This & That

The Professor Part 2

I have often scoffed at AP Boy saying he uses math all the time. I had to eat my words this week. He constructed this:

Using this:

Really. Oh, you want to know what it is? It's a fish gate. Details to follow.

Planting the Pots

I had a little help planting the pots on the patio this year.

Her mama helped, too, and also enjoyed snapping a few pictures with my camera.

The one photo I still need to get it the finished product.

Everyone needs a little help like this once in a while.

Free Time

Free Time is good for a lot of things.

Fort picnics.

Swings.

Slides.

Reading books...and yes, he is reading the book.

And more swings.

The Professor is In

With AP Boy's family here for the last part of this month, The Girl has been very fortunate to have her own personal math tutor. AP Boy has a real affinity for the subject and claims that he uses obscure mathmatical formulas all the time....for recreational purposes.

I'm not sure about that, but I do know that we're grateful that he loves it so much and is willing to try to pass that knowledge along. His comment? "I can hardly wait until the girls (and he's talking about the grandgirls here) need help with their math homework!" I know The Girl thinks she's the luckiest person in the world....I just know it. Actually her comment about end of the year schoolwork has been pretty consistent. "Everything is stupid!!"

Photos I Love

Part of the 12 class assignment is to pick one favorite photo every month. We are also supposed to save squares of paper from the layouts we do each month. Then we combine them on a layout. I was very behind on this part of things, so I used the retreat as a time to get caught up on this. I am maintaining a very consistent looke for all the layouts....the squares, the photo, a little stamping, the month in a calendar form, our initial, a heart, a phrase and some other embellishment that has to do with the month/season.

January: DD jumping in a huge puddle outside our door.

February: The Valentine AP Boy's family sent to us.

March: The SGB on our visit to their house.

April: SD Boy as a carrot.

And the last couple of category layouts for the month. The Places category layout documents my favorite grocery store. The design is an 8/2010 Page Map.

Birthday

It's this boy's birthday today. He's such a good kid. 

Something you may not know about him is that I was very, very pregnant with him as I sat through DH's grad school commencement....in labor.....really wanting them to hurry up and be done so I could go to the hospital and have an epidural.

Here he is at a year. Who could resist this cute smile?? It was a good thing that he had that cute smile, because he was a really ornery baby, but he had that smile....and the red hair.

Happy Birthday, Kiddo! Love you!

Give That Puppy a Pancake

With the grandbabies here this week, Ollie has had plenty of people to play with.

But my youngest granddaughter, Caroline, has just fallen in love with this dog.

She will crawl right up to him, grab his rabies tag on his collar and start to shake it. She will grab his ears. She will put her hands right in his mouth and giggle hysterically when he licks them. Notice, however, the slightly shell-shocked look on his face.

She will work her way backwards to  get as close as possible to him. 

And he is totally and completely gentle with her. But all the while he's looking at us with this slightly puzzled and half-way pleading look in his eyes. "Please....make her stop."

Patience like that deserves a pancake.

It's Amazing What You Can See

It's pretty amazing some of the more unconventional sights you can see on the rim walk.

Duct tape shoes.

The occasional movie star.

Some lovely statuary. This one is know as "The Twins".

And these fools. If you look closely you can see the parachute of a BASE jumper that's just gone off the bridge. The Perrine Bridge is the only man made structure in the US that permits BASE jumping year round without a permit and we have loads of strange people who love to take advantage of that, which I just don't get.

They land in the river, assuming their chutes open....and that's no guarantee. We have usually at least one death a year or so. Anyway, they land in the river and get picked up by a boat, like the one you can see in the water here. Dummies.

 

Rim Walking

I live very close to the Snake River Canyon. In fact, there's nothing between my back patio and the canyon but a couple of fences, Evil Knievel's jump and a bunch of cows. 

Fairly recently the city has developed a walking trail along the canyon rim for the enjoyment of anybody who wants to walk there, so since I had my whole brood, minus PB home for Mother's Day, we decided to make use of it.

So we walked one way.

And some of us ran.

And we took in some of the sights at that end. This is an area called Pillar Falls. It's further down river from Shoshone Falls that I've shown you before. You can see that the canyon...and in truth a lot of the area around where I live is very rugged and wild...kind of like my boys, lol.

 Then we turned and walked the other direction toward the Perrine Bridge. 

The Perrine Bridge was named for an early businessman in the area here.

The trail will actually take you right under the bridge where you can hear the cars going over.

And then you can look back the other way at the bridge. It's a pretty walk I'd never taken before. Amazing what you can find in your own town.

Some More 12 Crop Stuff

For the People category. LS Boy was in charge of a fundraiser for the law school. One of the items auctioned off was a date with him for the Barrister's Ball. Four of his friends pooled their money to buy him. The design is a sketch support sketch.

My Inspiration category layout based on an ad. The ad is below.

The Traditions layout. Just the tradition of the brothers  bugging, but also helping The Girl. When she got home from church girl's camp, they went next door and dragged all her stuff home for her.

The Personality layout documenting getting photos for the missionary plaque that hangs in the church foyer. Sketch Support sketch here.

This one is for the Seasons category and uses the Becky Fleck 12/2011 Project 12 sketch.

The Things category layout. This is lifted from a layout that appeared in the M/A 2008 Simple Scrapbooks.