Summertime at island Park

 As per usual, we are in Island Park at the cabin.This year we got up here around Memorial Day and plan to stay quite awhile, possibly until Christmas. But we’ll see. The Florida house needs our attention and we can always travel back here for Christmas. It will be a slog though!

Some pics from this year’s projects…Kevin put in a garden! As of this writing, it has already produced at least 13 strawberries, 3 zucchini’s, and countless sweet snap peas. Our potatoes are thriving, as are the berries of all sorts. The broccoli was a bust…doesn’t like the heat. We had great success with our container garden on the deck though. We grew herbs, lettuces, and flowers. Kevin put in a watering system so I wouldn’t have to go out every day with a watering can.

 The other projects are that I am finishing the trim upstairs. I finally couldn’t stand it anymore and Kevin was so busy putting in wiring for the barn, finishing the garden fence, and lots of other things that couldn’t really wait. So I decided to learn on the job and I fell pretty good about how it all turned out. I still have plenty to do but it’s getting there!

February 2022

 

February we had a really nice surprise in a visit from John and Kristin. They asked if they could come stay for a week while they checked out the area for a possible condo purchase and to visit with us.

We had so much fun hanging out and doing fun things like shelling (they hired a private charter with a guide)! We went to several little islands and found some amazing shells. John spent the next few days after that cleaning them up for us.

Another cool activity was a kayak tour we took out of a little bay near Marco Island called Rookery bay. Super enjoyable! Will definitely do it again sometime. 

We also took a cruise out of Naples Bay to see the coastline and all the mega mansions along the waterfront. BYOB and we did;)

So nice to have them with us. We were both sad when they left and we are trying to talk them into buying that condo…but they will probably buy something in Hawaii like we wanted to do at one point.

P

Happy new Year!

 

Well it’s 2022 and the years continue to click by! Kevin and I had covid starting around the second week in January. It wasn’t pleasant, that’s for sure! But we never felt short of breath. The worst of it was the brain fog…just feeling apathetic, unable to concentrate, etc. It lasted a few weeks for Kevin. We would head to the beach and just hang out, not do too much of anything. 

Kevin was still too sick to attend our nephew’s funeral in Salt Lake City at the end of January. But I went and met up with Jasper. He and I attended together and had some time to just visit and remember Nicholas, living in Utah when Jasper was little, see relatives we hadn’t seen in years, etc. We drove to Provo and went over the old neighborhood. We both had many memories of that little house in that quiet neighborhood. 

Grandma had a stroke

What a stressful couple of months this has been. Mom Gibbons had a stroke January 2 (while we were still in Hawaii). We cut our trip short and flew home to help. Teresa and John (Kevin’s siblings) had been at her side in the ICU for several days and they needed sleep.

By the time we got into town, mom had been transferred to a step down unit but still needed family there in order to be encouraged to eat. I was super sick with a sinus infection so I couldn’t help at the hospital.

But as I felt a little better, I would go over to mom’s house to clear out some space for us to move in with her for a while if she was able to come home. Mom had collected a lot of nic nacs over the years, and a lot of silk plant arrangements, books, etc. which wouldn’t be easy to deal with later. So I carefully packed up the items that I felt she would want or family would want and put it all in the garage.

Mom spent several weeks in rehab and then came home January 29. She has been recovering slowly but is in good spirits. She has had a lot of family and friends in to see her and a lot of therapists of various stripes. We have hired a home care company to send in respite care givers so Kevin and I can run errands and take care of our house.

Mom is cooperative and cheerful. She is easy to care for. The only challenge is modifying her house to suit our needs without disturbing her surroundings too much. And it’s been hard to get together with our family, which we miss.

But I still get to art class twice a week and Kevin gets his running in. We are bringing my art studio table, easels, painting supplies etc. over to mom’s next week so I can continue getting ready for a couple of shows I have coming up. And we bought a new bed (King) for one of the rooms. Mom’s spare bedroom beds were too small. We are basically taking over but I don’t feel bad about it. We need to make ourselves comfortable so we can stay longer. Who knows how long we will be able to care for mom in her home? But we are giving her a chance to recover as much as she can.

2019 Holidays time!

We are into the holiday season here in Meridian and we have enjoyed being home and around family. We have been available to watch Anna several times and as you can see, she is such a little doll baby. She has grown and changed so much over the last few months and is a little chatterbox.
She loves her “Gran-pa” and “Gra-ma” and is always excited to see us.On a few occasions she has said, “ok bye momma” as soon as she gets in the house.
She loves laying down on the carpet with Gran-pa and looking at books. She really likes it when I sit on the couch with her and go through all her little puppet books and sing the songs that go with the stories (Mary had a Little Lamb, Bingo, and Baa Baa Black Sheep).

 Her gran-pa taught her a little trick with some of the non breakable Christmas tree ornaments this latest time of watching her. She was so happy with herself!
She is learning a lot about being polite and asking for things in a nice way like, “Gra-ma I’m hungry, can I have a banana please?”
She is also battling with her two year old instincts like screaming on occasion when she doesn’t get her way. But that behavior is quickly subsiding and she is more and more manageable and reasonable.

