Earlier this summer, for Father’s Day Weekend, Hublet and I met up with his brother and sister and their families for a camping trip in the Sawtooth mountains.  It was a wonderful time together, the weather was “iffy” but it rained mostly at night and just sprinkled once in a while during the day.  The campsite had a marvelous view of the mountains and was by a stream.  We spent some time at the Alturas Lake beach the first day and on the second day Hubster and I took a hike while the others went their various ways.  At night it was sitting around the fire and card playing tournaments in our campers.  Here are some pictures:

On the shores of Alturas Lake.

Alturas Lake beach

Alturas Lake Outlet

Lake Perkins

River Views

Camper Round Up

Hublet and the boys!

Food was deliccious!

Meadow Flowers

Mountain Flowers

Purple Vioet

Indian Paintbrush

Wild Strawberries

Shooting Stars

Elephant Heads

Meadow Flowers

Rain clouds over mountains!

Mountain Majesty

Zoomed in Mountain

Pine Tree Roots

Summer is flying by and soon it will be August!  It goes so quickly!!!  I wanted to catch up a bit so am mostly going to post pics:

Early morning June walks:

Early morning fog

Pink Clover Up Close

Lovely Pink

Beauty

We hiked up to Blue Lake with some good friends and took so many wonderful pictures:

Lakeside Smiles

Such Cuties

Hubone and me

There were so many flowers:

And some great scenery and interesting rock:

Then we moved into the 4th of July which means Cascade Parade, hot temps, and fireworks!

!

Next, we had our good friends, (Rob’s college roommate and his wonderful wife) come from Nebraska!  We laughed and played and tried to cram in as much as we possibly could in our few days:  We started by going on a canoe trip to Cabarton Bridge.

Crazy, beautiful sky giving us some nice shade once in a while!

The wifey’s got to sit in the “Hospital Chairs” and enjoy the scenery! (Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it!!)

Then we took them up to Camp Perkins and we frolicked up there!!

Sawtooth Mountains! They still have my heart!!

This is the meadow that we use to walk to when we lived at camp. It is timeless and beautiful with the river flowing through it.

A little cuddle time in the meadow.

Meadow Selfie!!!!

We had a fun night playing cards before we had to go back home the next day!  We got a little silly!

The middle of July found me heading back up to the Sawtooths with my sweet Sis-in-Law for our annual girlie camp – 40goinN!  As usual, we had a blast with lots of laughs and some sweet times of heart sharing.  Most of these pics were taken by Kel.

Starting out – so clean and tidy!

Setting up camp!

Fun started out quickly!

Me and my partners in crime.

Group Pic first night!

Breakfast cheers!

Second night costumes. War Nurses!

Some other outfits!

Group picture 2nd night!

A morning “Get Up”

Last night festivities my character was “Teacup Lady”. I was a woman of “Ill Repute!”

Last night group picture!

Here are some more early morning doggy constitutional  pictures.  I am so thankful for those two darlings that get me out so early!

Quote from Ann Voskamp’s THE BROKEN WAY, pg 125

“I don’t know how to love like I want.  I don’t know how to smooth out angst or stress or worry, but I know you either leave your worries with God or your worries will make you leave God.”

True Words!

Kimmy

Okay!  Once again I have to apologize for being so far behind.  I am working on getting caught up in so many areas and this is one for sure.  We have had such a busy spring, and early summer and now I find that we are in the second half of July and it has taken me by surprise.

I am posting some early June pics just because I want to share the glory of God.

Pine Tree Wonder showing the new growth and buds.

White Flower Beauty

Queen Annes Lace

Snowball Bush Viburnum

Yarrow

Bridal Veil

A Study in Green

Green Baby Currents

Colorful Flowers

Brilliant Oriental Poppy

Popping Pink Peony

Lupine

Wild and Not So Wild Creatures

Jimmy Fasa Snoozin in the Orchids

Sandhill Crane on the Airport Runway – I hope he filed a flight plan.

Last but not least some countryside pics.

Rays out of the Clouds

Clouds Over the Mountains

Full Moon Setting on Snow Covered Mountaintop

Early Morning Full Moon River Reflection

That’s all for now but I hope to be back soon!

