Big Judd's

There was an article about a hamburger restaurant that has been voted #1 in all of Idaho for the past several years called Big Juds. It is in a small little town in the middle of no where but the picture they used in the newspaper article of the "Triple SIX POUND Burger" looked too good to pass up so we made plans to do lunch there today.

Big Juds serves fresh ground beef hamburgers that they ground fresh daily and fries that are fresh Idaho gems. We aren't a big red meat eating family, but like I said the picture in the newspaper was awesome and we just had to try it.


There was one pound of burger per pattie times THREE, so three pounds of burger, seven slices of bacon, loads of real cheddar cheese, I swear a jar of pickles, tons of sliced lettuce, and gobs of thinly sliced sweet onions with a delicious white sauce. They usually add about two pounds of freshly sliced tomatoes to the thing but they were out of tomatoes today....twas OK, because only Stevey likes tomatoes on burgers.

We sliced the burger into fourths and then again into eights for the big kids and then sixteenths for the little ones.

It was pretty much one of the most delicious burgers ever and we were STUFFED. This is a must visit restaurant for anyone who comes to Idaho and visits us.

Christmas in November and a birthday

Grandpa and Grandma Conder came to visit the day after Thanksgiving to celebrate Christmas with us. Our family has made the executive decision not to travel for the Christmas season (the two little/impossible) angels/maniacs played the principle major role in the decision.

We exchanged gifts, ate yummy dinner, watched a movie while enjoying carmel popcorn, played wii, and drove around looking at Christmas lights among other things while they were here.

The following day we celebrated grandpas birthday....how old are you?

We always have a good time when they come to town and the kids never want to see them leave. Clover even asked for them to take her away with them to Utah....I wonder if she would have ever wanted to come back home.

Good times.

No more curls

Just for the day we straightened Clover's hair. Before she even left the bathroom her loving father quietly cornered me and needed reassurance that her curls were going to come back. I reassured him that I only straighted her curls with an iron and didn't change the hair follicles themselves....geez, a dad and his daughters curls, who knew.

Fireplace

Stevey made this for me....
(it's almost complete)

I love fireplaces in the winter...love love love them. I have been asking for one for the last two years and this year we were finally able to get one.
I had visions of something awesome and original and it took FOREVER to figure it out. We were thinking of something in stone, but just couldn't find the perfect stone. When the idea of barn wood came to us we knew we had a winner of an idea and Stevey decided to check Craigslist for barn wood (go figure)and found this. A young kid from Rigby, ID had just torn down his recently deceased grandpas barn and was selling off the wood to earn money for college...and he was selling it very cheap. The faded red paint (no lead) and metal patches on the wood were already there and it was exactly what we were looking for.

We found this slate tile at a local dealer here and it was perfect. The stone we used around the fireplace we got for free....just some extra rubble laying around at another local dealer that let us take what we wanted.


The mantel wood we purchased from a different barn wood dealer for a great price because we had the right connections..thanks cw!

Anyway, we LOVe it. You might be thinking, "but it doesn't match your other furniture or wall paint..." No need to worry, it isn't a new project can't fix.

Quick Update!

Clover is doing MUCH better....thank goodness. She responded to the homeopathy almost immediately and there is no more swelling and she has a few hive dots on her back.

One of our friends who is a dermatologist left a comment about what her condition is and how serious it could be. As I googled and researched the information I feel much better knowing what it is and what to look out for if it occurs again in the future.

Urticaria and Angioedema... google it and be prepared in case it ever strikes someone in your family.

This has been fun

It started out just like any other cold...runny nose, cough, low grade fever 101.8. By the second night around 5pm fever is 104.0 so we give Tylenol. By 7:30pm I notice that her lips are swelling and she has a strange "ring" rash on her arm.

By 2:30am we notice the rash is morphing and spreading to pelvic area and bum (sorry no photos posted of adorable bum).

By 7am rash that looks like welts is all over and the little ring shapes have broken open and look like whipping stripes and yes they are hurting her.

By 8:45am we are in the doctors office and I thought for sure he was going to tell me that she had Ring Worm in which I had become an expert on during this sleepless night trying to figure out what might be all over my daughters body. The doctor says "no" to ring worm but "yes" to virus hives.

What in the world is virus hives. Her body is producing too much histamine with the virus and her body is responding with hives....nice. He suggested giving her Benadryl and if that doesn't work in a couple of weeks to then give her steroids.

Three days later we are looking like this. The welts are less but it just keeps moving around and her face is swelling up again. The Benadryl isn't really working and we are giving her more than I really feel comfortable with.

Day four I wake up to this! Honestly, I barely recognized her...the pictures didn't really capture it.

Enough!

