It's time for the annual Shoemaker family Jack-O-Lantern contest. Yes, we're sad there are only 4 pumpkins to choose from, that should improve your odds of matching the right one to the right family member.
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Thursday, October 29, 2009
Happy Halloween Quiz!
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Justin Runs Too!
You probably all knew Nate loves to run. Well, Justin is following in his footsteps as a member of the 8th grade cross-country team at Carmichael Middle School. Justin has made some great strides improving his finishes each meet he runs.
The last meet was at Horse Heaven Middle School in Kennewick. Justin finished in 14:59, beating his previous best time by almost a minute. Here's a quick video of Justin at the finish lines and a couple of pictures.
Stake Standards Night
A couple of weeks ago, we helped with a youth event in our stake. It was a stake standards night modeled after the T.V. show, American Idol. Complete with our own "Ryan Seacrest", Paula Abdul and Simon Cowell. It was a lot of fun as youth acted out good and bad choices based on principles outlined in the For the Strength of Youth pamphlet (see more about the "For the Strength of Youth" pamphlet here). Nate was on the committee that helped organize the show. He volunteered dad to help with some "commercials" that played during breaks in the evening's performances.
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The first video was a promotion that played at mutual in the wards in the weeks before the event and the other videos are the "commercials". The youth came up with some fun ideas, hope you enjoy!
What's in Your Wallet?
Dirty Mouth?
Can You Hear Me Now?
McMutual
McMissionary
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The first video was a promotion that played at mutual in the wards in the weeks before the event and the other videos are the "commercials". The youth came up with some fun ideas, hope you enjoy!
Monday, October 5, 2009
Nate's Homecoming
Nate had a great time at homecoming on his first date! He went with Mindy Strong and 3 other couples. Here's a bit of Nate's account of the night:
So, we started at Conner Robertson's house and went to pick up our dates. We took several pictures at each house and then went to Zach's house for dinner. We had salad and lasagna and had to say crazy catch phrases during the meal that triggered other people to say or do crazy things. It was quite embarrassing but funny. I had to say to my date "would you like some more bread" everytime someone else said "I love this meal". My date's catch phrase was "I love this meal" which was triggered by other people's phrases! and so on. It was fun! Then, we left for the dance and waited in line FOREVER to get pictures. Then we went into the dance room, or whatever you call it, and "danced the night away" (another catch phrase from dinner). We had a fun time, but there weren't enough slow songs and the music was way too loud! We couldn't even hear what each other was saying. So, we went to the parking lot at Columbia Point and danced to slow songs on the car radio for a while. Then, we came to our house and had desert (mom's famous pretzel jello, a big hit!)
and played games until we dropped! Then, dad took me and my date home and the others took their dates home. I think we all had a fantastic time, even me on my first date! Don't ask about the homecoming football game (a wipeout).
Monday, September 21, 2009
We made a nice trip to Silverwood our last adventure of the summer. We headed out on a Wednesday morning pulling the tent trailer bound for northern Idaho. We first headed for Pullman to stop at the hospital and see Grandpa Charlie at the hospital as he was there recovering from knee replacement surgery. We had a nice visit at the hospital and then headed toward Moscow and up Highway 95. Somewhere on the pass near Potlatch, I noticed the truck was working a bit harder than usual to pull the trailer up a hill, I glanced in the rear-view mirror to see blue smoke billowing out of the left trailer tire well! We pulled off to a logging road and quickly had a logging semi come barrelling by! Fortunately, we had a spare on the back of the trailer and it still had air in it. We got out the jack and started working. A nice logging maintenance guy (he called himself Elmo) stopped and offered to help, which we gladly accepted as he was a little dirtier than we were. I thought we were on NASCAR pit stop pace when we went to start the truck and it wouldn't cooperate. Vapor lock I thought in my novice mechanical mind "if we just wait awhile, it will start". Plenty of prayers were said by all. The battery seemed to be getting tired of cranking. Then, I walked over and asked Elmo if he would give us a jump. Voila! the T100 cranked back to life and we were on our way. We wandered our way to our campground and got all set up for a good nights sleep. We got up the next morning and went to play at Silverwood. We rode the rides. The video shows us on Panic Plunge. Denise, Nate and Justin braved the Super Round-up (you won't get me on that!) We also rode the hot new roller-coaster called Aftershock and many more rides. We enjoyed the magic show in the theater, then we headed for the waterpark in the afternoon. Of course, my favorite place was Polliwog Park kiddie area where I manned the sprayer hoses and soaked many unsuspecting people (I do have a devious side!).
