I'm so proud of Sam and Shelby.  They both got up on the wakeboard for the first time on the same day!  Now it will be a fierce competition to see who can go outside the wake first, spin first, ramp another boat first (kidding). 

Jack's wipeout!!!

My brother taught me how to kneeboard years ago....I taught his son how to kneeboard!  I wish JohnT. could have been there to see what a natural Jack is:)

Look at his air!!!!!!!!!  Woo hoo Jack - this was only on his second time up.

strapping in...

making it look soooo easy:) 

Sam and my nephew Jack at the lake

yes...he got some air...yes...he managed to stay on! 

This was taken later...

Can you see the reflection of the boat in her eyes?  

This post is about finding strange things is strange places...this week I have been painting Stella's bedroom and the girl's pullman bathroom.  I opened up the cabinet under Stella's sink and found a tub and a cup both covered with picture frames.  I lifted the frames off and out came a horrible smell:(  Stella was keeping FROGS in there, but trying to hide them because we keep telling the girls not to keep them as pets.  Those tiny pellets in the tub (with the dehydrated frogs) are food.  There are several more frogs in the cup.  She got this idea when Shelby had a friend over and they turned Shelby's secret room into a frog room.  They had probably 20 containers full of frogs mostly.  By the time I caught them they had transported water, bugs for the frogs to eat, and all kinds of messy things up there. 

I also found a dead frog under her bed when I moved it to paint.  That frog was from one of those little aquariums that have a piece of bamboo and usually 2 frogs.  Anyway, my mom got it for STella for her birthday and one night some friends were over playing up in her room.  WE heard a HUGE crash upstairs and when we walked in, a tall chest of drawers had been knocked over onto Stella's bed and everything on it (including the frog aquarium) went flying!!!!  WE cleaned up the mess, but I guess we overlooked this poor guy who ended up under the bed.

Last night I crawled in bed and my arm felt this strange feeling...it was a bowl of grapes.  Stella was sleeping in my bed since there are paint fumes in her room.  I guess she wanted to have a healthy snack just incase she woke up during the night.  I took this in the dark with my iphone.  

Twin mattress/ box springs, slipcovered headboard and bed frame

FOR SALE!!!!

Mattress is 4 years old and the brand is Lady Americana.  Has been in a smoke-free, very clean home.  Has 1 juice stain from a sippie cup leak.  The bed is from Pottery Barn and you can order a new slipcover (with monogram) for the headboard.  Rails included too.  We are re-decorating Stella's room and she is getting a queen bed. 

$200 for everything. 

I noticed last night that the slipcover on the headboard can be turned around and still fits.  The back is solid white and it can be washed.

Stella had a friend over this evening and they decided to spray paint (with colored hairspray left from Halloween) Barbie hair.  This project started in Stella's bathroom until I smelled a strong smell all the way downstairs.  It was a huge mess, but I am proud to say that I did not get mad:)  I just helped them move their beauty shop outside.  I think Mario is high on fumes....

This past week I have made salsa, stuffed tomatoes, sliced with salt, salads, and tonight I threw some garden squash in my grill pan, sliced tomatoes and added them to my 3 cheese tortellini.  I drizzled some olive oil and soy sauce over it and it was really good. 

  This is what I mean when I say I need to can tomatoes!  I would have given anything to have this problem last summer when it was too hot to grow 1 measly tomato. 

I have been canning this summer.  This is some of my peach jelly.  Hank grows all sorts of stuff.  The only problem is that it all seems to ripen at once.  In order not to waste it you must either can continuously, eat continuously, or give it all away. My first batch of white peach jam and blackberry seedless jam turned out pretty runny.  Acutally the blackberry is syrup, but it's awesome on pancakes and waffles!  I have a wheelbarrow full of tomatoes that need to be canned, but I'm also in the middle of redecorating Stella's room this week.  

Friday and Saturday Sam and I went to Youth Conference which is a yearly conference our church holds for kids age 14-18.  I was a chaperone for 7 girls and we had a great time.  We did service projects, learned about missions, had a dance and got to know some new friends.  Hank taught a class about his mission to South Korea and let the kids sample foods from there.  We didn't sleep much and when we got home Saturday evening, Sam instantly fell asleep.  He woke up at 8:30, came in my room and said "I'm glad I woke up early today."  He truly thought he had slept all night and that it was 8:30 a.m. Sunday morning.  He was totally convinced we were all wrong and he was right.  We had a good laugh:)  

I guess I got some DDT in my eye cleaning the garage...JK!  It was a piece of something and Sam helped me get it out.  He put some eye drops in and then I stuck my finger up into my eyelid and started digging.  All better now:) 

You city folk think you have spiders....look at the size of this bad boy!  There were hundreds of spiders in my garage.  Part of the reason we have so many critters in there is because we leave the side door open so it will stay cooler. No more!  This guy doesn't scare me, it's the millions of brown recluses we have here.  I know I picked some up today with my bare hands becuase I was in a fit of cleaning rage and skipped the gloves...haha.  If Hank's clients are reading this listen up... Our garage also doubles as storage for spare computer parts.  Which means that Hank may install a comptuer part into your machine that has a brown recluse in it - BEWARE!!!  Hank will love it that I said that:) Spiders bother me becuase they are small and sneaky - don't trust em'.  In our pool I find scorpions, snakes, tarantulas, and moles on a regular basis - but that stuff doesn't bother me too much.

