We are dorks

It's official.  Derek and I are dorks.  We watched most of a documentary on type fonts.  And enjoyed it.  Now we know the history of helvetica.

October Happenings

It's been a while since I've posted pictures. At least pictures of me and things I've been doing lately. So here they are!

My Birthday

Me and my birthday cake.  

It's triffle, not really a true cake, but no less delicious!

Derek hanging up one of my presents.  He's so cute!

Some of the cool things that Derek got for me.  

Notice the "poo" behind the kitten.

50's Dance

We went to a 50's themed dance this last weekend.  

I got pictures of him, but none of me.  

And I looked cute, too!

Halloween House

We made Halloween houses! It was so much fun! 

It was sort of like making gingerbread houses, but "scarier." 

Some of our roof fell off. :(

Side view. 
I planned that porch in my head all week!

I was so happy with my pumpkin patch!

Our Weekend of Camping with the Ortons

By no means is this a picture I took.  I found it on the amazing Visit Idaho website.

We went camping this weekend.  This is amazing.  It might not seem amazing to you, but I swore off camping after Girls camp.  Girls camp was fun in its own way, but after awhile, the novelty of sleeping in the "wilderness" lost its appeal.  So when the Ortons invited us to go, I wasn't exactly excited, but Derek and I agreed to go.  And now, camping isn't that bad!  It's actually enjoyable!  

We left Friday afternoon and were going to meet the Ortons at whatever campground they chose the night before.  It turned out that they didn't make it up to the Cascade/McCall area Thursday evening so we ended up deciding together where to go camping.  We ended up choosing McCall because none of the camping areas near Cascade were speaking to us.  And we found an AMAZING campground in McCall.  Anyone who's going camping in this area should go to this campsite.  Payette lake is adjacent to the campground, their bathrooms were clean and had running water (showers and real flushing toilets!), and the park even had entertainment planned!  Derek and I are definitely planning on going again!

Friday afternoon we spent at the nearby dock.  The water was FREEZING, but it was fun to splash around.  Brent and Tanya even brought a little rubber raft to float around in.  Derek took everyone on rides.  At first, Jane, John and Paul hated the boat, but they all eventually tried it.  That evening, Tanya and I got tin foil dinners ready while the guys set up the tents. Brent's brother and his family were coming a little later in the evening and we wanted to get stuff set up for them.  The Dave Orton family arrived just before 8 and we all ate dinner, talked, and enjoyed the evening.  

Saturday morning we spent at the lake again, this time with both Orton families, and this time at the "beach" area.  I write "beach" because it wasn't really that much of a beach.  It was only a few yards long and just about 4 feet wide, but it was the perfect size for us.  It was almost like our own, private beach!  

We drove back Saturday afternoon tired and happy!

The top 10 best things about camping this weekend (When I started, it was supposed to be in order of good to best, but then by the end, I realized that all of it was great!)

10. Bug spray and sunscreen. Oh, sweet relief!

9. Wonderful weather. 

8. Brent and Tanya being kind enough to let us sleep in half of their tent. 

7. McCall was far enough away from home to be "away." But close enough to home to make it worth the overnighter trip. 

6. Splashing, wading, boating and fishing in Payette lake.

5. Payette lake being only a couple minutes walk from our campsite

4. The Ponderosa Park campground had conveniently placed  REAL FLUSHING TOILETS and REAL SHOWERS!

3. Delicious food, tin foil dinners; bacon, eggs and pancakes; and yummy sandwiches!

2. Jane slipping and falling into the very, very shallow water (maybe two inches deep) near the shore of Payette Lake and saying "It's a good thing I had my life jacket on!"

1. Spending nice, relaxing, quality time with our great friends the ORTONS!!!  Thanks Orton family(-ies) for all the work you went to to make the camping trip a total sucess!

As far as we could see, the only negative to the whole trip was the MOSQUITOES!  It was seriously as if all the mosquitoes in the state of Idaho heard we were going camping and went to meet us there.  As soon as we got out of the car, they swarmed us!  But it wasn't anything that a good dousing of Bug and Sun sunscreen and bug spray couldn't at least keep at bay!

Geocaching and good ol' Jeeves and Wooster

So we did our geocashing last night. Not very successfully though. In the end we attributed it to the darkness of the late hour. But we still had a TON of fun! Embarrassingly enough, I've never really used a GIS. I'm a geography freak, but have never had the chance to really use one! One of my favorite parts of the evening was seeing Brent and Tanya's kids all bundled up in jackets and coats, running around helping us find the stuff. I love little kids in coats! They're so cute!

After a fun, but fruitless search, we went back to Brent and Tanya's house and watched Jeeves and Wooster. Now, for all you who haven't watched this British comedy yet, WATCH IT NOW!!! The TV show is based on the Jeeves and Wooster books by P.G. Wodehose. And for any of you who haven't read those books, READ THEM NOW!!! P.G. Wodehouse is a master of comedy, and the TV show does the books proud! Each episode is based around Bertie Wooster (a rich, playboy type) getting into trouble once or twice, and then Jeeves (his genius valet, or personal assistant) comes to the rescue and solves all the problems. My favorite part is how oblivious Wooster is to his own stupidity. He always thinks he's so clever, yet he gets into so much trouble!



In other news, we took Willow to the vet on Wednesday to get her two front paws declawed. She had been doing pretty well with not really using her claws on anything she wasn't supposed to, but lately, she's been clawing the carpet, our hands (not too roughly, but it doesn't have to be too rough for it to hurt!), and using her claws to climb up on furniture. So we decided it was time. Our vet, Blayney Vet Clinic was great! $90 for all the essentials and two nights boarding! We picked her up Friday morning and she's doing great! I love my Willow!

Another question for all you out there...

Some friends of ours invited us to go "geo-cashing." It's where you use a GIS thing and go treasure hunting. Have any of you all gone before? What's it like? They told us that we should leave a treasure in place of the one we find. I have no idea what to leave! Any suggestions?

Haircut

I got my hair cut yesterday and MAN is it short!  I thought I had short hair before, but this time, it feels different somehow.  At least it looks decent. 

Derek's putting a ceiling fan in our bedroom!  Thank goodness for handy husbands and handy fathers who's brains are full of tips for when handy husbands run out of ideas!  Since our "box" (I don't know what "box" really means in this context.  I'm guessing that it has to be something in the ceiling for the light) is too weak to support a fan, my dad suggested that Derek put a 2x4 across a couple beams in the attic and attach the box to that.  So that's what Derek's doing now.  I'm so excited for a ceiling fan!  Our upstairs collects heat.  A ceiling fan will be so nice!