For reals.

I live in Idaho.
For reals.

School started last week in the St. G.
We are not there.
It's a little weird.

Even weirder than that is that all my chitlins are registered here.
Pretty strange strolling with Adam through the halls of PHS.
I don't know if I can properly convey how surreal it was to walk back into my elementary school to get Elsie all set.
My kids are in classes of my old teachers for crying out loud!
Everybody except Elsie- and she has my good old growing up buddy Anneke's mom for a teacher. (woohoo BTW)

For reals,
it just kinda weird.
In a good way weird.
It's actually been pretty fun having that "it's such a small world" feeling every where I go.
Every where in Preston that is.

But, when I do head down to the big city of Logan I find myself looking for my St. G peeps.
Weird, I know.
I keep thinking I should be running into someone in Walmart or Sam's Club (okay, i know it's costco down there, you get the point). I keep thinking I am spotting cars I know, looking for familiar faces behind the wheel.
It's a strange feeling.
Miss you, my St. G peeps.

And since it's late and I'm on a rambling roll....
The Top of Utah Half Marathon is less than a week away.
For Reals.
And I'm running in it.
For Reals.
I'm actually pretty excited about it.
I think it will be a really fun day.
I say "day" instead of "race" because I really am in it for fun.
To say I was "racing" would be stretching it a bit.

And so, with that I must say....
For Reals, I have one more week of training to do-
starting with a morning run tomorrow.
Fair thee well, my peeps, fair thee well.

Goot Mor-gan!

Okay, I realize if you are not Robyn that title might not make any sense.
Once upon a life time ago, before summer descended upon us, Robyn and I used to talk most mornings after the kiddies were on their merry way to school. Our conversations usually started with a "Goot Mor-gan!" or "Good Morning".
There you go, we are all up to speed now.
So....I say to you--

Goot Mor-gan!!

The time has come, my friends, for me to spend a bit-o time telling you about my garden (and by 'garden' I mean things we have transplanted and that were already here that I haven't killed--good work Me).
We'll call this "Ode to Farmgirl's Garden", shall we?
Now, before we begin there are a few things you should remember.
*this is year numero uno. Some day me hopes to have a garden like unto my mother. It's gonna take some time and know how, but a girl can dream.
*once again pictures were taken after my morning run, so bare with the lighting weirdness.
And we're off....
Let's begin with what was already here:

Raspberry Bushes

I am aspiring to have berries like Natalie,
some day.
I hope.
Hers are AMAZING.

But, see?? Look, actual berries!
There good.

Lilac Bush

I love lilac bushes. They remind me of my grandma.
Kinda sad they only bloom once a year.
Didn't get a picture of it, but it was beautiful.

Some kind of Mint plant.
I don't remember what the name of it is,
but it's really pretty.

On to the transplants:

Me madre and I moved some plants down from her garden to mine.
They are doing so well!
The big ones in the front are cosmos.
Let's get right to my favorite flower.
There in the back on the right.

Primrose.
Let's go in for a closer look.

Aren't they pretty?
They bloom at dusk every night.


I love them.
I've noticed that I look a little scary in all the pics on the
old blog lately. Eh, well. I promise I do look slightly better than this on occasion.
...but it's rare.

Last but not least, the best transplant out there this morning...


This boy was out working on some tractor repairs bright and early.
Just keeping himself busy
whilst he was waiting for a ride in the real deal tractor.


Behold....his daily attire....
Shorts and cowboy boots.
It's a classy look.
You need to be adorable to really pull it off.

Shenanigans.

So, I'm sure you've been wondering to your selves,
just what kind of shenanigans has that old Farmgirl been up to lately?
Well, I'll tell ya.
Stuff..and more stuff.
It's been a summer-o-fun.
How's about I give you the run down via a few pics?
All righty then, let's rumble!


FARM DAY:

A day that is part of the BIG Nelson Family Reunion.
By BIG I mean my aunts and uncles, cousins and cousins kiddos.
It's a lot of people.

If you were lucky enough to have grandparents
that had a farm and then an aunt and uncle took over that farm
and they opened it up to you
all summer any and every summer
and you had all sorts of great memories there,
wouldn't you want to bring your own kiddies back
there and share it with them too?
Ya, that's how my cousins feel too.

Farm Day includes things like:
Hay Rides
Feeding the calves.
And lots of visiting on the lawn
while you enjoy Chugs, Cheese and Aggie Ice Cream.
MmMmmm....Aggie Ice Cream.


NELSON FAMILY CAMP:
This was the "slow year" for family camp.
The "off year", if you will.
Therefore, there was a whole lotta nuttin' going on.
Perfection if you ask me.

The girlies enjoying some otter-pops.

Grant in his "wheel chair".
Weirdo.
Amanda and Wilson chillaxin.
The ladies doing some visiting.

