Sandpoint Trip, Pt. 2

Since we got back from Sandpoint last week, and its been a while since we posted, this one will be kind of long. The vacation was great, but we got off to kind of a rocky start. The day before we left, as soon as Owen woke up, he threw up all over in his bedroom. Fearing that he may have had a flu, or even the swine flu, he watched him pretty carefully the rest of the day. He acted just fine, no fever, no more complaints. We figured he had just gotten too warm in his room or something, or he ate something that didn't agree with him. We left the next day, and he seemed fine. We were doing good, making great time, and about an hour and a half away Tyson threw up in the car. We pulled over and cleaned him up, but it was obvious he still didn't feel well. As we were driving through Coeur d'Alene, in the middle of construction (it was bad, we were hardly moving) he threw up again (this time, mostly in a bowl we had prepared for any problems). When we got there, it began a pandemic. Tiffany got sick the next day, so did Gavin. Then Tricia, then ken, then Kaleb. All with vomiting, some with diarrhea. Paula had some naseua, and I (Clint) had some diarrhea a day or so after everyone else, but we fared far better than anyone else. The only good news is that everyone was only sick for about 12 hours or less when they got it, it hit hard and it hit fast. It was just a miserable 12 hours.

When Gavin threw up, it was so bad because we never knew when it would come. He would be happy and smiling, and then just drench you with puke. This is a picture of me after he threw up on me. Not only did he get on my shirt, but I tried to pull him away from me so he wouldn't get dirty, but as i pulled him, he grabbed my shirt, pulled it away from me, and vomited directly onto my chest. Thanks Gavin.

Well, even though I made it sound really bad, we actually did have a lot of fun. The fireworks are always good there, and we were able to see a lot of family and friends we don't see very often. The boys loved being able to run and frolic at Grandma and Grandpas house. Any time they get somewhere bigger than our tiny living room, they just run and run and run. Here are some pictures of them enjoying the outdoors.

Owen running in the front yard. He thought it was the best thing in the world.

Tyson in front of Grandmas flowers. They love running around.

Gavin in his stroller. He was getting some teeth in, but he still was pretty happy most of the time.

I was surprised how much Gavin enjoyed the grass. Tyson and Owen were not huge fans at this age.

Tyson playing indoors with the stencils. He was acting like he was taking pictures of me while i took pictures of him.

Owen saw Tyson doing that, and thought maybe he was missing out. He thought it was kind of funny himself.

I love this picture of Gavin. I know he has a great smile, but he looked so cute when he pulled this pose. I don't see this side of Gavin too often, but it looked pretty cute.

Grandpa took the boys on a walk out on some paths he made in his field. Tyson and Owen love to go and look at all the flowers, trees, grass, bugs, etc... While we were out on a walk, Tyson was pretending to be an airplane.

Owen and Tyson picked some flowers for Grandma on our walk. Owen wanted to hold them all, and he looked pretty cute.

During our stay, we took a few walks, there is just so much pretty stuff to see there. On our way towards Sandpoint, I saw this sign and it made me laugh. I guess this is either because of the bad economy, or an out of control cat population, or both.

This was pretty neat. As we were coming back from our walk, Tiffany heard something in the bushes, and we found this baby fawn. We approached it slowly, but we couldnt see the mother. We took a few more steps, then we saw the mom running away from it. Not wanting to cause too much of a disturbance, we took a few more steps, and got a somewhat decent picture. He was a cute little guy, just kind of sat there. Wish I could have gotten a better one, but he looked kind of scared.

These pictures are from Green Bay, one of the rocky beaches along the lake Ponderay. It is gorgeous there, even though the water is absolutely freezing. We try to go up at the warmest part of our trip so we can at least make it in up to our ankles. It also has a great collection of skipping rocks along the shore.

I love the view from some of the upper cliffs. it was a great day to be out and about.

This is one of the cliffs that people jump off of. It is about 50 ft or so at the highest point, and the lower jumping area is about 25 ft. We saw a few people preparing to jump off, and I was able to catch the braver of the two doing a front flip on his way down. As he came up he yelled "i'll need another beer before I do that again!"

Kenny was the only brave one in our group that would jump. He opted not to do a front flip. I don't blame him.

We had a great time in Sandpoint, and the best part was just being able to see everyone and enjoy good company. Now we are just trying to get back in the groove of everyday life. At least there is no school yet.

Fun Outside and In

well clint had the day off today so we went for a little nature walk. there was only one duck so we fed it, it was one lucky duck to get all that bread to itself. this was cute the boys threw the bread at the same time.



