our little ducky

 

Memorial Day Traditions

Ryan’s family has an awesome Memorial Day tradition and we were lucky enough to be here to be a part of it this year. Our day went a little like this:

At 10am, we headed over to the cemetery to clean up the Bedke lot. We weeded and raked and left flowers and raked again. It was a lot of fun and the final product {the top left picture} looked awesome. Really…you should have seen the “before”.

 

While we were working hard, Harper napped a little and watched us from in the car:

She was so perfect all day. She hardly made a peep until our last cemetery visit at about 7pm {and rightfully so}.

After we cleaned the lot, we walked around the cemetery. Ryan’s parents and grandma told stories of and our relationship to the different people who were buried there. I’ve decided that we really are related to everyone in town!

After the cemetery tour, we headed to Grandmas for yummy bbq’d burgers. There’s seriously nothing like lunch/dinner at Grandma's house!

At about 4pm we headed out to visit 3 other cemeteries in town. We walked and/or drove around and continued to hear stories of everyone. It was fun to make connections and look at birth/death dates and imagine up stories of people we never knew. It was seriously just so cool!

Harper loved sitting up front with Grandpa and honking the horn while daddy loaded the car.

This is the “hidden” cemetery that none of us had been to before. It’s in the middle of a field and very random. If you didn’t know it was there, you’d miss it! It was really neat though. There were a lot of really old headstones.

It was a loooong, but very fun day. I loved learning more about the family roots and the people from this community. We seriously live in the best place in the world!

I’m excited for a repeat next year.

 

the asparagus hunt

have you ever had wild asparagus?

neither had i. until ryan introduced me to a whole new world of asparagus hunting. it grows here along some of the canals…kind of randomly. unfortunately, we were a little late in the season and I think most of it was picked over or dead or something. but we found about 10 asparagus on our hike along the canal. we fried them up in a little concoction of olive oil, butter and garlic and YUMMY!!! it was so juicy and delish.

cowboy with asparagus. perfect.

the {lil} family getaway 2011

we took a mini family getaway up to Boise to visit our friends, the Stokes, and watch Ryan’s sister run in state track. it was a much needed lil getaway and we had a ton of fun!

Harper had so much fun with Kerrigan and Tucker. it’s so adorable how much she lights up when she’s around other kiddos. she’s always so smitten by little people. i thought this video was super cute:

we loved visiting with Jared and Lindsey, bbqing, staying up late chatting and watching movies, and all that fun friend kinda stuff that we so deeply miss. in fact, we were enjoying it so much we stayed an extra night! thanks guys!

we had some great weather at state track. Addie did awesome and walked away with 3rd in 100m hurdles, 4th in 4x100 relay and 8th in 300m hurdles. we are so proud of her!

 

Kerrigan, Tucker and Ryan in between races. check out that blue turf!

 

Harper had fun sitting with grandma and grandpa. she never lacks attention with so much family around!

let’s do it again next year, ok addie?!?

 

6 months already?

Harper is 6 months today!

How did this happen? While Jaden was here, it was so hard for me to even picture her being as little as he is. I’ve already forgotten! It’s horrible. She’s just growing too quickly. Although, I’ll admit, I wouldn’t change it. She just gets more and more fun everyday. But I’m still voting for that pause button every once in awhile.

Here are a few pictures I took this week:

{Disclaimer: I don’t profess to be a photographer or know anything about photography, so don’t judge me. I just picked up my good ol’ point & shoot and did just that…point and shoot. Thankfully my subject is gorgeous!}

 

what is so funny?!?

Watch this video to find out what makes Harper laugh hysterically:

And one more just because it’s so darn cute!

She seriously laughs like this {if not harder} every single time she sees someone shooting hoops.

Who knew basketball was so stinkin’ funny?

Fun with the Fam

We’ve been in civilization for about 2 weeks, although you’d never know by my lack of online presence. We’ve just been mighty busy and having too much fun to get on the computer. The last couple weeks have consisted of:

• meeting Harper’s new cousin (see this post)
• attending lots of Aunt Addie and Uncle Curtis’s track meets
• hanging out with family
• watching the branding (see this post)
• lots of cooking and cleaning
• organizing Grandma’s food storage
• celebrating Aunt Brooke and Grandma’s birthdays
• celebrating our Moms and Grandmas
• Jaden’s blessing
• and tons more…

Yes. That is a kit kat bar in Harper's mouth.

I’m not gonna lie it’s been very nice to be in civilization for a little while. We’ve enjoyed visiting with family and getting a few projects done. But, I think next week it’s back to the middle of nowhere.

Harper meets Jaden

Harper finally met her first little cousin last week. She was quite fascinated with him and loved to give him very slobbery wet kisses on his head {that involved a lot of licking}.

Jaden’s parents were brave enough to let her at him. This was the result:

{Warning: It’s about 3 minutes long…so kinda long but HILARIOUS!}

it’s a cowboy life

I was able to get in on some branding action last week. Are you confused? Wondering what the heck I’m talking about? Well, let me explain:

This winter, Ryan has been feeding the cattle and keeping tabs on the births as you’ve read about several times. Well, when spring rolls around it’s time to process the calves and then turn all of the cows loose to graze in the mountains until next fall. The “processing” involves giving shots and marking the calves so they can be identified. That’s what is taking place here:

It’s quite the process and way fun to watch!

And did I mention how hot my hubby looks riding a horse and roping calves in his cowboy gear?

Cowboys are just plain sexy. Can I say that? Well, I just did.

morning snuggles

this is what it looks like at our place at 7am:

 

a little snuggling during scriptures.

not to mention the awesome bedhead.

love it!

Easter 2011

We had a great time celebrating Easter with the Bedkes this year. We’ve never been home for the weekend long festivities because we’re usually living somewhere across the country so it was so fun to get in on it. On Saturday, we decorated Easter eggs and had an Easter egg hunt. Grandma hardboiled a dozen eggs for each of her grandchildren and great grandchildren for decorating {note: that is A LOT of eggs}. Harper loved watching, but mostly just wanted to eat the eggs. As for the Easter egg hunt, I’ve never seen anything like it. The aunts and uncles hide plastic eggs that grandma fills with candy, chocolate and money. There were eggs hidden in cow poop, buried 1 ft in the dirt, on the roof, pretty much anywhere you can imagine. It was seriously what I would call Extreme egg hunting. And it was so much fun! But mostly entertaining just to watch the cousins kill each other to get the money filled eggs!

On Sunday, we had an amazing dinner and visited with all the aunts, uncles and cousins. Harper had a blast playing with everyone and getting tons of attention. We can’t wait until next year!