family adventure!!!

(all the family walking up the trail)

My Grover family loves the outdoors, my sisters and I were practically raised outside. We love to go on adventures in the mountains, and when I say adventure i dont just mean camping on the side of the public road that a million people drive on...thats just not our style.

Sunday we decided that after church we wanted to go huckleberrying :) We drove for an hour and a half up into the hills, once we reached the road that would take us up to the "secret spot" we all crammed into our truck and went up the death road!! It is literally the nastiest road ive ever been on! Its practically completely been washed out and half the time we were like at a 45 degree angle about to roll over!! We finally reached our spot!! After we got out of the truck we had to walk about mile up a trail before we get to the goods :) and boy did we hit the jackpot! I guess when you have to go up a death road to get to the berries most people wouldnt...so the more berries for us! :) 

Here is our adventure, picture style!! 

Ryan was so into picking :)

Ziggy was tired after the long hike so she just snoozed in the bushes while we did all the work!!

I was very happy to be picking berries! :)

Lydia probably put 10 berries in the actual bucket! She probably ate 10,000!!!

Big poppa thinks he is the king of the hills!! He is more like over the hill!!!! Just check out his fabulous rainbow suspenders!!!

Here is Ashley, our entertainment extrodinare. This was one of the ten times she fell down the mountain, never a dull moment around here!!

Lanie maybe picked for 5 min and then decided she was the puppysitter.....

My hot hot mommy with her contribution to the picking!!!

We are the winners :) almost a full gallon!!!

We picked a few bushes to take to my grandma,she picking berries but is to old to come to the mountains :)

I have the coolest most best greatest family in the world...sorry everyone else but its true!!

toodles

a new member!!!!

Announcing the newest member of our family....Ziggy Albus Pedro Marley Gardner....

Everyone wanted to help us name our puppy so we took all suggestions, and combined them to make one killer name!!!!! She is so much fun and we love her to death!! She is way to spoiled thought, she has a little pet bed, and she sleeps in it at the bottom of our bed! She is pretty much house trained and is soo smart! My mom likes to tease us and say that when you've been married for 6 months you either get a pet or have a baby.... we chose get a pet! And we couldn't be more happy!!! We take her everywhere with us and are pretty proud parents!!

toodles :)

attention! :)

FRIENDS!!!!! (excuse the poor quality of this photo as it was taken by my ghetto fabulous phone..)

BUT! as soon as I get off work we are getting THIS German Shepard puppy! :) We have decided to take the next step of our relationship and start a family!!!!! AND since it happens to be my birthday this next week ry is getting me a baby! :) :) We dont have a name yet....but we are deciding via text message at this very second!!!!! The names in the running are A) Toki B) Ziggy or C) Murder face! Feel free to tell me your favorite!!! My parents have 2 lady german shepards(one that ryan and I claim as our own...shadow) currently and we LOVE LOVE LOVE them so much so we are freaking excited to get our own! The only downer is that we cant keep it at our current house because our grandpa doesnt allow dogs!!! So it will be parented by our other dogs and we will visit it (and sneak it into our house for sleepovers as much as we can) :) :) for three months and then it will be all our own! :)

I'm a little to excited about it but I can't help it!!!

AND!!!!!!

this little character, who is now dead, RIP Mr. Mouse, WELL, we had an encounter late Saturday afternoon. The incident went like this......Ryan and I were sitting downstairs just watching tv and minding our own business and I see a little movement out of the corner of our eye I see a little movement so I look over and see a mouse sitting next to me on the couch, look back to the tv, do a double take......AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH scream and run up the stairs faster than ryan can ask me what is wrong!!! After I regain composure and come down the stairs to tell ryan what had happened, all the evidence was gone. He didnt even believe me!!!!! RUDE! So i propose a stake out and we sit and wait for the little guy to appear.....and of course he does. He scurried out from under the couch and takes off up the stairs faster than I did!!! I immediatly take off after him because there was NO WAY he was getting into my bedroom!!! He darted under the fridge and i put towels under the door of our room so it couldnt get in there!! We then made a trip to walmart to purchase some mouse traps!!! and the above picture is the result of the trapping! :) it was a cute little guy but we just couldnt live peacfully in the same house!!!

today I am ONE happy camper!!! :) :)

2nd Place

Ryan and his team Bud Light Lime got 2nd place in their softball league this summer! They have been playing in a tournament for the last few weeks and last night they played the 2nd ranked team, Miller Light, and won in a very exciting game!! Then they had to play the very best team, Blue Hashi, a team full of Dominicans that all played minor league ball!! At one point they were beating them, but they couldn't hold on for the win!! They took home a pretty massive trophy and were pretty happy about taking 2nd place! :) :)

We have it way to good!

Ryan and I love to do fun things on the weekend, our weeks are so chaotic between work, softball games and ry's umpiring and my other new job, that by the weekend we are ready to spend some quality time together. We try to do something new each weekend. 

This past weekend was especially fun, we both took friday off of work to go on a 20 mile horse ride with my dad. We went to bear creek, just above palasaides lake. It is a really easy and beautiful ride. You just go up a canyon along a pretty good sized creek supplied by the mountain runoff. Its really a fun ride because we get to cross the creek multiple times and there are lots of open meadows to run through. We had never been on this ride before and my dad had told us about a hot springs that we could go to! To get there we had to go straight up a really steep mountain, which is really fun because the horses love to run straight up the hill. It was about a mile up, and our horses were getting pretty tired but my horse this particular time was the fastest :) It was a really pretty view. Its hard for me to take my camera on these long horse rides because A- I hate wearing my backpack on hot hot days its super annoying and B- My nikon is kind of my baby, I broke my first lense from being careless with it and I'm super attached to my new lense and it has some sentimental value so I really don't like to risk it. Maybe I should invest in a little camera that can fit into my saddle bag, because the places we go on our horses are breathtakingly beautiful, and I would love to share them with everyone!!!! 

Anyways.....

On Saturday we decided we would go to Birch Creek, which is out past Mud Lake on the way to Salmon. The creek is small and there are literally MILLIONS of teensy little fishies in it! I'm really not into fishing, I think that fishing with a worm is so boring....but I really enjoy fly fishing and Ryan really takes the time to teach me how!!!

I am still learning, as you can see in this picture. Even though I have fished for years and years, I managed to catch myself in the shirt with my own hook (multiple times during the day)!!! You hear about people snagging other people all the time, who the heck snags themselves, well I sure do!!!

 

I was a little stoked about my first catch, because it was windy and I didn't think I was going to catch anything!! :) :) 

This is the average size of fish that are at Birch Creek. Not trophy fish by any means, but they are easy to catch and its a great learning place!!! You can catch like 20+ an hour which always makes fishing more fun!!!!

Can I just brag on this kid for a second. He is so much fun, he always takes the time to make sure that I am having fun. He helps me and encourages me with my casting!!!He usually gives me the best spots  AND always makes sure I know that he loves to spend time with me :) What more could I ask for :) :) 

I guess I'm not the only one who can snag themselves. Ry caught himself on the shorts, but blamed it on the wind ; ). It was pretty windy that day! :) 

 

A very pretty place, and a very fun day!!!