Happy Birthday Grandpa Roger

Darin had already done the blog for today and I missed out on saying Happy Birthday to my Dad. So Happy Birthday-once again, since we already talked.

This picture is from the Dakota Zoo in Bismarck. It is from 2006. Look at that little teenie guy Bridger is.


So I slept until 7am after my big night out with Linnea. We didn't make it to the theatre in time to sit with all the work group. We managed just fine by ourselves, though. I enjoyed the movie.

We didn't get anything accomplished this morning between the 3 of us. I went back to work for a lunch meeting. I guess Bridger and Jason (across the street) played a bit this afternoon. Bridger and I did a late bike ride. He wanted to keep going, until I challenged him to a hill. I won and we got to go home. He fell off his bike trying to stop. He landed in some pea gravel and cut up his hand. I tell ya'-that kid. He won't listen-so all this is live and learn.

No Boys Allowed

The Mamma Unit left us for the night. She is doing a girls night out to see the midnight screening of the new Twilight movie. The theater is showing all three movies. It will be a late night for her. Bridger and I had coach pitch baseball tonight. He did great. I am coaching to good though. Every time they bat I think they are going to nail me.

Bridger and I had a busy day. We started with golf. We were late and they were getting ready to leaving as we were walking up. I grabbed Bridger's clubs and said run and tell them you are here. He looked at me and walked. I had to then walk him halfway out the golf course to get him to the lessons. I should have said please stay and walk with me and then he would have ran. Towards the end they came back to the putting green and had a putting contest. It was about a 30 foot put and Bridger won. He was about 4 inches from the hole. Since he won he got the quarters the the instructor was using for marks. He wanted to use his winnings at the dollar store to buy some bug catchers like the Twins next door have. He is showing them off in picture 2.

Picture three is a picture of the Twins for those of you that have not gotten to meet them. The one twin you can see in the doorway. The other twin has his head turned but looks just like the twin you can see. So, on to the rest of our day. The door bell rang and it was the twins sister-in-law to inform us the twins had run away. They told there mom that they were going to meet a 19 year old girl that I had introduced them to. The mother actually considered believing that. I was nice and drove around to help look for them. Oh yeah, they ran away on the bikes that I fixed for them the other night. I talked with the mother before baseball and she said they called but would not tell her were they are. I don't know if they are home or not but all of their vehicles are in the driveway.

I hope everyone enjoys the last day of June, were did it go?

"This is a very simple game. You throw the ball, you catch the ball, you hit the ball. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes it rains"

belly buster

Darin and Bridger went swimming this afternoon at the Kelly Walsh pool. Bridger managed to do a belly flop off the high dive. Darin said he hit his face pretty hard. Bridger asked Darin after he got out if his teeth were OK.

Darin said everyone saw or heard him hit the water. Later some of the older kids were calling him "tattoo boy". Bridger decorated his chest all by himself during one of those, "it sure is quiet upstairs-maybe we should check it out."

Quiet day for them. Darin is still working on the batteries for the RV. We are taking the RV to Broadus for the all school reunion. I am looking forward to the get together. Darin is being so great about going. Course, every time he has gone he has had fun, well, except when we had a 4 week old infant while there once upon a time.

bloody nose

Bridger experienced his first bloody nose at the hand of someone else yesterday. It was a gusher. We had gone for a bike ride. We left one neighbor twin at the house promising to watch for our return. When we got back to the house one of the twins asked Darin if he would fix his bike. I think the chain was loose or something. I came inside and Darin started being helpful. I know he felt good that he could something nice. Then the other twin had to bring his bike over.

Somehow one twin was spinning his a wheel with the bike upside down resting on its seat/handlebars, Bridger was standing near by and KA-WHAM hand into his face as the twin swung back. It was an accident. Darin racing into the house was my clue something was up. I came out to check things out. Bridger was OK. I am sure it smarted. He had tears in his eyes, but he wasn't crying. He was being so brave holding his nose with Kleenex and leaning so he wouldn't get blood on his clothes. We will have to wash his shoes today, though. Whichever twin it was did apologize several times.

In the afternoon we ventured out to the Nicolaysen Art Museum. The Nic Fest was going on. There was music, medevil fighters, food and booths. We got our passport book stamped for the last stamp. I got distracted and didn't drop off the page acknowledging we were complete. Oh well. Have plenty of time. We finished this one in record time.