Kimmy

It is so easy to fall…  fall down the stairs, fall over a bump, fall under the table, fall into a swimming pool…

Rising up is not as easy!  Pulling yourself up by “your bootstraps” takes effort, dragging yourself out of bad situation takes guts, rising above temptation takes willpower…

A dear friend posted on her Instagram that she used to think of self-control/self-discipline, as a form of punishment.  But now she sees it as a gift.  These words made me really stop and ponder… (After all self-control is listed as a fruit of the Spirit!)

Lately, I have been working on loosing weight.  It has been about giving up sugar, (my major downfall), gluten, grains, and some dairy.  It’s been about eating less, drinking at least a gallon of water a day and getting a good night sleep.

Bottom line, it is about self-control.

I am having to use willpower and self-discipline.  I’ve been pulling myself up by my bootstraps and trying with all my guts.  My reasons why have been a good motivation.  Being healthy at any age is worth any amount of work it takes to get there.  BUT I have also been thinking about this hard work as a punishment for my lack of self-control.   If it is a gift to use, this self-discipline stuff, then why am I looking at it as “my just desserts” for my overeating?  It is time for an attitude adjustment and long overdue!  Maybe it is about reminding myself that, with God’s help, all things are possible.

Anyhoo!  Moving on to my point!  As I stated earlier falling down is easy.  Rising up is hard work.  With it being the season of Easter we put our minds to the Risen Christ!  His hard work, his suffering, his death on the cross was not easy.  It took self-control to be spit upon and not, at the very least, spitting back.  His rising up from the grave is our salvation and hope.  Because of Jesus Christ we will rise up and live forever with Him!  Alleluia!

Kimmy

So…  I am needing to clean out my blog picture file.  There were many pictures that were never posted so I broke them down into seasons and am going to post them on today’s blog.  (Thanks for bearing with me.)  I am also posting some clips from Ann Voskamp’s blog that spoke to my heart!  I hope my post will be a blessing to you!  You are all a blessing to me!

Summer 2017

Hopps

Summer Morning

Glads

Fall 2017

Blue Sky, Full Porch

Guys and Doll

Smiling in the Rain

Some Fall Leaves

Talayla with Leaf

Sammy walking in the golden grass

Winter 2017/18

Cold Morning Mountain Tops

Jess and family came up to get a Christmas tree in November, the grands all fell asleep before they travelled home.

Sunrises and Sunsets

Golden

Feather Clouds

Sun Ray

Pink Swirls

March Sunset in the East

More March Sunset

And finally one shot of a picture from my sunroom that blesses my heart!

Dutchmen Shelf

Spring might come soon, might not!  But it can always be spring in your heart!  Kimmy

So a BIG THING happened here on August 21st!  Cascade, Idaho was in the path of TOTALITY!  Hubby and I were both glad that we would be able to see a total eclipse.  Up until the week before, I was going to be at work and would miss the total but would get to see a partial.  Fortunately, the hype was so big that no one wanted to schedule an appointment and get caught in the traffic.  Word was, you needed to have a two-day supply of water and food in your car if you traveled anywhere.  We were told that we would see a huge amount of people traveling up to our area just to see it!

Hubster and I could not believe that people would travel so far just to see a total eclipse.  We had both seen partials before and thought they were neat but nothing to drive long distance to go see.  (Boy were we in for a surprise.)  As the weekend before came upon us, we noticed a smaller number of cars coming up from down south than usual most weekends.  In our little town a concert had been set up for the horde that would descend upon us.  There was a beer garden and the ball field was all set up for a huge crowd for the concert that was going to take place on Saturday and Sunday.  They had even set up 20-25 outhouses (not KIDDING!)  On late Saturday afternoon we drove by on our way into town and there was only about 8 people sitting at the concert.  Same thing the next day.  We felt bad for the people that had gone to all the trouble and expense to set it up.

I did profit a bit from the eclipse because a friend of mine asked if she and her guy could bring their camper up and park it in our yard the night before.  He was really excited about it and did not want to miss it. I said sure! When they got here she gave me a pie and a bottle of red wine! We had some good friends in McCall that came up for breakfast and then we all gathered out in our yard and driveway.

