donnavan, giggly girls, and an ar-15

i love my husband! he is amazing. he works hard at his job, is an awesome husband and father, brings me flowers... oh, and teaches gun safety courses to a bunch of giggly teenage girls for me. you see, in church i work with the young women who range from ages 12 to 18. for an activity this month it was decided that the girls would have a gun safety course. i quickly volunteered donnavan's name (yes, the same donnavan that can barely catch a breath of air being so busy with work, church, etc. but i knew he'd love to do it). now the girls i work with are seriously delightful - but gunhandlers they are not! so you see, donnavan had his work cut out for him. first thing he does is to strut from the car decked out in camo gear and toting an ar-15 and 10 mm handgun and proceeds to tell the girls that if they drop his guns he is going to be very, very angry. you should have seen the girls eyes pop out of their sockets... and needless to say the girls were VERY attentive and careful.

before i continue on with the endless babble, let me slip in this awesome picture my dad took of our family this summer. thanks dad! (okay, so getting a natural smile from donnavan and hayden is impossible. we were ecstatic to get just one.)

its been one of those summers where you feel like you're caught in the surf being thrown back and forth and you just have to lay back and enjoy the ride. the ride was enjoyed. we now lay on the beach after being thrown up on shore and have a few minutes to rest. oh wait... never mind. rest is highly overrated. i think i'll take a photography class instead. but let me just say, it was definitely worth missing out on some rest. it's been a long time since i have done something like this just for me and i loved it. the following are some fruits of the class.

as i mentioned earlier, hayden and smiling don't always work out so well. i decided i would have to take a more serious route with him.

for part of the class they took us to these most amazing gardens. i thought you could only take so many pictures of flowers. oh but not when there are a thousand different kinds...

on my way to the photography class one evening this old barn caught my eye. barns are just cool and old barns even more so. this one i believe only has days left to its life. so even though i was late to my class i thought it worth my while to stop and snap some photos of its last days

and this is why we live in north idaho!

okay, so that kinda' crazy... kinda' fun part of our blog title has definitely been in effect the last few weeks. everything from camping and hiking to donnavan's birthday have taken place and kept me constantly checking my calendar, sure that i am missing something totally important. let's start with the camping portion.

almost every year we hike up to a gorgeous spot called moose lake. it's one of those places where in the middle of the night moose clomp by your tent causing your soundly sleeping husband to bolt upright chambering his shotgun in one very dramatic move. it's also a place where only hours later your head is sniffed (i know, numerous times i've been warned to not wear deoderant) by a very "friendly" grizzly bear who gratefully decides the smell is not quite what he was feeling like for breakfast that morning. all the while your husband is sleeping like a baby due to the very exciting moose episode a few hours before. yes, this is moose lake... and we love it. but now we have two kids in tow and even the short 2 mile hike seems like an everest climb when thinking of all the stuff we would have to pack in. so we decided on something that we could drive to while keeping away from the dreaded "campground". thanks to my husband's increasing technological inclinations, we found char falls on google earth.

here is char falls. this place is so perfectly picturesque it makes you want to cry. and there wasn't anyone camping anywhere near this place!

this was our campground. to the right you can see the river running past our camping spot.

this is a better view of the amazing little river next to our campground. we are camping directly to the left of this picture.

this is an incredibly hot man who allowed me to take a picture of him. he was so good with kai too. i love you donnavan!


so on saturday morning breakfast was to be delicious pancakes. now pancakes are good but pancakes with freshly picked huckleberries are amazing. yep, those were some dang good pancakes. hayden stood guard over his pancake until it was safely on his plate and into his tummy.




donnavan brought is gold pan along and he taught hayden some truly amazing, canadian gold panning skills. he even found some gold ("i found one! ohh, it blew off my finger. wait, wait i see it. no, it's just a fleck of dust.").

welcome to north idaho! this is our piece of heaven.

peaches... mmmmm...

wake up. look outside. it's sunny. yessss! must get out of house. after having been couped up in our 300 square foot (i'm barely exagerating) home for what seemed like an eternity, while the clouds got every particle of rain that could be in their AUGUST systems out, we were definitely ready for an outdoor excursion. peaches are ripe. a day in the orchards allowing kids to roam free while i stock up on one of my favorite fruits. perfect. and perfect it was. i managed to bring home 4 (well, 3 and a half by the time we got home) boxes of deliciously ripe peaches. hayden and kali (his cousin) only had moderate amounts of physical altercations and enjoyed climbing dangerously high ladders and eating peaches until their bellies ached.

isn't Kali adorable. there's something about little girls that is so much more peaceful than little boys. plus they really enjoy posing for the camera!

a moment of peace and cooperation between the two crazy kids. not that either of them aren't total and complete angels. they're just angels in training.

my little hayden is growing up so fast. definitely the handsomest boy around (well of course aside from his hot father).

well the day has ended and so has the sun. we are back to the rain and another day of finding creative indoor activities that don't ultimately drive poor mother insane. wish me luck!

here goes nothin'...

after much pressure by those we know and love, the leavitt family is (at long last) entering the age of blogging. i (amy) must admit that i fought against this with all i had. why in heavens name would i want to add one more item to my pretty stable life. but the pressure became too great, so i have caved. but seriously, someone would have to be incredibly bored to want to spend time reading about my intensely normal family. but here goes...

maybe i should begin with a little family update, for those who we don't keep in contact with as well as we should (which is probably just about everyone reading this). our family currently consists of four: donnavan, amy, hayden (4 years), and ikaika (10 months). our current residents is in north idaho where we believe is pretty much heaven on earth. snowboarding in the winter, wakeboarding in the summer, tons of camping, hiking, hunting... well, you get the idea, it's AWESOME here. donnavan is working at epis, inc. as the manager of their energy market research team. in his spare time he babies a motorcycle and 4, er, 5, er... a few guns. i (amy, who as the main author of this blog will continue in first person) enjoy a fabulous life raising my two amazing boys at home while dabbling in photography, running, reading, etc. hayden is beginning his second year of preschool and is an amazing big brother. he has great bicycling skills, shooting skills, and recently swimming skills. kai (ikaika) is growing so quickly. he loves anything that involves his brother along with trying out his legs at walking and learning new (and high pitched) methods of getting our attention. life is good for us and we will try to keep the postings and photos coming.