We left family camp a day early.
Unheard of!
What could possible possess me to leave camp early?
Oh....just this lady here.
You know I love me some Anne when I am willing to post this
very scary picture of the two of us.
Good thing for us we are such natural beauties.
In our defense, that there's a picture of two pooped out ladies.
I'd been camping for 4 days and she was on the
tail end of her extended Idaho vacay.
It was morning, we'd been up visiting late into the night
and she was about 3 minutes from leaving.

During their very short visit we did make it out to
meet some calves.
And some cows.
Thanks for stopping by Jackmans.
Come on back any old time.

There you go.
A brief run down of some of the stuff.
There's more.
We'll get to that later.
Peace Out, Peeps.

Happy Birthday.

To an All American Hero.

this was mikey's "costume"
(doesn't he pull off white trash well?
and fyi...those are ROOTbeer bottles)

for the send off of a lifetime,
(took place 2 days before our st. g exit)

water fight of the century
(yes, that is a fire hydrant hose he is holding)

and best ever
'annual jim & jim memorial day neighborhood water party'
(the jims cruised the streets soaking
and then gathering 40 of the local yocals
who then converged on our house for the funnest water fight known to man.
it involved over 2000 water balloons)


I love this guy.
He's pretty much my favorite.
Happy 40th My Dearest.

Abode.

All righty, time for the long awaited pictures of the new abode.
I just KNOW you have all been on pins and needles, hardly been able to sleep at night waiting for this.

Couple things....
1* I am NOT a photog (in case you hadn't noticed before)
2* These were taken after my morning run so I know they are a little strange with the sunlight issues....oh well.
3* I think the outside of our house is pretty deceiving. It's actually quite roomy inside.

The front.
Penny, making a cameo.
She is loving her new found freedom, BTW.

Another of the front. This is the weird light one....
or maybe I have moved to the celestial kingdom
and my house is glowing.
One of the two.

The back.
I really like the walk out basement.
And while we're on the subject, let me just say
I love having a basement.
L.O.V.E - I.T.

And now, it's time for a few of my favorite things....

Our mailbox.
We've worked a lot in the yard.
Did I say a lot? Because I meant A LOT.
This yard was in sorry shape.
We found this old trash can and decided it would make a great mailbox stand.
We dug out the falling apart blue plastic thing it was in, buried the trash can a bit
and Ta-Da!!
So far no letters to Oscar the Grouch have been delivered.

This is an older home.
Complete with all the older home charm I love.
Like....

Sweet built in cabinets and drawers.
Love them.


Cool, cool windows.
My favorite is the little one above our bed.

Awesome doors.
I LOVE this door in the office.

And my view from my back door.

Yup.
I'm in a good place.

07-04

Began with a little 5K Boarder Run.

This is a fun little race that goes from the center of Lewiston, Utah to....wait for it.....the boarder of Utah and Idaho then back to the center of Lewiston. Hence the name the Boarder Run. That boarder also just happens to be part of my parents farm, so we runners have quite a cheering crowd at the turn around during the race. Lots and lots of high fives given out by lots of cute kiddos.

This years family participants included:

Adam, Natalie, Me, Audrey and Amanda.

Natalie had left after the race before we remembered to take pictures, so you don't get to see her in all her running glory. But here's some of the rest of us...

Remember I told you that if you do a race with Amanda you WILL be doing jumping pictures?
Here's the attempt (s):

Adam refused to take part in such silliness. He did agree to stand there.

Clearly, jumping pictures are not my forte'.

I would like to let the record show that I was not aware
that the picture was being taken in this last one.
This concludes our jumping picture attempts for the 4th.
Moving on...

After the race (and some quick showers) we all headed to the big Lewiston City parade. It goes right past my brother, Howard's, place so we parked ourselves on his front lawn.

Have I ever mentioned that we are a big group?

The cousin trio. Grace, Charlotte & Lucy.

This picture is for posterity's sake.
Proof the Dear Old Dad was around for SOME of the summer 2011.

I took no pictures of the rest of the day. Well, except one...Mike and Grant went on a little hike that afternoon and brought me back a beautiful little surprise from the mountains:

Thanks Boys.

We enjoyed a lovely cookout at my mom's house with lots of just good old hangin' around involved. And treats. I don't know who else but the Nelson's plan a day with 1st dessert and 2nd dessert. With no meal in between. First dessert was served shortly after a late lunch of dutch oven potatoes and BBQ's. Second dessert was served before the fireworks.
We enjoyed the fireworks from the comfort of Howard's backyard this year. We usually enjoy them from the comfort of the haystack.

True red blooded American children love S'mores.

Even the big children.

Some are a little messier with their mallows than others.

I would also like the record (since there is no picture) to show that 2nd dessert also consisted of three
very delicious cobblers. Peach, blueberry and cherry chocolate.
MmmMMm.
Too bad your not a Nelson, cuz we do the sweets up right.