We went to Home Depot to look at some things for the next Myers project. That drug out like it usually does. We had dinner, went for the bike and the guys watched a movie later. It was a nice quiet weekend.

museum X 2

I didn't even think about taking the camera to document our museum adventures yesterday. OOPS! But we went to Tate Museum which is a geology museum and Fort Casper Museum.

The question at Tate had to do with the Columbian Mammoth skeleton they have on display. The Mammoth is named Dee and I read that it is a male Mammoth. I have met the Dean of the Science Dept and we have talked about "Dee", but I can't remember why it's Dee. The college has the record for this particular mammoth find in that it's supposed to be the most complete recovered skeleton. The question for the passport book was "what bone was missing" that they had to replace. It was pretty obvious-no that body isn't missing, but the casting is a different color for what they had to replace-the left back leg.

I noticed a poster in a corner advertising "adopt a bone", which must be a fund raiser. It said the limit was up to $300 for adopting a bone. I should have asked if a tail bone was really that much-those are pretty small. The big bones were pretty much taken.

These are just pictures from the last couple of days.

Bridger and I found the answer pretty quick at Fort Casper. It was what year did the Pony Express carry the Olympic Torch. Guess if I would have thought about that I could have come up with 1996 since that was the last Olympics in US (summer). I tried explaining the Pony Express to Bridger. There was a map showing starting in St. Joe and ending in California. I showed him how far from the start to Casper. He did at least comment that seemed a long way. He had some comment pertaining to technology now and how things were done a long time ago. It sounded like he was getting it.

After we were done I surprised him with Dairy Queen. We took root beer floats home for him and Darin. I was challenged to do the slip and slide when we got home, but luckily we had a quick little rain shower go through. Meline's called and we went out to dinner with them. That also saved me. Bridger had grand plans of dueling with me with the water guns also.

For dinner we went to Outback. We got there first and when Meline's arrived D/B were coming back from bathroom. Sammy came and sat by me and wanted to sit on our side of the booth. Bridger ended up sitting between Shawn and Linnea. Bridger was a big boy and ordered ribs off the kid menu. Sammy started to until I showed her the picture and said she couldn't order ribs and sit by me. She is MESSY. I was only kidding, but she did change her mind. I kept her busy with coloring and asking about their Disney vacation that was land and sea. They had a great time.

All the Disney discussion got us thinking about our past trips to Disney. We aren't doing any big summer trips this year as you may have noticed. We have plans of going to Disney over Thanksgiving. Bridger and I are also going on an Alaskan Cruise with Grammy in September. Darin is missing out because of football. He's not so happy, but he has been to Alaska and lived there. I know it doesn't make up for it. I was asking lots of questions about cruising last night. Should be an experience come September.

water fight, dinner and a movie

Yesterday Darin and Bridger worked on the RV. While they were charging the batteries, they made sure the twins didn't wander into the RV by using our security camera. Bridger is watching the RV in this picture. They had the door open to the RV because of the water hose and electricity, which looked like an open invitation. The twins have not been seen for two days, yeah!







Into the afternoon a water gun fight ensued. They must have a blast, that is until.....

Shasta decided Darin was picking on Bridger way too much. As they were chasing each other through the yard, Shasta latched onto Darin's foot and wasn't going to let go. Shasta ended up in his kennel. Guess Darin likes taking pictures of his feet also.

Last night we went out for dinner. There always seems to be a discussion and poor agreement on where everyone wants to go. My preference is FireRock, Bridger's currently is Burger King and Darin always "doesn't matter". It doesn't matter until we pick somewhere he doesn't want to go. I had heard the new Holiday Inn had a restaurant, but have never seen it advertised. An employee was seen at the clinic and told there was indeed a restaurant and that it was FABULOUS!

We loaded up to venture out and find-out for ourselves what the deal was. They do have a small Bar/Grill with maximum capacity of 70. It was great. I had to go in and be the scout to make sure they did. One can't ask Darin to embarass himself. I read the menu-adult and child, the wine menu and got the special. Darin said Bridger was making fun of eating there before they came in-he thought maybe we should be getting a room. To Bridger's wonderful surprise-the booths have a TV in them. Once he figured out there was not a cartoon channel showing SpongeBob-he settled on a rodeo. We had fun explaining to him the finer art of rodeoing. I can't remember some of his comments, but they were funny. When it came to the steer wrestling he had numerous comments about how his daddy was much bigger than the steer wrestlers and they were woosy boys. If you will remember steer wrestlers are usually the "stockier" of men.