We had our chairs, our snacks, and our cameras but most importantly we had our eclipse glasses.  They are strange!  In the middle of a sunny day you can not see a dadgum thing through them EXCEPT the sun if you look directly at it.

Cute Glasses

And so it began…  We did not know it until someone looked at the sun and noticed it was blocked out a tiny bit.  Then began the waiting and watching…  someone brought a colander and someone else a vegetable steamer to see if we could see the crescents the sun made through the holes.  We did see it a little bit but was not THAT exciting.  We continued to watch and wait.  We live right off the Cascade airport and the runway goes right by our house.  We noticed that several planes were landing.  They just kept coming, every few minutes there would be another one.

Left Side of Airport

Right side of airport. So many planes.

Picture taken at about 1/2 eclipse.

Before too long we noticed that it was getting cooler, it was strangely dark in the house and before too long people were getting their jackets on.  Closer and closer it grew to a complete eclipse.  I had done some research on things to look for during a total eclipse and one of the things was “snake shadows” that were explained to look like long wavering shadows that move in the same direction.  I was watching closely to see if I could see it happen.  We were standing on our road all together as it got close to total and I was just as busy looking down as up and THERE THEY WERE!!!  I called out to everyone to see it and most everyone did.  They were moving out and away from us up the road and it was crazy.  (Right after eclipse they came back this time moving towards us and across the road!)

When the total eclipse came our group gave a shout and we could hear people at the airport and people parked on the road cheering with us.  We could take our glasses off and look right at it!  AND it was cold!  There was a sunset appearance on all horizons.  It was pretty dark.  We were stunned and amazed and so excited.  We supposedly had total for 1 minute and 58 seconds but the time went so quickly it felt like 30 seconds!  In that small window of time we all felt the mighty presence of God and his amazing ability to align the sun and moon and the planet earth in such a way that we got to witness this stupendous sight.  (It was disappointing how the pictures we took just don’t even give an idea of how crazy it was!)

Shortly after, when the sun’s first ray of light came back it felt like a spot light shining down on us!  We noticed a mama deer and two babies had come out during the eclipse and had come down to the river.  Soon they were heading back to their bed in the trees.  Other then that there was not much crazy animal behavior.  I did hear several dogs barking over at the airport.

Before we experienced the total eclipse, Hubs and I would comment that “we would not be willing to travel very far to see a total eclipse” but we changed out tune after we were a part of one.  We are so thankful we got to experience that for the first time and we would travel again (not sure how far) to get to witness that again.  What an amazing gift it was!

Pic taken through eclipse glasses.

Cool white balls when taken through eclipse glasses

This is a picture of total eclipse. We could not see any light around the sun with our naked eyes although some people commented on the “corona” shooting out.  (I think that is what we are seeing here!

We are so thankful for our Almighty God and his handiwork!  When it is on display in a HUGE way it thrills my heart!

Kimmy

Just wanted to post a few pics from our family gathering for New Years 2017!

Fun Cousins

Fun Couples (Brothers and wives – who were twins without planning to be!) Notice the “Ugly Tree” in the background to go with the “Ugly Sweater” theme!

Fun Darth Vader

Fun Cousins

More fun cousins

Fun Son

Fun Couple

I also wanted to add some pics of our New Years Eve Appetizers fun!

Yum to the Max

Drinking from the mug!

Chowing down!

YUMMMMMM!!

And some Grandchildren pics!  (of course!)

All the grands in one place with the old grands

The Girls

EZ

Miles

Hudson

Larissa brought an “Ugly Sweater” cookie kit with frosting!

And finally some random pics!

GAMES

COOKIES!!

NERTZ!

Kel and me!!

And some pics of the family across the pond!!!

Special Christmas Cake

Christmas Angel

That face!

Dave Sarah and Talayla

Winter Beauties in Sunshine

Kissin goin on here!

I took my tree down this weekend, it was crispy!  It went from fine last weekend to a crying shame this weekend.  I have packed away every bulb, bell, and bawble, and swept up every tree needle, tinsel, and ribbon shred.  I did leave a winter scene on my mantle.

Snow flakes and candles!

Merry Christmas (belated) to all and to all a good night!

Taken Christmas Eve spent with just me and Hubster!