The cousin duo. Emma & Audrey.

It was a full, full fun filled day from sun up to WELL past sun down.
And a good time was had by all.
:o)

You should know...

• We are alive.
• We are happy.
• We are loving our new abode, location and life.
• It is beyond crazy busy around here. Think crazy busy, then think way beyond it. That's us.
• My life feels vastly different. In a really good way.
  
• I really am going to give a grand virtual tour.
• I think next week might be blogging break through week for me.
  

Until then...my question to you is this:
Exactly how long do you think children can survive on hard work, cold cereal and love?

Cliffton's Papa Jay's 10K

We interrupt this regularly scheduled moving blog story to bring you details of the best 10k EVER. Okay, it was my first 10k. But really, this race could not be topped. I hope I can do it justice....


A few weeks ago Amanda told me that her mother-in-law had read in the Preston Citizen that a 10k was being held in Cliffton (we assumed she had seen an add of some sort, not so...we found out later someone had written it up under the "Rural Route" portion of the paper. "Rural Route" is where people write about who's grand kids have come to visit and such) and would I like to run with her? Well, sure. Cliffton is a little community north west of Preston It is beautiful, I actually have roots in Cliffton. We didn't know what the occasion for the race was...thought maybe it was Cliffton Days or something? So, she called the number to register and found out that it was sponsored by Papa Jay's. Papa Jay's makes jerky. Really good jerky, by the way.


Amanda and I recruited some more participants: her friend Tawna, our sister Sara, and Sara's husband Todd.
Let me start by saying this....when we showed up with our 5 runners, we nearly doubled the racers. We found the park by the church just down the street from the gas station (where Papa Jay's is located) with no trouble. There was very few people and a card table set up. We went over and started talking with the Papa Jay lady in charge, come to find out she is going on the Trek this week and needed to go for a 6 mile walk, so she thought she would just go ahead and make a party of it and have a race. She told us to write our names on a label and pin it to our shorts and don't forget to write our names on a slip of paper for the drawing too.

When the appointed time arrived, 7 AM, all 17 of us lined up at the start line. There were 3 divisions: Biking (2 people), Running (9 people), and Walking (6 people)...oh and a dog that ran the race with us. The instructions we received were THE best. First she gave us the race route.

From the park we head out and make a right, then go a little bit til we cross the highway...now, we don't have any police escorts so watch for cars and don't get hit...there's usually no cars, but just be careful. Same thing when you come to the train tracks--watch for trains. So then you go along siphon road, well it's not really named siphon road, but there's a big pipe line that runs next to it, so that's what it's called. Cross over the train tracks and take a left. Then head north til you come to the hill, it's just a little one, we have a water stop set up there (her elderly mother was running it), then go up the hill and run next to the lakes for a while till you see the turn around. So, then you turn around and come back down the hill--feel free to take advantage of the water stop coming and going-- then come back and turn down and go down the first road til you come around next to the church, go around the church and back to the start/finish line.

Now, she went on to tell us, they'd marked the course with orange spray paint and inspirational quotes along the way. If we were to get tired, Handsome Bob would be coming around on a 4 wheeler to offer assistance...well, assuming there's no police around because the 4 wheeler's not registered. When we crossed the finish line, Dallas would be calling out our times and we would need to listen and remember them because we would then need to go back to the table, write it on our label and then stick it on the poster. Then go over to the the pavilion for some muffins and watermelon, pick up some jerky out of the basket and coupon (good for today only) for some beef jerky and see if you won the drawing. To start us off Handsome Bob has made an illegal fire work...ready Handsome Bob? Okay, have fun!

Once we took off Todd made the comment he felt like we were in some kind of Napoleon Dynamite sequel....you can't make this kind of stuff up, People. These things only happen in Small Town, USA.

The run was beautiful. Really, really nice. Perfect weather, great scenery, fantastic company. I was a little worried about how I would feel. I've been fighting a cold and had only gone on one 2 mile run since the move. 6.2 miles felt a little daunting. Glad I had my peeps with me. They kept me going strong. Final time 1 hour 5 minutes 22 seconds. None too shabby.

After we finished we enjoyed our watermelon and muffins. We all collected our beef jerky and we each won something in the drawing. Todd won a flashlight, Sara won a water bottle, Tawna won a bottle of pop, Amanda won a candy bar and a little train full of candy and I won a book light.


So, we headed over to Papa Jay's and picked us up some jerky.
That's Papa Jay's, World Headquarters. Don't forget.

P.S. If you run a race with Amanda, you WILL be doing jumping pictures.

She's fun like that.
However, you may want to review the pictures the very nice lady took for you...
I'm not exactly sure how high she thought we were all going to jump....eh, well.

In the infamous words of the "Rural Route":
A good time was had by all.
:)