Garden Goods

Spicy tomato soup day is my absolute FAVORITE garden day of the season…mmm.

Tricycle Tour?

We have a new-to-us bicycle trailer for Caleb.  As you can tell from the expression on his face, HE LOVES IT!  He requested, in that oh-so-demanding way a four year old requests what he wants, a ride least four nights in a row and has recently switched to asking for a ride in the foothills behind the mountain bike.  OY!

Change of Perspective

Some days "we" cry because "we" fall in a puddle or get caught in the rain without proper rain gear.  Sometimes "we" can't bear to swim in the Boise River or run through the fountain pictured below because the water is just too darn cold...

Today after a good four hours in direct sun at 95 degrees and in the setting of a somewhat muggy evening, "we" didn't care what "we" were wearing, who saw us or how cold the water was, "we" just NEEDED to get wet.

Pedal Tractor Pull

This summer, Caleb discovered an old pedal tractor of Grandpa Wisconsin's hanging on the wall in his garage.  Caleb firmly, but politely, requested that the tractor be brought down and then proceeded to  spend hours riding first around in circles and then around the block showing off his fancy old red tractor to anyone who would pay attention.

Needless to say, the West Idaho State Fair advertisements included a free kids pedal tractor pull.  Caleb was sold.  It didn't matter that it was HOT out.  It didn't matter that he'd never done it before.  He was going to go to that fair and ride that tractor... and ride it he did!  In fact, he rode so well, the announcer thought he'd been practicing at home (wink wink, nudge nudge, thanks Grandpa WI).

The sled itself weighed 200 pounds.  Being the youngest of those able to ride (ages 4 - 12), no weight was added in the first round.  Caleb pulled a full pull (25 feet).  If you pull a full pull, you get to do it again, but with more weight.  Caleb got to pull in all three rounds ending on a 20 foot pull with an additional 100 pounds added to the sled.

Everyone got a brilliant green ribbon for the effort and my little boy showed his off with a brilliantly proud smile.

Fever Break

Caleb and I have been house-bound for the last two days due to a mild-grade fever. Mild-grade is in some ways the WORST kind of fever, because our dearest Caleb still wants to run and play with full energy but could infect all of his friends while he's at it. So we hibernate. Today, the fever broke and we took a stroll through Ann Morrison Park in search of a fallen stick worthy of transforming into a Nimbus 2000. As per usual, the Boyce favorites of the walk included trees and refreshingly cool water.

The Golden Exit

Traveling by car generally leaves the Boyce family a little disgusted with the dismal dinner choices. At this particular exit, we had the choice of a McDonalds (which was being promoted heavily by the 4yo in the back), a Pizza Hut and a Subway (already eaten at once that day). Low and behold this little gem caught our eyes...AND swayed the train loving 4yo away from the Golden Arches. Totally worth the stray from the norm, we were met with a history of the Sumpter Junction and a model train that navigated a paper mache world of tunnels and hills as well as the ceiling line of the ENTIRE restaurant. The food was fast and reasonably palatable, but the biggest bonus was the energy and excitement the train drummed up for Caleb as a diversion to the 8 hour road trip at hand. Three cheers for the road less traveled!

Golf Camp!

Caleb just finished a week of Golf Camp at Warm Springs Public Golf Course. The young golf geeks take a small group of 4 - 7 year olds and help them practice driving, putting and chipping over four days. Caleb's favorite part was undoubtedly the golf cart ride to an actual hole on the last day, and OF COURSE the daily dole-out of candy at the end of each 45 minute class...

Red Hot Peppers

Some moments are just weird enough that they absolutely have to be shared.  Something about vegetables en fuego is just, well, EXCITING!

Guilty Pleasures or Nerdy Endeavors?

I am officially THAT kind of mother, and let me tell you, it makes the accountant in me GIDDY!

PS. Please note that the English fanatic in me was wildly disappointed with the spelling error as I saw it uploading to the internet.  For those of you who share my disappointment, you'll be happy to know that it was immediately removed and rectified.

Surprise Visitor

The observant one in the family saw this roosting on our house.

Caleb: "Hey mom, you have to see this."

Me: "Sure honey, but I NEED to finish pulling these weeds."

Caleb: "But MOM, you really HAVE to see this."

Me: "I'll be there in just a minute"

Five minutes later

Me: "Oh, it's an owl. AWESOME!!!"

And there we sat for about a half hour just watching it: watching it watch us, watching it blink and watching it turn its head backwards. Given our current Harry Potter fascination, we've named him Hedwig. We've offered for him to stay at our house, right there on that perch, but every time we see him and ogle him for an evening his roost is empty for the next few nights.

Goose Chase ...

Caleb and I spent a good hour in the Idaho Historical Society Library and Archives looking for old pictures of our new 120 year old house.  We found some very nice photos of our neighbor's house, but failed to come up with one of our own. The librarians sent us over to Land Records in the ADA County Courthouse to research the entire line of previous owners.  Apparently around fifty years ago, some extremely detail-oriented person, bless their soul, indexed every newspaper house photo by the name of the builder and owner.  So with a list of owners, we might be able to find some photos.

  Thanks to a very knowledgable and patient clerk in Land Records, we walked away with 11 deeds of sale, listing something ridiculous like 25 different owners dated back to 1900,  just ten years shy of our mark. That's when we lost the trail and had to refer to the actual fiber and ink cataloguing system shown above.  Needless to say, it did not help, but they were most definitely some very charismatic registers.  As for the picture of our house, we've yet to return to the Historical Society with our list of owners, so stay tuned...