Horsies

One of McKay's worst fears is horses. Getting bucked off one at eight years old probably had something to do with that.  But fear or not, we went horseback riding in the Tetons.  It was beautiful!

Both of us are intimidated by horses but after a while we warmed up to them and it was fun.  We actually steered them! How cool? I never done that before 

McKay was given the biggest horse... Jake. 

My horse was going bald and had really greasy grimy hair.

Going down the mountain

SOOOO Funny- David after dentist

My ceramic baby moccasins

I finished them! YAY!

Cool Song

Thanks Mandy!

Abey Baby

You all know that I'm taking sculpture this semester and  I have definitely found our last project the most difficult.  We were supposed to recreate a bust (no, not that kind) and we could choose from three different people.  I chose Abraham Lincoln.  

This first picture I was probably 20 hours into the project, thought it looked ok, went to go get a drink, came back, looked at it and about had a heart attack.  It was hideous and it is extremely frustrating to work on something for so long and only have it look like poo.  I was so angry I couldn't look at it, let alone work on it, so I took a break for about four days until I could cool down.

With only two days until the due date, my emotions calmed, and very good constructive criticism from my sister and husband I decided it was time to get working again.  After cutting his eyes out and chopping other major facial features off I started to enjoy myself and finished the bust... Unfortunately this was only half of the project.

The other half of the project was an abstract of the bust we did before.  In a hurry I tried to come up with cool ideas that would fit my timeframe.  I thought of lots of cool things that would probably take me a month to do, but since it was due the next day I had a major limitation.  But this is what I ended up with.  It's kinda creepy but it was  much more fun to make than the other bust.  During the critique my class was weirded out and pretty much said that I have major issues.  HA!

well, that's ok with me. 

The majority of the work on these busts I did alone, like I have said before NOONE ever comes in after class to work on their projects (which is weird).  After a while of working alone McKay came in and sat with me to keep me company. He started playing with my extra clay and tried to make his own bust.  hehe. Well, you can just ask him how that went. It was so sweet of him to come in and be my comic relief. Thank you!

Twin Bridges

Summers in idaho are perfect.  I love them. Unfortunately the summer doesn't last very long and the winters are VERY cold. But we are trying to take advantage of our summer and get out.  Last weekend we went to twin bridges and played in the water.  Braiden and Sharon went too.

This last picture is just ridiculous.  McKay is such a goof

Hidden Lake

For our Memorial Day McKay, Christy (my old roomate), and her husband (Jason), and I planned a camping trip to Hidden Lake, Montana.  It is north of Island park, somewhere relatively near Henrys Lake.  In order to get to the camping area you have to travel up to Island Park and then take a dirt road (for about an hour) until the end.  At the end, you unpack all of your things and carry it down a hill to the edge of the lake and canoe everything across (about a mile) and set up camp.

The bear signs were pretty nerve-racking especially we were 7 miles away from the nearest person. It was just us... Christy and Jason.. and the animals.  Looking back, we decided that it would have been smarter if we had brought something for self defense... ya know... just incase we had any unwanted visitors.

Above: Christy at down at the lake for the first time

Below: After we canoed across and found where we were camping

McKay and I canoeing to our campsite (that purple spot, in the trees, is our tent)

Setting up and making dinner.  I love cooking in dutch ovens! They are easy and make really good food.  The bad part is trying to clean them.

Later that night McKay and I didn't sleep at all.  I think all of the "Beware of Grizzlies" signs had something to do with that.  Right when I almost started to fall asleep McKay woke me up and whispered "Jessica, there are like five animals outside our tent". This was most likely just the wind rustling leaves and branches but we were having a heart attack. 

The picture below is a footprint a couple of feet away from our tent.  I'm pretty sure it is a moose print (correct me if I am wrong).  There was a whole bunch of elk and moose poo poo all over our camping area.

Karate Grizzly Cubs... first off I wish this picture was mine, and I wish we could have saw them... wait, no, not really.

Early the next morning, we went canoeing  and it was the most beautiful, quiet, and untouched area I have ever been in.  

There was an awesome echo and it kept the guys entertained for quite a while.  Christy has a video of it on her blog so go check it out 

Cool, abandoned, non smelly, broken, outhouse.  We saw this on our hike, along with a moose.  I think this outhouse is AWESOME and has future ceramic project potential.

When we were packing everything up the hill it was much harder than going down.  We were exhausted and I almost had another heart attack.  And after we left we ended up getting stuck on a steep curvy hill along the dirt road with the canoe trailer starting to jackknife off of the cliff.  Yeah, I almost had my third heart attack.

And we all lived happily ever after.

The End