This is just some pictures clint got around the place

this frog was huge there was also some tadpoles that were like 3 inches long the boys loved it.
Total forced smiles!
This is our new car we are loving having a car we can rely on.
We have been having lots of rain showers and one day while it was pouring down rain this pretty rainbow appeared. I liked how the clouds were.
After church the boys zonked out this is how we found them I wonder what they were doing before the fell asleep.
The pool has been fun this year, my boys dont really like swimming but they love sprinklers so this is a happy medium they think it is a drinking fountain.




We are having a fun summer and we hope you are too.

Family Pictures in Idaho

Since the pictures on our wall are starting to get old, we thought we ought to take some good ones of the boys to hang up on our wall. I decided to try and make them all look about the same, and really do them well, since I often just clean them up enough to make them presentable. I think most of these turned our really well, so I thought I would share them.

This is one of the only family pictures we have with Gavin in it. We have a lot of him and the boys, but not all of us together. The boys all did great sitting for this picture.

Gavin did pretty good at taking pictures. He is a very smiley little boy. Even while getting a third tooth on the bottom. Here is Owen trying out Tysons patented head tilt. Although I didn't want them posing that way, it turned out pretty cute.

Tyson has a great smile, but sometimes for pictures he hams it up a bit. He toned it down a lot on this picture, and his personality came through. I loved this area for taking pictures, but there were a lot of ants by the barn, and the boys were more concerned about them then looking cute for pictures. They got a cute little moment here though.
this picture would be a lot better with me (Clint) out of it, but at least Tiffany is there to brighten it up.
This was my favorite picture of all the ones we took. I really like to see them all just being themselves and having fun with each other.
This was taken while the boys were playing. I love that smile.
Gavin being happy. We are glad he has been such an easy-going baby.

Owen isn't a big fan of the camera, but when i catch him not shying away from the camera, I can end up with some real gems. Tyson doing his head-tilt. He thought he was so cute every time he did it.
Gavin was having a ball being outside. He just loves to play.
Here is Owen with the same smile Tyson usually has. He thought he was pretty funny.

our trip to idaho

We just got home this week from Idaho, and although there is a lot we haven't blogged about, we thought we ought to get these recent pictures and stories up. We got to spend Memorial weekend in Sandpoint this year. Our trip served a few purposes. One, it's an excuse to get away for a while. Two, we went up to see Tiffanys family, we don't get to see some of them too often. Three, we bought a car from Tiffanys Grandpa (we are trying to sell our old Honda now). It is a 2002 Honda Accord. We are really excited about it. Tiffanys mom drove back with us so no one had to be by themselves in the van with all three boys.
The trip was excelent. We really enjoyed seeing everyone and catching up. During our week, I took a lot of pictures, trying to document some of the events, as well as get some good pictures of our family (we havent done family pictures in a long time, and most of the photos in our house are out of date). Here are some that I was able to get.

Here is most of the family. The boys loved being outdoors in Sandpoint. I think they were outside at least 5 hours every day.

Here are Tyson and Owen helping to make breakfast. They have both been very good helpers lately, and they like to be involved in everything thats going on.
Owen and Caleb really liked jumping on the neighbors trampoline. They were much more enthused than Tyson. Although Tyson is more outgoing normally, he gets very afraid of things. We finally got Tyson on the trampoline, but it didnt last long. You can tell by his face that he's not too excited about it.

While trying to take some good portraits of the kids, we got a few pictures that cracked us up. They came up with some interesting poses. I love Gavins face here. Below is Owen doing his face at the same age Gavin is. It must be a family trait.

Tyson always cocked his head, thinking it was more artistic that way, or something. This is an extreme example of his interesting technique.
Tiffany and Tricia wante some sister pictures, and i thought this one turned out pretty well.
Its been a long standing joke that Grandpa Chapin is always asleep while holding children. Though he really wasnt asleep, this adds to the long line of pictures we have of him with his eyes closed holding a child.
Grandma Chapin loves being able to get the grandkids together. Here are they on the swing on the front porch.
We had a really good time being able to see everyone, and just being able to relax. We will have more pictures of our trip, and we will try to be better about keeping everyone up to date.

The Tree

Well the finally did it. we new it was coming. Our tree has been slowly dieing since we moved in and so they cut it down this last week. they actually took out both of our front yard trees. We are really sad about it but they promised new trees. so we posted a little tribute to our trees. We will post pictures when they get the new ones put in.









They pretty much destroyed our lawn and they accidentally broke up the cement rings around them.






We will have more post to come soon with pictures of the boys.