It has been crazy busy.... thus the missed days of posting. I will just say that we have been on the go a lot. One day we ran to Mtn. Home to get pictures from Aunt Louise. Had a nice visit and learned more family history. For example, I never knew that Aunt Mary had been in a coma for 6 weeks when she was young. Apparently the doctors sent her home to die and Aunt Louise said Grandma Tucker kept her on the kitchen table and force fed her chicken broth, never giving up, and having the older girls take turns working her "drawn up side" kind of like physical therapy. Louise said one day she "just woke up" and said she was very hungry.
Found the newspaper article with Aunt Violet as the Snake River Stampede Rodeo queen. Saw pictures of when Grandpa Tucker worked on the ION between Marsing and Jordan Valley. It was considered a construction job, but they used horses. Then the same construction company had a job in McCall so the family went up there. Saw lots of pictures of all the old houses and one of Gma and Gpa's last house in Melba (the one I lived in at times) and I was surprised by the chipping paint on the side of the house. Through a child's eyes the house was perfect because the memories were so special and happy. Carol (my cousin) told me that have built a second story onto the house now. I don't think I want to see that.
We've also been busy with the garden at Bertie's, church callings, family fun, and just getting ready for this reunion. Took the kids to the Discovery Center in Boise and then the zoo. It has been so hot. Left for the mountains yesterday morning to cool off and visit Trish and Allen. Pine and Anderson Ranch are beautiful this time of year. I probably should have been home doing reunion stuff, but we all needed the break. It was so peaceful up there. Well, considering you're with the Kiester boys. Camping with Papa Kiester is always anything but normal. He keeps my life interesting for sure. :D
I was so relieved we aired out the 4 man tents on 4th of July so we wouldn't have unexpected critters or dusty smells when we went camping, but Papa Kiester grabbed the more convenient pop-up tent instead. It's a two man tent (we have Rellie with us so that would be 3- -not 2) but it's so small, it's pushing it for two adults. That was my first surprise. Then he said Trish had an air mattress so we wouldn't have to sleep on the hard ground. It was the largest double decker air mattress I've ever seen in my life. He blew it up and somehow managed to cram it in the two man tent. We had to smash it down to try to get through the opening of the tent to get in the tent. Once in, you felt like you were in an underwater cave with about 3" of air to breathe! To top it off, the largest person-- that would be Papa Kiester at 6'4" and 220lbs. was making the mattress a slanted hill with his weight so Rellie and I were squashed right on top of him every time he moved. I tried hanging on to the other side so I wouldn't roll over to him or smash Rellie, but once you start sleeping, that's hard to do. Plus Rellie just rolled wherever papa rolled. It was not pretty. Papa finally decided to go in another two man tent. So then I slept with Rellie plastered to my side every time I moved because I then became the largest person. So... I didn't sleep much.
It was still a lot of fun though. We had foil dinners, smores, and some campfire soup. Went to the Cafe and Gma Trish cooked us a yummy breakfast. Greg ended up being the waitress for a little while because they were swamped and short on help. That was quite the sight to see!! :D Then we went fishing but didn't have much luck. I took Anne and Maddi to the natural hot springs the first day. They liked that. Had a deer in our camp last night. We're sitting there and Jason points to the bush next to our camp and says, "That looks like a deer." Anne turns her head and says, "Yeah, it kinda does." They thought it was cool a bush looked like a deer, then it moved and we all realized it was a deer. It was about 10-15' from us. It walked off. Apparently everyone knows the deer and it kind of lives there now. Considering I slept with my toes sticking out of my tent all night due to the fact it was too full to zip-- I kept thinking about our visitor and hoping it didn't like toes! Thanks Jas and Anne for coming with us. We love spending time with you!
Now tonight it's back to getting ready for the reunion. I forgot to mention I've also done quite a bit of family history these past few days and found some very interesting stories there (for the reunion), but I'm too tired to write about them now. Tomorrow it's off to check on our garden, the aunties, and the Jeremy clan. Their fence is in! Yeah! Their lawn is looking great and their house is coming together. Jeremy had great news-- only 3 more classes and he will have his bachelor's. :D I am just happy to be home. There's no place like home!
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