The Oakes Family

We went to Roman Nose Lake in northern Idaho in Boundary County.  It was absolutely beautiful.  Rafi and John sat on a big slab near the water, threw stones and watched the fish jumping to catch bugs.  It was so peaceful.  The water was crystal clear.  We watched some guys scaling the mountains behind the lake.  We found wild huckleberries growing everywhere!  We started on a hike to another lake but realized the two young ones would not make it, but we had a great time just sitting by the water.

And  we did not see a single bear, let alone any deer OR moose.

After a surprise invitation to go to elk and deer camp next week, I decided to get my hunting rifle sighted in. I hand-loaded a dozen rounds and was very pleased with the result.

This three-shot group was shot from 100 yards in light wind with a .308 Savage rifle, topped with a 4-9x scope.  For the technical,  the rounds were Winchester brass, with BR2 primers, 37.1 grains of Varget powder, topped with a Hornady 165 grain bullet.

(And yes, I set the sights exactly 2″ high at 100 yards to give me a good 400 yards range without adjusting for bullet drop.)

It’s a pity my cow calling isn’t as good…

This is our Border Collie, Wookie, all grown up.  John picked his name, just in case you are wondering.  He has been a wonderful addition to our family and is a great companion for our black lab-border collie mix Maggie, and also a great playmate for John.  He is as gentle as he can be.  And beautiful.  Even though he has access to the yard 24/7, his fur is so smooth and silky - I’ve nicknamed him my ’silky boy’.  He has rich brown expressive eyes, deep black fur with his white chest and feet, tip of tail, all clean and sparkly…except when he decides to go on a digging spree.

We have SO many holes in our backyard, thanks to him!  You can see from his feet and his chest that some of his holes get pretty BIG!  We’ve caught him with his whole head and front half of his body entrenched!  We’ve tried filling the holes with rocks and soil, but he is determined.  We’re lucky we don’t have much of a lawn out back, so he can keep up with his hobby without annoying us.

It’s ok, Wookie, we love you, you can keep digging away!

David’s sister Andrea (Andy) and her son Rafi arrived late last night from Britain.  Rafi is a very active two and a half year old and so far he and John are getting along splendidly.  John thinks it is great fun to have his cousin here to play with 24/7.  I’ve looked in on them in  John’s room and his toys are  strewn from one end to the other.  They are having such fun together.

Today is a brand new day and we are all up and in great form.  We look forward to showing Andy the great state of Idaho, and exploring things that even David and I haven’t seen yet!

John, Jayden and Jameson

For John’s birthday celebration we took him and two of his little friends from daycare to the races.  Turns out that Jameson’s dad was racing that evening.   We brought hearing protection for the boys as the cars can get pretty loud.  David took them to get some supper at McDonald’s - they all got happy meals and amazingly enough, the toy in the meal was a race car.  We had a good time even though the boys got a bit tired watching the time trials that took place before the actual racing began.

We bought an ice cream cake for John’s birthday cake and celebrated with Tim and Michelle Sunday after our trip to the fair.

One of John’s favorite gifts was a ‘Johnson’ figurine from Halo.  Another favorite is a Star Wars shirt that John’s birth mom sent him.  The interesting thing about this shirt is that when John wears it, whenever he MOVES, a little light on Yoda’s light saber lights up.  John just thinks that is the coolest thing ever.  I can just imagine how hard it is going to be for me to get this shirt off his body and into the washer every once in a while!  He certainly did have a wonderful birthday celebration.  He is SO excited to now be 5!!  He is one special little man!

We know when we wake up in the morning and it’s only 40 degrees that fall is right around the corner.  A couple weeks ago, David went with some friends to get our first load of wood.  They went to the Inland Empire Paper Company site just above Spirit Lake.  The loggers leave smaller logs in huge piles by the side of the roadway.  These are perfect for our wood stove as David won’t have to split them.  Unlike the big rounds leftover from last year that David just finished splitting with the maul.

John climbed up into the trailer and we thought he would be able to toss the logs down to us, but he decided that he wanted to help stack.  The job didn’t take too long.  Next cool day, David is off to get more.  He estimates that we need 4 full cords to get us through the winter!  That’s a LOT of chopping.

Last year when we took John to Silverwood, he was quite disappointed that he could not ride a ‘big’ roller coaster because he wasn’t tall enough.  We speculated that this year he would grow at least a couple inches and sure enough, he did.   John’s daycare had an outing this past Wednesday to Silverwood Theme Park and kids John’s age could go IF a parent would accompany them.  David offered to go so John could attend.

Once inside the park John said he wanted to ride a roller coaster so David took him over to Tremors, a big wooden one.  The line wasn’t too long, but after 20 minutes in line, John decided he needed a bathroom trip, so they lost their place in line.  When they returned, it took about 30 minutes to get to the front of the line and John was pretty excited.  We thought he was going to be measured because he was only an inch over the minimum height, but that didn’t happen.

They climbed in their seat, strapped in and off they went.  The ride started with a slow steep climb to about 100 feet and John commented that he could see for miles.  Around a sharp bend, the cars dived almost vertically down through the gift shop and into the first of four tunnels.  John didn’t say very much or make any noise for the rest of the ride, and the photo is our only visual record of what he thought of the ride.

See a video of the ride here.

When the ride ended abruptly back at the station, John said that he would never go on a big roller coaster ever again, which amused many of the other riders nearby.

I talked to John later that afternoon and asked him if he had a good time.  He said yes.  I asked if he had ridden the big roller coaster and he said yes.  I asked him if it was fun and he started to say YES and changed it to a NO, it was TOO scary, there were too many tunnels.

He really did have a good rest of the after that ride.  He and David rode the Log Flume, Bumper Boats, Carrousel and Steam Train.  John spent most of the rest of the time riding the Red Barron plane ride.

John has been taking a copy of this picture everywhere for the past two days, including daycare and church, proudly telling people about his brave exploits!

It started in the afternoon, dark skies, rain, pouring down…

It rained most of the afternoon.  David said the dogs ran in and out of it.  He was working in the pole barn.  Wookie was really excited by it all.  When I got home it was still pouring.  This is our backyard, visibility is next to nothing.  It was so awesome watching the rain pour down, lightning, thunder.  It got dark SO early, so quickly.

When it was all over we had pools of water all over our drive and our front yard.  A little bit of hail also fell, only small bits though.  Our lawn, or what there is of it, enjoyed the moisture and now we actually have a bit of green grass growing amidst all the wildflowers and weeds!

Ever since David accidentally shot a hole in the wall with his hunting rifle, he’s been wondering where the bullet went.  While up on the roof removing a wasp’s nest from the chimney collar, he found a dime-sized hole in a roofing shingle.  Here he is filling the hole to keep out the rain, days before torrential storms came through.

He is still unsure exactly why he perforated the house but as he always keeps guns pointed in a safe direction, this was thankfully more of a surprise than anything else.  He says it’s a good idea to get real familiar with a new gun - he should have spent a bit more time practicing with this one before he loaded it to go hunting!

A few pictures of John playing in the backyard in the sprinkler.  Nevermind that it was over 90 degrees out.  The water was freezing cold and he wanted to have his umbrella to shield him.  He eventually did get soaking wet, but it sure was fun to watch him trying to AVOID getting sprinkled!