So we had dinner and a movie. Bridger and I were begging all through the evening to get to watch a movie outside. As you can see-we won out. We watched "Twister" for our inaugural movie. The sound was better than we anticipated. Bridger fogged the yard beforehand and the mosquitos were kept at bay. Shasta wouldn't leave us alone, what's new. Bridger even got up and put every ball he could find in the house. Shasta just found something else. What a fetching dog he is.

Darin is going to the teenager awareness of drinking and driving this morning. He helps out as a fireman. We will see him later and plan something for our day. I see and hear the wind is blowing-what's new.

baseball

I got to the game tonight and it was half over. I misunderstood that it was a game, not a practice. When I got there to my surprise, look who was in catcher gear catching.

I spy a baseball do you?

Bridger had fun and commented that the gear was sure hot.

We were supposed to hit 91 degrees around 4pm. The game was at 5:30pm.

Didn't sound like the guys did too much today. I noticed the yard was mowed. Darin commented that they took turns rubbing Aloe gel on each other. Darin was sunburned also, but that was his choice.

summer wounds

I just might have to rethink this Bridger staying home with Darin. DARIN PAUL MYERS you are in big trouble for not putting sunblock on our baby.

So the guys went to the lake today. Darin worked on the boat lift. Apparently the boat was so heavy that it bent the support bars it was sitting on. Darin has done something to it to make it different. Bridger played and fished and then they went tubing. When Darin explained to Bridger that he was supposed to wear a life jacket, Bridger responded immediately with, "hasn't the game and fish ever heard of expert swimmers?"

After Bridger had been tubing for awhile Darin pulled him up and asked if he was having fun. Bridger replied yes and then offered the tube to Darin and thought he could drive the boat. When Darin said he couldn't do that Bridger replied he had driven the boat before. Darin helped him think out that he would be the ONLY ONE in the boat. He got the point, aside from the fact that he is not old enough to drive the boat.


These are biking and playground wounds in the last couple of days. Oh to be 7!!!

And this horrendous sight is my poor child with a sunburn. More summer wounds. Don't let Darin have it. I already did! I don't think he will forget again. Bridger earned a homemade banana split for this, though.

Before he was really starting to hurt he wanted to ride his bike. So we took off and went all the way to the end of the bike path going south and turned back. We went through the residential instead coming back. Found a couple of nice houses for sale. We're not looking, but anyone that might be-never know. Bridger impressed me with actually pedalling up the long , LONG lane hill past Meline's. A car came and he bailed off. He was atleast 2/3 up and giving it his all. We had a very long journey and enjoyed every minute together.

Darin went off to FD and is home now.

storm

We had severe thunderstorm warnings this afternoon. The tornado sirens went off also. At the clinic we had to move everyone out of the exam rooms and go to our basement. I didn't know how many patients were in clinic right then, but apparently we got everyone in. I happened to be in the middle of explaining to a young mother what some abnormal blood tests meant for her 3 week old infant. We found some chairs downstairs and kept up our conversation.

Darin called and left a message about watching the storm outside our house. He took pictures of course.

We don't think an actual tornado touched down today.

We are having quite a time with the next door twins and Bridger. They won't leave him alone and he thinks all the attention is fabulous. There have been some issues with the old cell phones and calling 911 or trying to call 911. They actually came over and tried tattling on Bridger, which the stories don't jive. Do they ever? I just want to keep him busy and away from them. We can't figure out a way to explain to him on his level why exactly we don't trust them. Part of me thinks-"BECAUSE I SAID SO!!!!!" Didn't I learn well!!!!

floodwater

Has anyone else noticed we were having quite a Spring, which is now officially summer. The overflow at Pathfinder continues and is supposed to rise another 6 inches in the next day or so.

These first two pictures are from Sat afternoon. Bridger is actually standing on a walkway. The sandbags are in front of a restaurant that opened here in late winter. It thinks it is a fancy restaurant. Atleast the floors inside are concrete. Bridger wanted to walk out to the bench, but Darin convinced him it is not a good idea.

We also watched 3 kayak-ers messing around in the rapids that are behind me. There is a bridger going over the river just to the right of me(taking the picture).

I don't think I put this one in from our visit to pathfinder. Don't know the people. With the sun in my eyes I didn't even realize they were in the picture.

