Christmas fun

A little bit of Christmas sledding fun. 

Monkey and Grammy having fun on the antique sled.

dogs sure got a work out.

Papa wasn't going fast enough.

spinning some cookies

Then it was inside to warm up and some Christmas dinner.

Handmade Christmas on the homestead

This year i made a portion of the presents for family.

My sister had a old belt that she loved but the pleather straps had cracked and broke so i reused what hardware i could and replaced all the straps with leather.

For my wife I bought her a new Buck 110 folder and made a style of sheath that she had been wanting.

After wearing the scarf on the horse drawn wagon ride, Monkey kept wanting to wear it all the time so I made him his very own. Double layer fleece.

09 DEC 2017

We had a surprise planned for Monkey, a horse carriage ride around down town Yakima. It was kinda cold but he was SO excited.

the same company gives carriage tours of the murals in Toppenish.

It was only about a 30 minute ride but he enjoyed it so much.

one of the statues at millennium Park

We had lunch in Yakima then on our way home we stopped at the tea pot rest area in Zillah. 

vacation? stay-cation? house work!

I had some use or lose vacation time at work and didn't have anywhere to go so we just stayed home and got some work done around the house.

wood stove removed and pellet stove installed.

we thought we had a pear tree, apparently its a Quince tree

and they're huge

a monkey and a cat riding a 4 wheeler

putting a monkey to work

put the old girl to work also. Levi's 1972 blazer.

we also made 2 dump runs, 4 scrap metal runs, worked on cleaning out the hay storage area, got hay. Saturday we tried to go to the Walla Walla balloon stampede, woke up at 5:30, drove 1.5 hours, and they cancelled it, had a good breakfast though.

A star is born!

So we get home from our camp/hike on September 24th, the 25th Monkey goes down and auditions for a play "The Wiz of the West" Missoula children theater came to town to put it on, A take on the "Wizard of Oz". He gets cast as a tarantula. They had rehearsals Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday before the opening play Friday night, then again Saturday before the closing play Saturday afternoon. 

His solo moment with the main cast of characters

There were 17 tarantulas and 60 kids total in the play.

He was nervous about doing it and when you ask if he wants to do it again you get a different answer every time you ask . The Missoula children theater will be back in May of next year and will be doing Aladdin, we will see if he wants to do it again.

Firsts and a Happy Birthday

So lets start with the Birthday, Saturday was Aunt Nae Nae's Birthday and as a gift to her Levi and I took her for her first overnight hiking trip. It was also Levis first overnight hiking trip (and it has been quite a while since my last one).

We hiked the North Fork Umatilla River Trail #3083. The last time I hiked this was 18-20 years ago and it has NOT been maintained, between the wash outs, 2 root balls ripping out trail, and the 15-20 trees we had to climb over/under, it was hard earned miles. There was snow just before the trail head but I didn't get a pic of it. 

View from the top

Little ways from the top. Levi had his camera and wanted to stop every 5 feet for a picture.

Lunch break, Ramen noodles. Since it was Nae Nae's Birthday we also brought her cake and ice cream (Little Debbie cupcake and some freeze dried ice cream)

One of the root balls in the middle of the trail we had to climb over.

 

Camp set up

I thought i grabbed 2 cans of raviolis, instead i had a can of ravioli's and a can of spaghetti and meatballs, it was good though.

Tried to get a fire going but everything was so wet. It rained off and on Saturday while hiking.

 

Sunday morning eating some freeze dried biscuits and gravy.

I would take a picture and he would say "daaaad" so I took another.

And another lol.

 Parts of the "trail" you cant even see

pretty cool bridge over one of the water crossings (the only bridge over a water crossing)

Trail snack

There are more pics of the wildlife but they are on Levi's camera and I have not downloaded them yet. I planned on a separate post just for Monkey pictures.

End of the trail (still had another 1/4 - 1/2 mile walk to the car).

I have to say this, while Levi did mention being tired at times and his legs hurting or being tired, he did not cry/wine. I could not be prouder of our 6 year old doing a 15 mile overnight hike with a 20 pound adult sized backpack.