Our family Christmas is a little early this year due to travel schedules so we will be all done with Christmas on November 29th! That will leave lots of time to just relax and enjoy the season without all the bustle and stress. The bustle and stress is all happening now.
My ladies Brunch is this weekend along with Thanksgiving and my birthday. Lots going on but its all good things.

New artist website

patricialgibbonsart.com

This is my new artist website. I switched from Fine Art America because I wasn’t satisfied with the layout or the idea that I was just one of a million artists on that service. They put other artist’s work on my web page and the domain was lame.
Now I have my own domain name and no other artist can display on my website. I know I’m still only one of a million artists but I at least have control of my own destiny this way.

I have a show coming up in mid November at a small shop in Boise called Feather and Twine. And I applied to show my work at St Alphonsus next year. I am hoping I get accepted for that show.

Anyway, check out my website!

2019 currently Fall in Island Park

 Taking another break from catching up with the past in order to stay caught up with the present...

It’s Fall in Island Park and with that comes mixed weather and beautiful colors!

We have heard a bull elk bugling for weeks now in the trees across from the property and when we went for a walk in those woods, we came across a couple of small pines that had been shredded (bull elk rut activity) and lots of tracks. We also saw about five cow elk crossing the road ahead of us one day as we headed down to Elk Creek gas station.

Coyotes have been very vocal at night, almost nightly. And we have a resident badger that keeps digging holes into our banks around the cabin. Haven’t run into her/him yet thank goodness!

Mushrooms are coming up all over and the elk and deer like them a lot. Some they eat and some they avoid.

The Fall foliage color is already gone but it was so beautiful. We planted several stands of quakes around the property and a few of them actually turned this beautiful gold color seen on the bigger clump pictured here.

We are looking forward to the day when we have big stands of gold quakies on our land!

 The woodshed roof is finally finished...took a lot of days of work and some tense moments of terror but it’s ready for winter and not a moment too soon as you can see from the next couple of pictures.

The weather is very unsettled and we have had a few snow days where it’s pretty cold and miserable outside. There are hardly any other people up here now and the local restaurants are closing up for the winter. There are still a few that we go to when we are tired from working and I don’t want to cook.

The mountains are misty most mornings and then on clear days, the sky brightens up and the air is crisp.

The other day we were very happy to see that an owl is using our property for it’s hunting grounds. It really helps keep the ground squirrels and the bats from taking over.

We have seen piles of little bones around, what’s left of the owl’s digestion. Owls make a huge mess! But it’s a small price to pay for the extermination service.

I like how this little guy is staring at me through the window. He looks a  lot like Mafia!

Woodshed

I thought I’d mention our experience with our woodshed that we are “modifying “ up at the cabin...

I guess I should mention that Kevin and I retired this past March so we have “ all the time in the world” to do these horrible projects... as though we don’t have enough to do with finishing our master bedroom and bath!
Anyway, we had this shed built to house the wood that we will eventually use in our wood burning stoves. But it doesn’t have any porch roof or any overhangs to keep the snow off the sides of the shed. AND it doesn’t match our cabin or garage so we had the builders leave the siding and roofing off so we could put our own on. When it’s done, I’ll be glad..
So Kevin designed and built overhangs on the sides and back of the shed. He will build the porch roof next year on the front.
Everything would have been just peachy if Kevin hadn’t hurt his right arm (tennis elbow). I naively said I would help him with whatever he needed to do on the shed. Little did I realize that meant actually having to physically work HARD basically all day every day for five days, climb up onto the roof, climb up into the rafters inside, handle drills and drivers, carry 4x8 sheets of plywood along with Kevin, combat sun, wind, torrential downpours, and insects of every  description!
I learned a lot about what I can tolerate and what I can’t. Kevin learned that about me too:/
At one point I lost my sh*t and cried “I just want I go home...”
Today, we finished the roof as far as the extensions and the weather proofing. The only thing we need to do before we go back to Boise is wrap the shed with tyvek house wrap.
The actual roofing and siding will be another trip. Hopefully Kevin’s arm will feel a whole lot better by then!!

Tamarack trip

All of us decided to get out of Boise for a weekend in February and rent a cabin up at Tamarack. It was so fun! Cold and snowy but cozy.

Anna got to hang out with Chelsie and Michael and get used to Michael’s funny faces. She loved interacting with him. 

Chelsie got some cuddle time in…

And we all went for some amazing walks on the groomed trails around the area. It was a special weekend because we hardly ever get a chance for all of us (with our busy schedules) to get together for this long. It was almost like Christmas again!

Tamarack has fallen on hard times since the housing and real estate bust in 2008-2009 but they still rent these making cabins.

 

Anna turns One!

 

Ann has turned One! So fast. She was very excited to see all the balloons and presents. The cake was a hit (a turtle that looked just like her pacifier turtle) and she loved pulling stuffed animals and toys out of bags. She got the hang of that right away!

She wasn’t thrilled with her headband though…it didn’t last long.

Polina and Jasper are having so much fun with her. She’s typically pretty happy. And when she isn’t, her pacifier does the trick almost every time.

She loves her stuffed animals and likes banging them together for some reason, one in each hand. She also loves the family dog Bentley. Likes to hang out with him on his pillow in the living room. She’ll put her head on his legs or his back and Bentley just sits there. He’s such a good dog.