We went to a office picnic last night. It was to welcome the new residents to the residency program. They never introdue the residents and I never really know anymore who is just an employee I never met or a new resident. The gathering seems to get smaller and smaller. Since we are two entities in one there seems to be some segregation-them and us. I hardly saw any clinic people and the majority then were the residency folks. Darin ended up talking to my new nurse's husband. They talked the flooding and fishing. Bridger played on the playground equipment. I socialized a little-sort of like whoever came within my 3 foot radius-I spoke to. Luckily, people drifted by-I didn't lack for opportunity. We were bad parents and suggested Dairy Queen to get Bridger motivated to go home.

Quiet day for them yesterday. They showed up at the office around noon and took me to lunch. They messed around through the afternoon. It appears a new "tube" was purchased for towing behind the boat. It is wider/longer than Darin and "supposedly" 4 people can fit in the tube.

We did launch the boat last weekend. It was windy out there and very rough on the lake. We made a circle with the boat and headed back to check out the lift.

I must be like my Mom with the morels. They seem to upset my stomach also. But, they are good. I think the joy of eating them comes from the joy of having been the hunter who was successful. I was always annoyed with everywhere we have lived-it is like a superspy ordeal to find out where someone got their morels. In Michigan at the road side stands they were $15lb and that was the late 90's. I see recipes alot with morels and think-"yeah right, where am I going to get those!" Guess in Pinedale!!!

end of the rainbow

We got a slow start to our day and didn't get out to Alcove until around 3pm. I kept saying but it's Equinox-we have plenty of daylight. We just enjoyed our morning and then started getting the boat ready. Time passed and then it was later than we anticipated getting out there.


Bridger at the Pathfinder Dam. Last week the area that you can see the water coming by was just all rocks.



Here is the actual dam. The catwalk is closed to pedestrians.. Last week we walked across to the other side.

And here is the rainbow. We did walk further down past where those people are and I got the video below.

Darin's Father's Day dinner. Rather impromptu dinner planned outside. Bridger and I sprayed ourselves down with mosquito spray. We had steak, lobster and S'mores for dessert. Now that is what is at the end of the rainbow. You can't see the fire behind me, but between all 3 of us we got it going and kept it going. Big Dipper was easily spied tonight.

Overflow of dam is below.

Happy Father's Day

Happy Father's Day to all the DADS in our lives.

It's also Equinox. Longest day of daylight, yeah!!!! So much more time to do something, ha-ha!!

On Saturday we just hung out with each other. Darin had more ambition than either Bridger or I. He mowed the lawn and washed the vehicles. We went and did some DAD's day shopping. Darin made a nice haul. Bridger looks all grown-up in his big boy shorts. We were going to use a coupon and have lunch at Three Crowns restaurant (golf course), but they were closed for a wedding.

We saw the river was coming up over the banks across from the golf course near another restaurant. After we had lunch somewhere else we went back to investigate. Bridger braved the water while I watched very apprehensively. He had fun and in full boy mode he thought I was silly for worrying.

We had burgers outside at home tonight and got chased back in by the mosquitos. Both Bridger and I have welts on our faces. Darin fogged the yard earlier and even came out with some more fogger while we were out.

The plan tomorrow is wash the boat and then head out to Alcova. We hope to actually make it over to Pathfinder and check out the water going over the dam. Pictures in the paper show it is going over pretty fast. It should be interesting to see.

Building a Driveway

I got everything tilled up, raked out and the stone delivered today. Bridger helped by shoveling a few stones and then throwing a few out in the yard. He decided he would rather climb trees than help me.

Bridger and I had baseball last night and Ginni helped out. Afterward we decided to have dinner at the boat club and then check out Pathfinder overflowing since it only happens every quarter of a century. We made it to the boat club and they only had one person serving. They forgot our order and drinks. By the time we ate it was dark and to late to see anything at Pathfinder. Oh well. We sat by some friends at the club (Bullards from hockey) and had a nice time.

The weather is looking good for the weekend so hopefully we will make it out boating.

I hope all is well for everyone in blogger land.

"Don't make me angry, you won't like me when I'm angry"

WINDY day

The pictures are out of order for what I was going to say. From this to this, but I think you will get the idea. Washington days seem so far away....(8 years from the start of them)

We are having quite the wind. Bridger and I went for a walk down to Meline's to check on their cats. Meline's are on vacation. Bridger was able to get up and going on his new "big" bike by himself 3 times last night. He was very proud of himself. He can't turn very well yet. He wouldn't take his hands off the handlebars to high 5 me either. Handlebar thing I can live with, turning, well that needs to develop.

