The adventures of picking...

We went strawberry picking yesterday... it was really fun. The strawberries are divine. I think we will probably go again because we have eaten half of our 6 lbs of strawberries. We are having waffles with strawberries and fresh whipped cream tonight for dinner. I love fresh whipped cream. LOVE. IT. Anyway, here are the cutest kids in the whole world... please notice that Kate is on her tip toes. She is my favorite little girl ever.

The kids going at the berries...

It was really nice out, Kate was getting a little sweaty...

Then after our strawberry donuts, Kate decided to take up extreme strawberry wall climbing...

She has another new picking talent...

This was her response to me taking the picture...

"Oh mom, I am so embarrassed that you took that picture!"

I love my kids! We definitely have our moments, but I think that are awesome (90% of the time)! We are going to have a hot one today, so we will be running the A/C full force, and probably be going to the pool! Stay cool!

Ding! Ding! Ding! We have a winner!

Way to go friends. Cory and I met on a chairlift. We were both instructors and there were no lessons so we all went out for a run and Cory and I ended up on the lift together. It went so well that he offered me a ride home where he then threatened to drive my side of the car into a telephone pole. Things were going well, it turned out that he had chemistry right after me with the same teacher, so we "studied" together and then went skiing at night. I passed the class, Cory repeated it. Ha ha. Anyway, there you have it. Good job.

Random Fact Friday...

I eat my words... a lot. Everytime I say I definitely am/am not going to do something, the opposite usually happens. For example... after Cory's internship in New York, we decided that in the future, we would keep ourselves west of the Mississippi, unless the $$ was good. Well, I now live like 2 miles east of the Mississippi (nice huh?)and let's just say our names are on the bottom of the checks, not in the recipient line. Also, when I was younger, I said I would never get married... well, that obviously happened, and I have 2 kids to show for it. So you would think that I would learn my lesson about putting something definite on myself, but I haven't. Oh well. I guess my opinions are firm, until they change. Such is life right?

So for my random question...

Do you know where I was when I met my husband?

Once upon a time...

Tanner gave himself a haircut...
Well, Cory let him do it again.

Then he helped him finish it up.
It'll be great for summer...whenever it feels like showing up.

You know me so well...

While chalk was a very close guess, my medium was watercolor.

As for my majors, it all started in biology, then I went to interior design, then I went to architecture, then back to biology, then I had Tanner and art was the nearest thing I had to graduation. I had been taking art classes the whole time, so it wrapped up into a nice little package. I have clusters (a mini minor...I don't know who made that up, but whatever) in chemistry, family science, and architecture. Nice huh? Jack of all trade, master of none. Oh well, I think I mentioned I have a short attention span.

As for where my paintings are hanging... you are right about my parents, and my grandparents. But my in-laws do not, and I do not. My teacher is the third, she has one in her studio.

So, how exciting. Enjoy your Monday, and thanks for stopping by!

Random Fact Friday...

I went to college. I finished college. I had many majors in college. What can I say, I had many interests. In the end I graduated with a degree in art. I quite enjoy creating things, and designing things, and building things. It works out for me to just make the whole thing up considering I don't have the attention span to read directions. Embrace who you are and run with it... that's my motto. So today's question might be easy for some of you.

What was my main medium in school?

Bonus question... Can you guess 2 of my other majors? (Hint: There were 4 total)

Bonus question #2... There are only 3 people in the whole world that have my art hanging up. (pathetic, I know) Do you know who?

Get a hang of this...

Tanner and Kate got new bikes for their birthdays! (okay, they got them for Tanner's birthday, but whatever.)

Cory woke up a few weeks ago and realized with horror that Tanner couldn't ride without training wheels, so they went outside and figured it out. He is doing pretty well, but on occassion he gets going a little fast...

You would have thought he died the way he reacted, but if it doesn't kill you it will only make you stronger, right? We'll see the next time he crashes...

Kate likes to take her babies for rides. They are usually shoveled through the handlebars. She is getting better at pedaling, but we still end up pushing her around. Oh, someday...We have been enjoying our summer here so far, mostly because we have an air conditioner. We will clue you in to the other fun things we are up to sometime! Until then... have a good one.

Drum roll please...

4 1/2 kids, 4 1/2. Like my dad said, it would have been more, but I was taught to share, and we did run out. So I will give it to Crystal because she was only off by half of a pie.

As for Jennie, 8 really? But you were spot on with the #1 favorite dessert. Raspberry cheesecake it is. And really, you know, life is always better with a coke in hand. So you did it Jennie, you won a pumpkin pie, made special by me. It is just too bad that you live so far away... I guess I will just have to eat it for you! Ha ha!

Until next time.

Random Fact Friday

I did it kids, I remembered! I know you are just giddy with excitement. So what could the random fact be? Well, I have been trying to decide... I wanted to try to stump you all, Randah included, but I don't know if I can stump Ali, being she is my sister and has been present in most of the events in my life, and has the memory of an elephant... hee hee.

So... when I was a wee little lass, I was able to put it away when it came to food. I'm not kidding. Now during the holiday season, mainly Thanksgiving, many of the popular and traditional dishes do not agree with my palate (it is rather picky). So I generally ate mashed potatoes, rolls, and ham (if someone was nice enough to make it for me). This left me PLENTY of room for my #2 favorite dessert. Pumpkin pie. So here is my question for you:

What is my record for number of pumpkin pies eaten in one day? (Ali don't give this away)

and as a bonus question: What is my #1 favorite dessert?

