Headed to momma's tomorrow!

Will be home Monday. have a good labor day weekend, ya'll.

Venting about the Ripple Effect

Overall, it feels like a pretty good year, except the HS band is missing some key players. The admin. and coaches decided it is required for the kids involved in sports to take weight training. They can do it before school (ever heard of a HS student get up EARLY?), after school (which is during their sports activity) or during the day. The times offered during the day are the same times as other required classes OR band. So, I have virtually no trumpets or trombones in band this year. The admin. just sort of raised their shoulders and gave the standard reply, "that's their option". Okay. How am I supposed to build a band program when extra curricular sports affect the schedule? It has a ripple effect on everything.

2624 US FATALITIES IN IRAQ!

OVER 130,000 INNOCENT IRAQI CIVILIANS KILLED.
66,000 US TROOPS WOUNDED...

THE LIST GOES ON AND ON....

Smoke from Idaho Fires

make an incredible sunrise.

2619 US FATALITIES IN IRAQ

1st day back to school with kids!

184 more days to go!

Randomness

Devil's lane is where we went and got firewood today. You can see by the sign what the elevation is. I think that's why I got tired a bit faster than normal...not as much O2 in the air @ 8,592!


















Devil's Lane is on the Gravely Range. Here is what it looks like when you glance back towards the Madison Valley, where we live. The dark winding Madison River meaners to the canyon where it is, unfortunatly, dammed. Nice view, but as you can see, the sky isn't as blue as normal due to the forest fire smoke filling the air.







Here is our new Silverado, and we totally love it. It is roomie enough for us to stretch our long legs, but the BEST thing is the DUAL (rather than DUEL) CLIMATE CONTROL!










Husband keeps his side iceberg cold and I am SO grateful to be able to keep my side toasty with the heated lumbar seats warming my bum bum.! The Z71 is used, but in mint condition. I love the leather interior and all the whistles and bells that comes with an LT.










Now take a moment to look again at husband...as he looks a little grouchy. Are we in agreement that he looks a little cranky? Well... he drove the pickup off the car lot, called the insurance company, hung up the phone and BAM! out from the hospital parking lot comes an old '71 Ford and there is no time for Scott to stop. I'm talking literally...1 1/2 blocks from the dealership...our beauty ran onto a beast! An elderly man with an oxygen tube in his nose and liver spots all over his hands and arms proclaimed, "I don't know where you came from!



Black Beauty goes in next week to get her bumper and hood fixed, and a grill guard put on. The poor ol' guy's 1971 Ford F150 has a totalled front end. Scott was INCREDIBLY mad, the old man was shook up, but the UPS witnessed everything so it's all straight forward. NEVERTHELESS, not good timing! MY HUSBAND IS STILL GROUCHY! lol















Back to our firewood-getting drive today. Just thought I would take the pic because....it states the obvious. This is a road that went off the 2 track we were already on. ( Is the sign necessary? lol)

PRIMITIVE ROAD

umm, yeah, okay.








A view from the top. If you look in the middle of the skyline, the pointy peak is called SPHINX. If you recall, about a year ago, we hiked up there. (I was going to make a link to it, but I forgot that I deleted my archived posts.) Majestic and breathtaking. If you look carefully, to the peaks on the left (Cedars and Fan mountains) you can see the snow that came a couple of weeks ago.











Here is a dumb cow that stood, baffled, beside the road. She couldn't figure out how to cross because we were temporarily parked on the road, right in the main cow trail crossing that leads to the water hole.












Here is the wood we carried and rolled...and carried and rolled and carried and rolled to the truck and trailor. 1.3 cords.







It was a good day.

new post in the morning!

Happy Birthday

JOLENE! (meanie aka chuckie's maw maw)! Here's some chocolate mousse torte cake for you! (hope you don't mind I stole a piece already!)

Friday night,

we headed down to Jackson Hole, Wyoming. For those of you that are unfamiliar with our neck of the woods, Jackson is a year-round vacation place for many. It is just south of Yellowstone Park and the Grand Tetons.

Many people come to Jackson in the winter because of the incredible extreme skiing.
This is Corbet's Coular, named for the famous Olympic skier, first to win 2 Alpine Golds.

Obviously, we weren't there to ski, but we were at the resort, named Teton Village. In the summer, they tram rides.