So back to the wind. Just as we were getting home the wind started up. Sort of just out of nowhere. We both looked up to see the sky-it was funny to see our reactions. It just got worse through the evening. Around 4am it really cut loose waking up all 3 of us. Bridger ended up you know where. Darin went outside and brought in Shasta who was hiding back behind the shed and also collected things that blew into the yard. It is still howling away this morning.

Bridger had a huge play day yesterday. He had his friend, Buck, over during the morning. Then the across the street, boy, Jason came over to invite Bridge to play. His mom told me how excited he was for playing with Bridger. He met her in their garage at noon when she came home and wanted to go right then to get him. Good thing they were home and didn't have plans. I could only imagine the heart crushing. They played all afternoon back and forth to each other's houses. Bridger even had dinner with them. Jennifer, the mom, complimented Bridger on his politeness. He apparently waited to be offered seconds, he went and got a 2nd spoon to dip pudding that had already been dipped in. She really thought that was good. It is just nice to hear your child has done something to impress someone else.

we got pumpkins and corn

Bridger and Darin are so excited about their garden. They figured this was blog worthy. Just in case something happens and nothing more happens it is now documented that their vegetables made it through the dirt.

Beautiful day with sunshine today. It was windy early on. Bridger had his golf lesson and it is a bonus that he came away happy!!! Then tonight baseball practice went well. Darin has another teacher's daughter on the team and Darin hit her up to co-coach. Bridger seemed to be enjoying himself still by the time I got there.

I had a haircut tonight. I learned that the water did fill to point of going over the dam at Pathfinder. We debated going out even tonight and check it out. We hadn't eaten so will try later in the week.

Bridger expressed interest in going to the College Rodeo Finals. He hasn't asked about it again, but it is in the back of my mind. I am still hoping we could go RVing this weekend, even if it is to the lake.

a warm Tuesday (fingers crossed)

The two finest gentlemen.



Just more wedding pictures.

I think Bridger was getting a hug after the dance with Kayla.

No secrets. Bridger was just trying out different "poses" for the camera.

Quiet Monday after having company for almost 10 days solid. Darin was sick when he woke up and spent a good portion of the morning in the bathroom. He wanted to blame Perkins, but everyone else seems to be fine.

When the rain stopped briefly in the early afternoon he managed to get the yard mowed. He commented to me that he got a lot of help from Bridger. Bridger sat in the hot tub and watched.

Last evening Bridger got out his small pitching machine. We took it to the backyard and he hit balls all over the yard. He managed to hit over the house into the front yard a couple of times. He loved whacking the side of the house. No broken windows. So thank goodness for plastic balls and bat. I thought Shasta would chase the balls out of the machine or at least when Bridger hit the ball. He didn't. He kept pestering me with dropping his toys at my feet. We managed to only lose one ball up in the neighbors pine tree. I didn't see that one go in so not really sure if it's lost there or not. We did leave one on the patio covering for Darin to get down this morning. Bridger had fun and that is what counts. He and Darin start baseball tonight. Bridger has golf this morning.

bye grammy/pathfinder

After Grammy left this afternoon we drove out to Pathfinder to see how close the water was to going over the dam. We had heard it was at 98% capacity. The first picture is looking down the canyon from the top of the dam.



Bridger and Grammy say goodbye.

How close the water is to going over this part of the spillway.

Water coming out of Alcova Dam. The first picture is what leads to this over at Alcova.

The video of the water being let out at Pathfinder Dam. There is more comment below the video several lines down. Don't know why things go the way they go with this blogging business.

It is forecasted to rain again tomorrow. We read in the paper this morning that 2 feet of snow hit the Windrivers over the weekend. The areas around Lander and Riverton are fairing worse than us. It is supposed to get up to 80 degrees by Wednesday. We kept hearing over the weekdend and conversations out at the dam about "haven't seen it like this for 20 years".

I can go another 20 years. We kept trying to explain to Bridger what all this meant. He was enthralled with the potential for the water actually to be flowing under our feet as we walked the catwalk over to the dam today. He did ask if the river overflowed would it get our house.

I was messing around with the new options for the blog page. I seem to be stuck and can't go back to the original. So looks like things are as they are. I don't know what to tell you about enlarging the pictures. You might want to keep a magnifying glass handy to look closer at the pictures.