Rudy's Best Christmas present

Rudy got a camera and Coast Guard Lego land pieces. He first put the survival raft together with Aunt Cindy and Daddy. Then he put the helicopter together with Daddy and today he put the dock, the coast guard station and the ship together by himself. He was so proud of what he did. We were too. Here is pictures he took of his accomplishment with his camera and then I took a picture of him with the toys. Great job Rudy!

Rory's December School pics

Rory's highlights of the month are getting the Student of the Month and having to make gingerbread houses for 1st grade. Rory works really hard and is polite so he was honored by his teacher, Ms. Berry, Student of the month. Here is a picture of him and his friends, Ethan and Hunter, and his grand certificate. Good job, Rory!!



I think he was a little embarassed


Christmas gingerbread house:




P.S. Rudy got Student of the Month for October, however, I was a bad Mom and forgot the camera! Sorry Rudy.

Pictures of the dogs

I needed to include some cute pictures of the dogs, and to show family the new dog that showed up at the house and is now attached to Rory's side. Sister, as we call her loves Rory and is with him at all times possible. She is allowed on the furniture to be with him, which is a big no no in this house, however for the sake of the kids, you know how it is..............

Sister:


Stella in the snow:


Robbie curled up in his small bed he loves so:

Got the Kids Working!

Sometime this summer, Roy had a work party to improve and create more trail on the Continental Divide. He brought together workers from backcountry horsemen, biking clubs, Montana Wilderness Association and the Forest Service. Which included us, so here are the boys working on the trail, they did great and hiked about three miles and of course are here in their safety gear, sticks and all.

Some of the backcountry horsemen supplied food and cooked meals. Once we made it back from our hike, we put the boys to work and as you can see they did a great job and had excellent supervision!

Once the hard work was done, I let them have some fun............

Rudy's favorite picture

I forgot to add one favorite picture of our Oregon vacation, Rudy just asked me if we could add. He loves ships so I am adding this:

I think its safe to say this will not be our Christmas picture so I am putting a new picture of the family as well:

Vacation 09!

We got to go to the coast this year. Finally we said lets just do it. We took the camper and traveled for a day to Roy's brothers house and then on to the coast. Astoria, Oregon. We stayed at a KOA right across from Fort Stevens State Park which gave us direct access to the beach. It is so wonderful to see kids and dogs let loose on a beach!!! We had a fantastic time.

Catching up

OK, I am back from the summer, I go from Spring pictures of Glacier National Park to Fall pictures of Glacier National Park, I guess you know where one of our favorite places to go is.........

I will fill you all in with other summer pics later of the vacations we had, however, I have these handy now. Every fall we spend our anniversary and Roy's birthday at Glacier, this year we had Nana and Papa in tow and we gave them a present of staying at Many Glacier Lodge for a night. We took a the boat ride up Swiftcurrent Lake then hiked to Joesphine lake , took another boat ride to the end of the lake to the trail head and hiked 1 mile to a lake, forgot the name. The boys had a great time. We played a game of scavenger hunt to keep them motivated. We saw a moose which was one of the game pieces to find. We saw some ground squirrels and one had an apple sticker on its rear end but we could never get a picture of the sticker! He moved too fast for Rory and his camera. See our adventure below:

Pictures at Duck Lake Lodge Campground on the Blackfeet Reservation:

Our yearly picture at the dock at the end of Josephine Lake:

Pictures of our hike:


At the end of the day with a beer on the porch of Many Glacier Lodge:

Biking Glacier

Biking Glacier National Park was a wonderful day and will probably be a new annual event for the Barkley family!! The day was beautiful as you can see, we biked about 5 miles round trip and about 2 of those miles was a good climb up the Going to the Sun road.We made it to the tunnel and passed an avalanche that happened in January and was a historical avalanche. It went across the road but did no real damage. Every spring before the Park opens the Going to the Sun Road, they have the road closed on the east and west sides. While they are clearing the road, what ever section they plow and open up from the snow from the closed gates to the place where the plowing stops for the day is open to the public for biking. Many families bring kids along and let them loose. Once they get the climb over the fun is turning around and coming back down, I told the kids before they headed down that the speed had to stay at a reasonable level. They did great for mom, speed is definitely not my thing. I think we were faster then the oldest couple we saw?? Enjoy the pictures.

Race for the Cure Day

Race for the Cure Day, 2009 in Helena Montana.

We have been joining the race for three years now and have recruited my dad, so here is picture of us all. This picture is for all whom we support, on the pink sheets on our shirts, we have the names of the ones we are running for. Roy and the boys and I have run for the past years with Roys family, his Aunt Martha and her sister Mae and Mae's daughter Laura, Martha's Husband Uncle Kurt and their daughter LeAnne and her husband Chris and son Arron. My sister had cancer this winter so we now race for her as well, so this is our support and fun. We make a day of it and after the race we go for lunch at Auntie Martha's house. Following are pictures of us running. The boys have run from the first race we did so we keep it up and it is the only time Roy and I run during the year. It is not bad, only 5K, so we have not keeled over yet. Soon the Boys will be big enough to run on their own, thank goodness because we are only getting older! Along the way we picked up one of Rudy's school friend, Max, so we ran with us as well, he is in yellow. Rudy is wearing a Race for the Cure scarf that was given to us as a "pirate hat".

After the race, we met back up with Papa and poised for a picture at the buffalo skull sculpture outside the Museum .

I love this picture of Nana, she was there for moral support with all our stuff while we were off running, Great Job Nana!

You have got to see this!

OK, this is funny! Take a look. And when you go to look at it a second time, notice Rory in the background behind Rudy.

The life of the R4 Chicks

OK, as some know, I love chicks and I guess as I was reminded I have been getting chicks from Murdochs for the last 6 years. Well this year, I got the bright idea to raise our own eggs. I got a book, bought the incubator from Murdochs and started reading. We collected 12 eggs and put them in the incubator in the beginning of March. It takes 21 days and sure enough with lots of tender loving care, turning three times a day, we had success. Much to Roy's amazement, he thinks I crazy most of the time, and thought we were just cooking eggs. We actually had 9 out of 12 eggs hatch the last 3 were not fertile and when we opened them up, Roy was right, we were cooking those three. We now have a total of 16 chickens: 9 chicks, 7 hens, 2 turkeys and 1 mean nasty rooster, whom we need to thank for chicks but will now be down the road because Rory is deathly scared of it, it has attacked him many times and once jumped on the trampoline to get at him. Yes, he will be one of those kids who only remembers the bad rooster when he is older.

Here is the process start to end:

Here is the incubator, the eggs and of course the best guard bird dog! She stayed and looked after the eggs for a few days.

Here is one of the eggs hatching open and the little wet chick

Here are a couple more chicks

Here are the boys with their favorite chicks!