For 21 bucks, you climb aboard this little "bus" and go from about 6000 ft to almost 11,000 feet, elevation. You can see an incredible amount of distance, and of course, the countryside is just gorgeous.













Here are our friends, Bob, TLS (the lovely Sandra), their children- Matthew and Katherine, at the top. It wasn't too cold, like I thought it would be. The sun is incredibly intense at this altitude, so we're all soaked in sun screen.
There is a bit of snow in the background, and one person that rode the tram brought up his snowboard to hike over and board on it. We chuckled about that!

So anyway, here we are, up on top, with lots of other people. They cram 60 on the tram in the winter with all there skiis, but in the summer, there is only about 40 or so that go up. There are a couple of trails to walk around on, and once again, the high terrain is gorgeous, but the low amount of oxygen in the air is apparent!






Rough and rugged, eh?











But one of the coolest things were watching those who rode up with these HUGE back packs. They were actually parasails. With it all layed out (one or two at a time) they would take off running, the wind would catch them and OFF they would sail into the wind. Some would catch the drafts and actually gain altitude before going lower. Eventually, they would to the bottom. One of these riders is a 10 year old girl! (riding in front on the RED parasail) She sure runs in the right crowd!







So, after we rode the tram back down the mountain, we ate lunch and looked around at the shops, and the different displays at the Arts Festival. And I am pleased to inform you that I got some new flip flops (LOVE THEM) but guess what? They are CROC brand, so comfy, now I just can't even take them off!





















Oh yeah, back to the FRI/SAT event. Where were we? Oh yeah, Teton Village. Perhaps time for a little trivia. The Tetons were named by French Explorers. I'm thinking they were quite lonely for women with an incredible imagination..."Teton" means beaufitul tits. Umm, do you agree? Looks cold and rugged to
me...perhaps pertaining to a witch?

Teton Village is also the location of the summer performances of the Teton Symphony and the Grand Teton Music Festival. If any of you listen to NPR, once a week or so, you hear the Teton Symphony (on "PERFORMANCE TODAY"). An oustanding group.







Okay, back to the fun. So we shopped, looked around the buildings, watched people play frisbee with their dogs, lacrosse with their kids and eat yummy buffalo cheeseburgers! We sat in the shade, drinking lemonade after lunch and saw something from a distance that really caught our eye. After meandering along the sidewalk, checking out the regs, waiting in line for 25 minutes, Katherine was able to participate in the bungee trampoline. These kids go clear up past the poles! They did back flips and front flips and all sorts of stuff. Katherine looked a little scared. No one really knew if she liked it or not, until she started crying really hard, wanting to do it again! Guess she liked it!

So, by now, we are somewhat exhausted and are ready to go home. We had a 3 1/2 hour trip ahead of us, but decided to take a scenic byway (although the scenery of the main route was quite nice). We came upon the Mesa Falls.


The private land originally purchased in the early 1900s, was planned to be made into a hydro-power plant. It never happened, and the land was eventually traded to the Forest service in the 1980s. They did a nice job with making a walking path down to it. There are actually 2 different falls. The whitenoise sound was so soothing.

Well, that concludes most of the trip. It was interesting, as we drove by our own mountains, they had gotten some snow, over night. And the air has gotten quite smokey from forest fires. It is apparent by the lighting...
And after returning home, I jumped with joy to see my morning glories had finally started to bloom.

And the moss roses, poppies and petunias are lovely.




Have a lovely day!

I really miss him.

It is soothing to see pictures of him and his cute ears, but it just hurts so bad. Haydootie, you were a good ol' boy.

My week at mom's house!

Last Thursday, I did a little traveling. I jumped in my little trusty Toyota Camry and headed on down the road. After 3 1/2 hours of driving, I picked up Megs (who was having a VERY difficult time). We went another couple of hours driving along and landed at mom's house, where she and my oldest sister, Pennie, reside.


During this time, we celebrated Jolene's birthday (meanie's maw maw),


met her new friend, Mark.

Megs and I went swimming out at the lake,

and had wonderful visits. We also saw some family friends that I hadn't seen for 20 years.

Thanks Pen and mom! We had excellent visits...

a great time! Love ya!

new post tomorrow...

Why does money

have such an ebb and flow to it?