Creepy... Crawly...

Apparently the caterpillars aren't as bad as they were last year. I am told that last year the ground and sand and slides and everything was crawling with them. Yuck. So glad I missed that.

Answers...

Wow kids, you are some pretty good guessers! Nothing to do with the girls, sorry Katy (it's called a bra, but thanks for just saying what everyone was thinking! Ha!)

Ali and Randah know, but Shannon was close! When I was 11 or 12, we had a tree that we would jump out of onto the trampoline. I was on the said trampoline when someone jumped out and it bounced me off into a bush where a stick went into my skin and up inside my leg. Then when I moved, it ripped out of the skin. I never went to get stitches, and ended up with a 3.5 inch scar that resembled two purpleish worms laying on the side of my knee. It was less than attractive. So after a year or two, I had plastic surgery to remove the scar. It was in February and seriously interupted the end of my ski season. I went up to the hill anyway to hang out and I fell and tore the top of my incision open again. Stupid me. But in the end, my knee has a 3.5 inch scar that does not resemble worms, it is just flat and normal skin colored. You can hardly see it. Thank you Dr. Plastic Surgeon man!

I had a plastic surgeon sew up another injury on the same leg, it required 28 stitches, 8 of those were to sew up muscle. That incident involved church shoes and a banana seat bike! That scar is less than noticable too! Hooray for childhood!

Thanks for humoring me!

Random Fact Friday...

Let's see how long I can keep this up, my guess is one, maybe two weeks. Ha.

A random fact you may not know about me is...

I have had plastic surgery. Do you know what I had work on?

Let's see how well you know me. Ha ha.

Dear Idaho,

You are very far away.

Love, Kinley

Yes, we went, yes, we made it back... no, I wasn't referring to Idaho as the edge of the earth, there is still another time zone past Idaho kids. But I suppose it could be. Anyway, we drove, and drove, and drove, and drove... then we drove some more and then we were almost there. My kids are rockstars and were good sports about the whole thing. I convinced Tanner that when you close your eyes, we magically go faster. But if you close you eyes and fall asleep, it works even better. He gave it a try and was very pleased when he woke up. He kept closing his eyes and asking me what it looked like when we went faster. It was funny.

We drove through North Dakota this time, here are the high lights...

This is the enticement to take a detour down the enchanted highway, this is where the world has hidden it's largest collection of oversized, strange metal sculptures... to be honest, I was worried that if we did venture down, we would end up meeting a wicked witch, rumplestiltskin, or some other fairy tale villain. Or possibly have an experience much like that weird John Candy/Dan Akroyd movie... You know, that weird one where they are trapped in the crazy place and there is a weird judge, what is it called, does anyone remember? I don't know, it has been too long...

A large buffalo statue...

and the buffalo's dear friend, Cow... a must see.

So aside from seeing the fam, we went so I could go to a best friend's wedding...
Randah and I met in our junior high choir class when we were made folder partners because our teacher couldn't tell us apart. I think she later regretted it when we wouldn't shut up. Oh well... anyway, it was awesome to go. Edward is a dang cool dude and might I add lucky to his list of good qualities. Congrats guys! It was fun to hang out with Jennie, sorry Kristy couldn't come, but she had a baby 4 days later, ya know how it goes...

(oh, and edward... you are fired from taking pictures, just because it was your wedding day, and Jennie and I weren't the bride doesn't mean we can't look good in pictures too.) ;)

Also, while we were home, my little brother graduated Seminary. Way to go Andy! Now if you had only made it through high school... just kidding, he did graduate on Tuesday, I just wasn't there. He even had stellar grades!

What else did we do... well, we hung out, we went to Cafe Rio 4 times (yeah, we really like it, and have really been craving good mexican) and Plum Loco (more Mexican), hungout some more, Cory and I went shopping with my mom's credit card, that was fun... unfortunately everything we bought was for my brothers, but whatever, it was fun all the same. Actually, I went to the mall several times, and each time I say an old friend. It was fun to see you Katy, Julie, and Stefanie! Yay for shopping! Cory went riding at the sand dunes with my dad and brother one night, so my mom borrowed a van, and loaded the 4 grandkids up with us girls and took chinese out to my grandparents, that was a memory... ha! Shaneece had a concert that someone pulled a fire alarm during. Nice. The kids got to help Cory's parent plant the garden. Tanner loved it. I don't know what else, but thanks to everyone for letting us intrude.

It rained on the way back to Minnesota... this creek washed over the road on the way to Bozeman... yeah, you can kinda see the big rocks... we were glad we had a little more clearance because the cars were dragging the rocks... yikes.

It really did rain almost the entire way back. It made a long drive longer, but oh well. We left at 5:30 Saturday morning and pulled into our parking lot just before 2 Sunday morning. Did I mention it rained pretty near the entire drive? These fields were flooding... poor farmers.We drove though lightning for several hours at the end, it turned into the storm that brought the tornado we had on Sunday afternoon. We actually slept though the whole thing, not the driving through lightning... just the tornado, it is a good thing we live in a basement, huh!

I just want to thank my kids for being awesome, although at one point Tanner was telling me that it was such a bad idea that I had to drive there. He wanted to know how he could get a plane ticket, did he need to go to the airport or what... but that was the worst of it. Anyway, we are back, I have more stuff to post, so maybe I will get around to it in a few days! Until then... enjoy!