And I call myself a clean freak...shame on me for letting my garage get this bad!  This morning after I hugged and kissed my girls goodbye (they went to spend a few days with their grandma Wanda at the ranch) I "attemped" to walk through the garage and open the refridgerator door.  Because of the massive pile of dirty boots, cases of water, frog gigs, BB guns, computer parts, bikes, DDT (maybe not that, but a huge tub of toxic chemicals (in above picture in the blue tub) that Hank got from his dad's barn) I said ENOUGH!!!  I went to work cleaning the garage out.  Mario helped me.  There is a dead mouse in that picture with him.  Why would I post these embarrasing pictures?  In hopes that my family will look at this and appreciate my hard work...doubtful:(  

Okay - so we thought today would be a good lake day. Why not right? Wrong! After packing food, towels, kids with sunscreen, & driving an hour to the lake we got there to find the battery dead:( so I hauled the kids to mom's house, got the charger & headed back to the marina with my tools...feeling pretty manly (the only thing I've ever jumped is the law mower) I proceeded to hook up the battery charger. Oops - I put red on black & black on red & the sparks flew! Quick switcheroo & we are in business. Don't ask me why or how I mixed them up..don't make fun. We hung out at the house & 1 1/2 hours later the boat was charged & ready to go. Woo hoo! Wrong:( the wind was so strong it created waves in skiatook lake that you could surf on. Right off the bat we hit one that completely covered the boat with water. Scared all of us. Did we stop? No! I had 3 boys who were determined to try their new wakeboard - in the high seas!!! I went to the calmest part of the lake I could find, but still felt like I was in a hurricane. Sam & Robert tried to get up but we just kept blowing into the shore so we gave up. I very, very carefully drive the boat back through "the perfect storm" & we swam at the public beach for awhile. I have seen grand lake look like that but never Skiatook. I was worn out from driving the boat through it! I think the dead battery was a sign. Next time I'm checking wind speeds before we leave the house. Oh lastly * thunder lost>:(

This is a message to all parents who have kids who have access to a mobile device, social networking, computer, etc.  So EVERY single kid in the world basically.  Hank and I caught a perv. texting Shelby.  We have done our homework and he is located in Canada (fortunately).  He was posing as a young teenage boy and was trying to get her to send him "more pictures" after she sent one very innocent one of herself in the mirror...(that seems to be the preferred method most kids use these days of sending out picutres of themself).  She downloaded an app that she found through some game that allowed her to talk to all kinds of people.  I think this place (i.e. her new friends)  is crawling with pedifiles from the looks of it.  I told this "boy" that Hank does computer intelligence for the CIA and he would find him...haha!   His replies were very bold and he basically said "I dare you."  Little does this guy know that Hank really can find him and may just do it.  He probably belongs in jail.  Shelby's phone has been erased, all controls (data plan) turned off so she can only talk and text (but no mulitmedia messaging) and her camera was even turned off.  We did this to protect her from herself.  I want you to know these are things you can do to smart phones.  I didn't even know it until Hank typed in a password on her phone (that she doesn't know) and started turning everything off.  This way she can still play some games and we can call her. 

Thank you to Wanda and the Bailey's for looking after our house, watering the garden and feeding the horses.  Today our garden/orchard was overflowing with yummy stuff.  Before we left I canned peach and blackberry jam.  Today for Father's Day I made Hank this peach crisp (using cake batter).  You can see from the photo - in 1 hour we went from peaches on the vine to a warm desert in our tummies! Now that's comfort food:) We also had homemade salsa (all fresh from the garden)...who needs a grocery store?

Hank - I love you for gardening as a hobby.

Thank goodness for big, strong, brothers who play football!

The water is so pretty up in the mountains...I could photograph it every day. 



Ugh...at least I have a cool shirt on:) 

We attempted fishing which was a joke!  Unless you are a highly trained fly fisherman you will never catch a rainbow trout up there.  We didn't realize it was catch and release anyway. So, if we HAD caught some fish we would have been cooking them up on our grill and probably arrested. 

Look closely at this picture.

It's a great sibling story...that goes something like this...

Stella: "wait a second while I tie these flowers together so I can take them to mommy since she is sick."

Shelby:  the possibilities are endless but it might play out like this "Sam, can you believe how she always gets her way?" "Do we really have to stand here and wait on her to make string out of grass!?!"

Sam:  "hurry up becuase I'm freaking hungry!!!" Oh and don't forget  thirsty - you go "Chuggler" that is our new nickname for Sam (chugger + Hubler).

Hank took this while I was busy throwing up at the cabin. I don't know if it's because Hank was behind the camera part of the time or becuase the kids felt like cutting us some slack (unlikely) but we got more pictures of the 3 of them together than we have in a LONG time.  Hank deserves some credit...look how he set this shot up and the kids are in focus:)  He knows the way to my heart...taking a good picture of the kids is all it takes.  

Elk were EVERYWHERE!!!  I never got tired of seeing them up close.

I told you the water was cold....

If you double click on these you can see them full size.

I already posted these on my FB, but wanted the grandmas to be able to see them.  This was the highlight of the trip for all of us.  I am totally hooked and already planning my next whitewater trip!

We got thirsty, our skin cracked, Sam got fever blisters, I got altitude sickness (headache and vomiting) but all of those things are par for the course on a Hubler family vacation.  We have either had to visit a local doctor or pharmacy on every vacation we have taken:(  With all of that - we still had a really good time!?!

As you might guess, my kids gravitated to any and all water we could find in Colorado...although it was a chilly 40 degrees since it was fresh snow melt.  They didn't care!

I'm back after a very long break.  I switched to Facebook for awhile, but for various reasons decided I like my blog better.  I think when my kids are older they will appreciate this much more becuase it is a record of our lives that I can save.  Who knows if facebook will be around then...doubtful looking at their stock. Since I am now teaching 4th grade full time I need to be careful about using social media, especially in a small town.   I do love to read your comments so I know you have been here!    I am beginning with our summer vacation to Colorado as this picuture nicely shows (I took this from the car window - wow).  We returned home around 2:00 a.m. this morning.