I am now getting pretty concerned that the swelling could turn inward and maybe start to restrict her breathing. I made an appointment with our alternative medicine doctor and discovered that her liver and kidneys are trying to push out toxins from something that has infected her, maybe like the three other viruses since her H1N1 dealio. While we are in the office the hives are moving all over her face and starting to reappear on her back, bum, tummy, feet, hands, and legs again.

Anyway, we are using homeopathy to assist in the cleansing and so far her face has shrunk quite a bit....wish us luck.

This has been the weirdest thing ever!

Rain Gutter Rigotta

Halloween Costumes 2009

Happy Halloween monster cake....yummy!



Wolverine!


Beauty Queen 1983 (looks more 70's though)


Sunny the Giraffe

Bat Girl....of course.

Red Eye Green Tree Pets

Our children are getting older and insisting on having pets. I like dogs and cats as long as they live somewhere else.....so what to do.

Frogs.

We have six frogs now. Two of these Red-eyes, two gree tree, and two Whites tree frogs and the kids are happy.

H1N1 Hair

When Clover was really sick a month ago her body ached so badly that I didn't even attempt to brush out her hair...her curls really make it quite the event daily and I decided no to torture her. After about a week of neglect this is what we got...

I didn't even try to brush it out. We just went directly to the bath tub and worked this mess out with a lot of shampoo and conditioner and most importantly love!

Reading of choice

The kids are required to have a book or something to read at school for reading time...no brainer there. In Dalton's back pack the other day I found what he selected to read for that day.

When I asked him about his selected reading he simply stated that when he was reading his scriptures last night about the Savior, he just loved it and want to read more.

I understand....and please try your best to not covet me or my children.

Favorite moments

I just love these moments in motherhood where you're...let's say holding a baby on your hip, answering the telephone while writing an appointment on your calendar, when your toddler says, "Mommy, look at me!"

Priceless...

Corn

At church on Sunday and by word of mouth from a good and friendly neighbor, we learned that there was fresh corn for the picking at the local Stake Farm (church area run farm) for just $1 a dozen and the farm is maybe two or three miles away....oh we were so there.

Monday morning came, today Labor Day and by 9am we were out the door and on our way to a fantastic family activity. I won't bore you with the details of not being able to find the farm or that when we finally did find the farm (really, there are several farms around here to confuse the inexperienced farm folk with), that no one was around to point us in the right direction. Luckily a gentleman from our ward pulled into the vast parking lot, obviously on corn errand from his wife, and had an idea on who to call for help. After a couple of minutes we were en rout to the other side of the farm to get to the designated sweet corn area.

Ok, so we made it.

"Every one out of the car and start picking." I had wonderful visions of corn frozen to keep us nourished all through the winter, corn for lunch and dinner steaming hot off of the cob, and mostly I felt like I was finally making my pioneer ancestors proud by partaking of the great bounty fresh from the earth. We picked over TEN dozen ears of corn and decided to make our way home....by way of TJ Maxx so I could pick up a corn cooking pot big enough for the task at hand.

We made it home and the clan started shucking the ears and I started boiling the water, two pans on the stove top. I called up another friend just to make sure I was doing everything right and she gave me some great advise; boil the water, put the corn into the water, cook for three minutes, put cooked corn into ice water to cool, cut corn from husk WITH AN ELECTRIC KNIFE (brilliant), put cut corn into freezer bags, and then put filled freezer bag into the freezer.

Got it!

As I started to cut the corn off of the first husk with the electric knife, I was surprised and how tough it was...it even gave my electric knife a run for it's money. No big deal though, we were doing the pioneer thing. After a couple of minutes I just couldn't help myself and had to have the first taste of this beautiful bounty.

What the.......

"Stevey come try this corn!" He tried it and thought nothing of it.

"This doesn't taste like 'sweet corn....don't you think it tastes like feed?"

"Yeah...that doesn't mean you can't eat it."

"I'm not going to eat 'feed' corn....we must have picked it from the wrong area!"

"It'll be just fine."

I quickly evaluated all that I knew to be good and worthy of this man I am lucky enough to call mine and decided to end the conversation on a neutral note, "WHATEVER!"

Have you ever tasted feed corn or as real farmers like to call it "field corn" they use in cattle feed and by the way it tastes like crap and is as tough as leather.

Well, the activity stopped there.

We decided to leave the house then and head down to the State Fair (again), because that is something we are good at. You know driving somewhere, walking around, and spending money....ooh I can just feel the admiration of those pioneers.

Hours later we decided to try it one more time at the Stake farm and it worked. Sweet corn stalks are shorter than field corn stalks, and the tops of the corn husks as well as the corn stalks themselves are whitish in color vs brown. By the end of the day we had EIGHT dozen ears of sweet corn picked, boiled, cut, bagged and frozen. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions about harvesting sweet corn vs field corn....I AM an expert.