Home to Donnelly!

This was out on a walk and saw this beautiful uprooted tree.  also notice the urgent need of one of my children :)

Splashing and a playing in the puddles

The sky on my way to Donnelly.  It was so cool with the clouds low and ready to pour down some rain but held out till we made the trip.

On our beautiful walk on the ranch

near banks Idaho

the "drop" off the cabarton run on the payette river

My inlaws yard waiting the down pour

the down pour :)

The half finished home we started in Donnelly.  Anyone want to finish a home :)

Our blissful walk in the south pasture with Joseph's dog (now his mom's) Sammy!

This is the cabin in the woods that we lived in for 2 1/2 years and raised our children in till gideon was 2 1/2 and Bridger was 6 months :)  Fond memories of living in the cabin

Got a tractor ride with Grandpa!!  A highlight of course :)

Gideon and Grandma

All smiles!!

There is something about being up in Donnelly that enlivened my soul a bit.  It was so nice to be at the ranch and take in the beaty that it is truly made up of

feeling the rain come down

We love Grandma and grandpa Jones

And more of the tractor...... A favorite!

Bridger set off for our walk

finding more water to splash in....So glad I brought their boots

climbing the gravel pit

Me :)

A few elk we saw in the woods

Panarama view of the south pasture on the ranch :)



On the farm

This is me enjoying life on my dads farm picking up hay.  There is something that moves me and cleanses the soul with work and the outdoors.  I love it!!!

 My sister Cathi getting ready to rip it up on the four wheelers :)

Oh yeah, we couldn't wipe the smiles off our faces it was that fun!!

Me and my sister Cathi!!  Love this girl :)

Meridian days

Met up for dinner at JB's with my friends Brielle and Aleah 

playing with grandma and her cool iphone.....I think my mom knows how to work more technology than I do....maybe i should do something about that.

Temple trip with my sisters, missing 2 more.

It felt so good to be there after 8 months.  When i am back in germany I am just going to have to get a all day babysitter and do it!

Beautiful storm clouds that dumped a lot of rain

More to come.  It has been wonderful to be home!!

We made it home to Idaho!!

Our ride :)

A C17 cargo plane with a Boeing Helicopter CH-47 Chinook in it.  Yeah it was pretty cool.  We even got to sleep underneath it.

Our seats.... comes equipped with oxygen bottles, mask, life jackets and raft :)... Oh yeah!

Gideon got the privelage of taking a tour of the cock pit and everything while en-route.  It was pretty cool! (Bridger was sleeping during the tour)

The heli in the airplane.  This is just the body which is close to 50 feet long

This is a picture of what it looks like all together

Cute Gideon

Funny grumpy face from Bridger... I told him to smile and then he did this.....:)

Ear plugs.....

It was really loud in the plane and we wore these for about an hour before we had enough and just dealt with the noise.

Bridger sleeping in a C17 cargo plane while underneath a helicopter.  Cool.

This was a nice way to travel for 12 hours...  Better than commercial except louder and colder.

Gideon's sleep time :)

My good friend Elaina was able to catch the hop with us adn we traveled together.  (SO GRATEFUL!!)  This is her daughter and son Alyssa and Brock.

We flew a non stop flight from Germany to Tacoma Washinton adn it took 12 hours.  We flew over the the North pole area and saw the Ice cap on "top" of the world.  So our route was up and over.

We flew over the canadian rockies too

So we landed at Fort Lewis (army) in Tacoma at 10am Tuesday morning.......we left Germany at 7am Tuesday morning....funny how that works.  When we got there we called a taxi adn rented a minivan and started driving around 2pm and we got home at 12:30am wednesday morning.  So from the time I got to the air terminal in Germany at 4am till I got home in Meridian we were pushing 30 hours of travel......

Lets just say I was a bit tired.  I have verigo or somwething because the room starts moving up and down adn I get dixxy really easily so lots of fluids and rest will hopefully fix that up.

This is us on our way home in Washington

"ROAR"

Our rental

and our tuckered boy Gideon

 It feels so good to be home :)  Funny things that feel different....

#1 80mph feels slow now......I am really going to miss that about Germany

#2 my mothers kitchen sink is HUGE.  I never realised how small mine was in germany till I got here.  They have shallow sinks and small ones in Germany compared to what we are used to.  Most households olny have one sink instead of two like we do.

#3 Bridger forgot how to flush an American toilet adn wasn't sure why there wasn't a flusher on the wall

#4 It was fun to see a whole gallon of milk in the fridge

#5 I was expecting the people on the radio to start speaking German

#6 Latex paint is so NICE!

So we are so excited to be here and to see family and friends.  We look forward to our Month :)