Vedauwoo Park in the Rain...

"Tara-winn" (as she is called by about half of our field...kids) and I stopped by Vedauwoo park on the way to Laramie a couple of weeks ago. The falls colors were beautiful, and it was raining - smelled awesome. It made me a little homesick for Alaska, though...





Just as we were leaving the sun decided to come out...all the yellow turned to gold. Ahhh.
I layed down on the ground to take a picture, forgetting that we were on our way to a sing. Oops... a little muddy for the appearance, but luckily clothes are washable. I'm still learning...

Happy Birthday Dad!

Hope you have an awesome day! I can't wait to see you guys tomorrow. I love you so much! Thanks for always being such a wonderful example to us kids. Love your # 3 Daughter

Cows, crops and Kansas

Summer merges into fall gracefully down here in the land of the Wy-homies. It's the beginning of October already, and the leaves are starting to turn. The weather has still been beautiful, but starting to cool off at night. We still haven't had a hard frost, but then again, I forget how far south we actually are!

The other week we stayed with some friends out in the country, and I had fun trap shooting with the kids! Those poor clays didn't stand a chance...

It's getting closer and closer to sunflower harvest! This picture was taken about a month ago... now the heads are really heavy and drooping straight to the ground. The leaves are drying out, and the petals are brown and shriveled. There's only a short window of time when the fields actually look appealing!


Last week Glenn, Justin, Carolyn and I went to Bird City, Kansas for convention. It was my first time to Kansas. I guess in my stereotypical mind I pictured a long, flat, straight highway through miles and miles of cornfields on both sides. I was sorely dissappointed. There was corn, alright, but in crop circles that were never across the road from eachother. Oh well, there was corn across from the convention grounds, so I spent several mornings wandering through the fields waiting for the sun to come up!

Bird City, Kansas - Convention grounds at dawn from the edge of the cornfield.
Sunrise over the cornfield:

After convention, Carolyn and I spent a night with Ted and Amy Busse. We had so much fun! They took us out to their farm, and I "witched" for water... then we saw the cows, crops and the Kansas countryside. It was a blast.

Congratulations!

Well Sue and Jason...you guys have officially made it to your 1st Year Anniversary! Actually I guess it is now 1 year and 1 day but anyway Congratulations none the less. We love you guys and hope that every year is as good or better than this one. Miss you!
Love Jewls and Beth

Happy 25th Birthday Jason

Wow! You are a quarter of a century old, well on your way to 30 and halfway to 50....how does it feel? Good thing you have lots of company coming up right behind you. Hope you had an awesome day! Maybe your professors will give you an A on your test : )
Love Beth and Jewls

Jewls: Beaches, Broken Cameras, Mono Etc.

A couple of weekends ago a bunch of us kids headed out to the beach in Pacific City, Or to try and catch some of the last rays of summer sun. It was supposed to be a gorgeous day so Gail and I decided to be good sports and go along. We have both been sick for about the past 6 weeks with Mono and to say the least our energy is severely lacking. Both sides of my neck have been swollen up with gargantuan lymph nodes and Gail has had a horrible sore throat and a sinus infection to top it all off. Back to the good stuff we had an awesome day at the beach. We sat and read books while the boys played ultimate frisbee and football. Gail and I found a cute little coffee shop out of the wind where we had a great time looking at decorating magazines and sipping coffee. Some of the friends invited us all to their camper for hamburgers and games that evening. All in all a very fun Saturday. Hopefully we will have some energy soon so we can actually join in the excitement. The library will be out of books before this is all over. Sorry to say I have no pictures to post of the past month due to a broken camera. I guess electronics are only made to last two years because mine are all breaking like crazy.

Ever since the Evridge Family moved to Sequim we have been combining our two last names to create the Sandridge Family. Brian came home from a hiking trip last weekend with these pictures as a present for us!

Jewls: Hi Ho Hi Ho its Off to Work I Go

I am finally employed again. After 4 glorious months of living my life without letting such a terrible thing as work interfere : ) I was ready to get back into the life of the working woman. Until....I started working. I arrived in my new home September 2nd with the ambition of finally settling down. I have been working at a temp. agency here in town for the past couple of weeks. I started doing data-entry for a research company which helped the money situation but was not the most mentally exciting job. Last week I braved the Max train and went into downtown Portland to meet with a lady at a higher end temp agency where they handle more Administrative Assistant type jobs. To make a long story short I started working at Wells Fargo in the unclaimed property department today. I work right in downtown Portland and my commute conisists of 3 major interstates and a highway (I-84, I-5,
I-405, and Hwy. 30). The whole trip is supposed to take 30 min. about 18 miles but this morning it took an hour and a half to get there. I work 9:30am-6pm so it makes for some long days. This evening as I was racing home trying to get back in time for meeting it struck me as really funny that I am living exactly the life I always said I would never live. Here I am stuck in traffic in the middle of a huge city with angry drivers all around and basically somedays I really miss the wide open spaces and my Great Falls traffic jams. City life is exciting and fast paced and I am really looking forward to this new experience. P.S if you want a visual of my workplace you might think Office Space. Basically picture cubicles as far as you can see with little heads popping over the top yelling back and forth and people yapping a million miles per hour on their headsets. Yep that will be me! But it is only for 3 months if not a little longer and I hope to really enjoy it in the mean time. On the plus side I work in the Montgomery Park building which is really neat. I will try to post pictures as soon as I can get a paycheck and go buy a new camera! Well goodnight for now. Hope this finds everyone doingn awesome. Brian and I are headed up to Sequim this weekend to meet up with Gail so we can hang out with the families.

Happy Birthday DeAnne!!!

Happy Birthday! I hope you have a wonderful day and that this year will be the best one yet. Love you lots! Thanks for being such an awesome sister. Love Julie

Julie: Lake Roosevelt

Well I just got home from another amazing year at Lake Roosevelt. Our family gets together every year for a fun weekend of boating, camping, tubing, jet skiing, etc. over the Labor Day weekend. It was a little windy this year but that just added to the entertainment. Rob and Mandy Buckingham also joined us for a couple of days which was a ton of fun.

Ashlyn and Cody
Carolyn got the lovely job of holding down the stuff so nothing would blow out on the way back to the launch.
Mandy doing an excellent job of keeping Wade happy

Ashlyn is joining the Sanderson competition of who waterskiis the best. Looks like she about has everyone beat.
Footprints in the sand

While the girls worked hard keeping us off the rocks, DeAnne played the gorgeous blond
Mouse and I doing our best version of the stranded face. Mom and Dad's boat broke a belt when we went to jump off the rocks. A bunch of us girls were stranded for a couple of hours while the boys tried to find a new belt. Somehow we found plenty of entertainment.

Tube wars

Cody practicing for when he actually gets good enough to test out the water

Jason practicing for hunting season

Jason gave Cody a slingshot to try out...not a good ideaCaleb and Tristan were best buds

Crazy Cousins

Mom must love washing dishes, she even does it at the lake

View from the dining room

As you can see it was a little windy

To Beth and Sue: I missed you both a lot! Hope you both had a wonderful Labor Day weekend maybe someday you will both grace us with your presence.