store - such a great find!

Kylee likes to look for and catch little minnows and frogs.

And I enjoy just sitting in the shade, listening to the sound of the running water and my children laughing and playing. I'm sure Matt would enjoy this too, but he is usually off doing some project while I am watching the kids!

Total Eclipse

There was a lot of hype leading up to the total solar eclipse this year. Our family was pretty excited and joined in that hype by planning a little eclipse-viewing party up in Garden Valley :-) Garden Valley was in the path of totality, and it was the perfect excuse for our first camping trip on our land. We had quite the crew - Matt's parents, Natalie and her kiddos, Spencer, Beki's family, and our friends the Salisburys. Our family was lucky enough to be able to borrow my mom and dad's new trailer!

Notice that all the weeds are gone on our lot (thanks Matt!) and also notice our beautiful driveway. That was another project that Matt and I worked on... it might not look like it, but it was a lot of work. It involved tons of rototilling, rock removal, and raking.

Anyway, back to the eclipse! It really was one of the coolest things I have ever seen in my entire life. I thought it was going to be cool, but I severely underestimated just HOW cool it was going to be. We all had our certified eclipse glasses to watch as the moon started to move in front of the sun.

Mike had also created this cool contraption that showed the crescent shape of the sun.

As the eclipse progressed, you could see crescent-shapes on the ground and on the tents.

Finally, as the eclipse moved into totality, it got really cold and dark! I was told that it also got super quiet, but I wouldn't know because all the kids were so excited and screaming their heads off, haha.

It was truly a once in a lifetime opportunity (unless I want to travel to see future eclipses), and it is something I will always remember. What a special thing to be able to witness from our new little piece of heaven.

Bull Trout Neighbor Campout

You know it's going to be a good weekend when this is the view up and down your street! In July, we went on our second annual neighbor campout. We rented a trailer and headed up to Bull Trout Lake - a little gem of a location close to Stanley. It was the perfect setting, made even better by the fact that we had the entire loop in our campground to ourselves! This was the best decision - it was so nice letting the kids roam and not having to worry that they would bother someone else.

Our camp spots were right on the water, and there were plenty of toys to play in the water with!

Saturday morning, a few of us decided to head up near Stanley to go on a hike. The weather was perfect and the scenery was breathtaking. I was proud of the kids and how well they did (although Bradley and Tyler did end up being carried for a lot of it!).

And you can't have a campout without dutch oven! We had our second annual dutch oven cookoff. My macaroni and cheese was a bust (too salty!) but there was plenty of amazing food - chili and cornbread, nachos, potatoes, sloppy joes, and more macaroni. Yum.

Our family loves camping. We love being out in nature. But camping with friends makes camping even better! Looking forward to next year!

Swimming and Splash Pads!

My kids love summer. They love being outside, and they especially love being in the water. This summer, Kylee and Tyler both did a session of swimming lessons. Kylee is becoming quite the swimmer, and has decided she wants to do indoor swimming lessons this fall/winter, and possibly join swim team next summer. It is nice to have a proficient swimmer - I know I need to still watch her, but it makes taking the kids to the pool by myself (without Matt) a little less stressful!

I loved watching Tyler in his lessons. I was proud of him for finally feeling comfortable putting his entire face in the water.

He especially loved the "horsey rides", haha.

I'm hoping to do lessons with Bradley starting next year. In the mean time, he had fun at our neighborhood pool and enjoyed going to the splash pad!

The Hole

Our backyard has had drainage problems since we moved in. Really, really annoying drainage problems. The first couple years we were here, we couldn't mow like the back 6-8 feet closest to our fence because the grass would have standing water on it. Then, the last couple years, in an effort to not have standing water, the rest of our grass was brown and crunchy because we only watered like 2 minutes a day. Oh, and not to mention the fact that didn't fix our water problems and our trees started dying because of all the water. You would think with all that water that we had been watering like crazy, but I think we only watered like 7 minutes a day, so that definitely wasn't it! I think we are just a low point for all our neighbors and the clay soil here is just so so bad.

After playing with sprinklers and how long they run for the last few years, we decided we needed to do something permanently this year. We originally planned to dig several holes throughout the yard to make drains. We thought if we could use the auger to get about 6 feet deep that the water would drain (we had done this near our raspberries last year and it worked great!). Unfortunately, the auger couldn't get through all the rocks in our dirt. Matt was having to pull the auger out after every half inch of digging so that we could dig out giant rocks. It was sooooo frustrating and so much work, that we just bagged it.

At this point, we had the start of a hole, maybe a couple feet deep, and nowhere near draining. It sat like that for quite a while, and then we started digging by hand. We dug and dug and dug and dug. And this was HARD work! It wasn't just digging dirt, it was using a rock breaker to break up hard clay and help loosen and break up giant rocks. The hole was about 4 feet wide and we dug to 6 feet... then 7 feet... then 8 feet before it FINALLY started draining. Hallelujah! We then dug a trench across the back yard to drain to the hole, made it into a french drain, and we are hopeful our water issues are finally fixed! Our grass this year is still beyond repair where we didn't water it enough, but I am super hopeful for next year that we can keep our grass looking nice all year!

Steam Locomotive and Rooster Tail

Sunday, April 23rd was a fun day for my family (well, at least for the kids and me - Matt had to work). After church, we packed up and headed out to see some fun sights! We first stopped at the Boise Train Depot to see the Living Legend - the historic steam locomotive. It was neat to see this piece of history!

After checking out the steam engine, we headed up to Lucky Peak to see the rooster tail. It has been a long time since I've seen the rooster tail (I'm thinking I saw it when I was a kid? and maybe just from the car?), and my kids had never seen it. After a quick picnic at the park, we were able to walk down the greenbelt to right near the rooster tail, and even feel the mist from the water. It was cooler than I thought it was going to be, and definitely an afternoon well spent.

Snowmageddon 2017

We had SO MUCH SNOW this winter. It was the most in recorded history for our area. It made for such a long winter... We were pretty much stuck inside (hence the lack of blogging - nothing exciting going on!) unless we were out shoveling. We did take advantage of the few occasions that it wasn't so freezing cold we could actually enjoy being outside! The kids had fun building snowmen, going sledding, and playing in the awesome snow cave Matt built (he is such a good dad!). I, for one, am happy the snow has finally melted!