Kaile's Birthday

My Kaile turned 8! Here's some pics of the day.

Nothing else as exciting as last week - thank goodness!! Jan's going snowmobiling this weekend with his company. Keep your fingers crossed. J/K Jan!

Fun Visit with the Hasvolds

Our friends that we usually go to the river with came for a visit. We went snowmobiling - which is something Jan and I had never done. We rented some sleds and went just outside of West Yellowstone in Montana. It was beautiful. Here is a place we found to stop and eat a snack. These old, old houses were so fun to look at. It is hard to believe that people once lived here. Talk about beautiful.


The snow was great, and we each fell in above our knees atleast once. I personally had to roll out of several holes. I kept falling in to my waist. This is Rick trying to take some pictures.

This is us all geared up and eating a snack.

*beware* if you read below this point you will see blood. If you don't want to see blood, quickly scroll until you see more snow.

Mara and I were a little slower than Rick, Tanya (their daughter) and Jan. They would all go ahead and play a little waiting for us slow pokes to catch up. While playing, Jan drove down a bowl, hit really hard, felt his face slam into the steering wheel, and thought as he was driving back up the other side "OH NO, I know I just hurt myself really bad." He thought he broke his nose. He put on the brakes and jumped off his snowmobile and started spitting blood into the snow. He flagged Rick down.

Rick quickly realized that Jan had put his bottom teeth completely through his bottom lip. Luckily I had talked Jan into packing a pair of extra socks for me into his back pack. Rick filled it with snow and Jan held it like a compress on his lip down the mountain. This is Jan looking a little better after wiping most of the blood away. Can you see the perfect half circle his teeth left?

Luckily the nurse who runs the urgent care clinic was out shopping and agreed to come in and stitch Jan up so we didn't have to drive two hours to get to a hospital. This is Jan looking good after stitches.

Now he just looks like he has taken up chewing and has a blue goatee. I think he'll have a sexy Indiana Jones scar. As Jan always says "Battle Scar!"
This is the assistant, nurse, and the nurses daughter who took very good care of him. Their little clinic in West Yellowstone reminded me of a cross between a vets office, a dentist office, and a doctors office. Funny.
The next day Jan went out again. He took it easy. These are some pictures from on top of Two top loop.
This is a tree. Can you believe it?
This is where warm water from Yellowstone runs into the lake. It never freezes here.
The second day, Rick had one of Jan's friends from High School (who is a guide in Yellowstone for the winter) take them out. He showed them the sights and they had a GREAT day. Here is a picture of one of the bison they saw.
This is Rick jumping. Josh taught them all sorts of tricks. No one got hurt.

This is Jan. The day was tiring, but a lot of fun. One they will never forget.

Sledding Fun

So we got home to a ton of snow. You know Jan . . . he had to do something with it. I know you have all been asking - so here is the sledding story from the beginning.

Jan and Will piled all of the snow from parts of the roof and the deck into a huge pile.

They then went to a construction site behind our house and explained to the framers what they were doing. They enthusiastically donated all of their leftover lumber towards the project. Jan and Will then came home and started to construct it in the garage.


Construction in the garage was fast. The problem came when trying to lift it over the fence into the back yard. They then fastened it to the roof line.


Starting to pile on snow on the jump.

The kids first trial run in the next door neighbors sled.


Will trying it out on a tube. The tube won over the sled. Much faster.

Claire going down by herself on a tube.

After Jan got tired of catching kids - they decided to build a landing ramp. Then after they kept running into the shed, Jan decided to build a backstop. (The guys didn't want to get splinters in the tubes. You can tell their priorities :)

The kids kept going over the backstop, so a bunny hill was in order to slow them down.

When we first started this project and there was no landing ramp, Kaile went down and hurt her neck a little, so she decided sledding off the roof was not for her. Then she tried it again today when our friends, the Hasvolds, were here to visit. Here is her reaction.

Lots has happened - great playing weekends - and only one trip to Urgent Care. I'll update again soon . . . .