After the waterpark area closed, we ventured back out to the rides. Nate and Justin rode Aftershock several more times (if you turn your head right, you can see them in the front seats in the picture below)
We finally called it quits when the park closed and we were plenty tired out. We headed back for the trailer for a good night's sleep. We wandered our way home Saturday with plans to get back for the ward dutch oven potluck at Sacajawea Park. We were 10 minutes away when we all heard a loud explosion from behind us. The other tire on the trailer blew out (and our spare was already used)! We pulled off to a corn field along the road and unhitched the trailer. I knew we needed to find a tire and couldn't leave the trailer there or it might disappear. We left Nate and Denise with the trailer and Justin and I went on our search. We went into town, all the tire stores are closed an Saturday evening! I thought, truck stops are open 24-hours! I never knew how seedy truck stops are! Their tire stores are closed on Saturday night too! Then, I remembered a couple of trailer tire/wheel combos we had on the tire rack at Yamaha Country! I called Curt and went and checked, Wrong Size! Curt suggested I try Wal*Mart and we found one! Two hours later, we were back on the road, as we headed home, we were passed by a few ward members heading home from the potluck, oh well. Denise and Nate had a little scare while waiting. They were on the edge of a corn field with circle irrigation. The circle line came around and started heading for the trailer. They said some prayers and the line went by safely (the trailer got soaked) but all were okay. Just a few hiccups along the way but a great trip otherwise!
Friday, September 18, 2009
Surfing Moses Lake
Maybe you never knew you could hang ten in Moses Lake! Yes, there are waves to be caught in this desert town. We decided to take some free time before summer was over to go play at the waterpark in Moses Lake. There's a large pool with diving boards, some small water slides, a few other water attractions, a lazy river to relax in and the Flowrider!
Flowrider is an artificial surfing machine. Justin spent most of his day on the Flowrider, trying to learn to stand up on a board. Paul tried to stand but quickly found that would likely have to be saved for another life and he stuck with the body boarding. Nate wowed everyone with his diving skills. Denise cheered everyone on while taking pictures, video and relaxing. The boys liked it so much, they talked Denise into taking them again the next week!
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Oregon Butte
As if the Priest Lake summer trip wasn't enough, we decided to head for the mountains on a small backpacking trip when we got back. We headed out on August 3rd from the Teepee Trailhead in the Blue Mountains south of Dayton. We loaded our packs on our backs and started up the trail. We got to the primitive campsite within an hour and a half. (with a lesson learned by Justin to wear at least ankle socks, not foot socks so as to prevent blisters!) There is a spring just a quarter mile from the campsite for our water needs. There was another hiker at the trailhead so we tried to keep a steady pace to get to the campsite and stake our claim. We've been there twice before and it is a nice setup among the trees with a great view out our backdoor over the Blue Mountains.
Oregon Butte is the highest point in the Blues. At the top is a fire lookout that is staffed during the summer. We went to the lookout and met the lady who lives there for 3 months, alone, during fire season. I think it takes a different personality to live in that kind of situation. She was very nice to have us inside to see the firewatch equipment and the boys even helped with some meteorological measurements. The sunset from the lookout was beautiful. We also went on a day hike on Tuesday. We had tried to find another spring on a previous trip but were unsuccessful. We got better directions from the lookout lady. We headed out, through some thick brush that was fed by springs. We even found huckleberries along the trail (Nate spotted those). The boys favorite pasttime on the trip was rolling rocks down the hill. They would really gather a lot of speed! We hiked along the trail and got to an area where the skeleton of an elk camp was located.
On our way back from the day hike, we heard some loud rustling just down the hill from the trail. I figured the boys had just rolled another rock but, when I turned and looked, I saw a large bear high-tailing it away from us. It was a big, golden-brown colored bear. Nate saw it too but Justin and Cade had to take our word for it. We decided to take a bit tougher route on the way back to camp.
It took us up this jagged, rocky ridgetop that put us back at the fire lookout. From there, it was about a half mile back to camp. We had a good time enjoying the great outdoors. On our drive out of the mountains, a large deer bounded across the road in front of us. It was about a 5 point with velvet antlers! Hope you enjoy the pictures and video!
Untitled from Paul Shoemaker on Vimeo.
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