Damian's Theme Song

This is truly hilarious. Enjoy!

Lil' Mommy, Katrina

Katrina (Nina) is my 7 1/2 year old little mommy. She's ALWAYS loved playing with baby dolls and as she's gotten older, she had transferred that love to her 5 little girl cousins. (But she still loves playing with baby dolls, too!)

This is Annie Idiart and Katrina. Annie invites Nina over to play all the time.

Katrina's aunts make her feel like they NEED her help, all the time. They compliment and praise her and she KNOWS she's good with little children. I'm so thankful that they make Katrina feel talented and special. If someone needs help (like at this Christmas Program) Katrina steps in, or is volunteered to help some of the littles.

This is a cute one. We went camping with a big group of friends and Nina and Annie were inseparable!

We live next door to our Nadauld cousins. This is Nina and Mary Nadauld at a local splash park.

Nina is so tender with the little girls. It makes me proud. I can't wait for the day she's a mom to her own babies. She's gonna be a good one.

Elise Idiart adores Katrina. . . I don't have photos of Nina with her other two little baby girl cousins, but she loves them, also!

Airport Security

My parents have figured out a way to bypass airport security. When I showed Emma, she said, "Is that Grandma and Grandpa? They are SOOOO gross!" I thought, "Hey, their bodies look better than mine and Damian's. . . " But NO, this is NOT my parents. My mom did send the photo to me, though. I love having a mom with the same quirky sense of humor that I have.

Thanksgiving 2009

I found these photos on my SIL Tiffany's computer. She's so good at documenting our family's life. I'm grateful, since I've been a slacker about that! We had 26 Idiart Family member over, plus the Mission President, another couple missionary, the APs and our ward Elders. And a friend. So our total was 35 people. It was fun, the food was good. These pics say it all:

Damian, Jared and Al (Pop) Idiart.

Annie, Rachel and Eliza Idiart.

Grandma Suzanne and Emma Suzanne. It looks like Emma is finally taller, even taller than the poof. And obviously sort of more psycho. She takes after her mother's side, sometimes.

Ben, Ashton and Josh Idiart. Bring on the Turkey!

Grandpa Al and his newest Grandbaby Nicole. She's just a few weeks in this photo!

Silly girls! Katrina, Elize and Rachel Idiart.

Damian with his Brothers: Aaron Nadauld and Jared & Justin Idiart.

My favorite pic of the day: Noah Nadauld and Josh. Noah ADORES Josh and Josh is Noah's buddy. They are cute together.

Trailer Park: Idiart Style

There are two things my friends joke with me about.

One is that we Idiarts like living all together. Some people admire the idea, but some just think we're weird. I've been married for almost 14 years and I've lived WITH or next door to some of Damian's family for 10 years. Right now, Damian's sister and her family live next door and I love it. I think they're my favorite neighbors EVER. All of Damian's brothers/sister and their families (15 people total) are in our ward and our kids all go to the same school. His parents are away on a mission and we miss them, but it's only temporary.

The other thing that my friends joke about is our trailer park. We own an ugly little trailer park across from the kids school. It's an eyesore. Our intention was to buy the land and and develop it. The timing hasn't ever been right, but we still hope to do so, SOMEDAY.

This photo is sort of a combonation of the two quirks about being an Idiart. . . living all together and being trailer park owners. I couldn't find a photo that combined our last odd quirk: We own a cemetary, too. But you can imagine how to add that info into this picture! ENJOY!

"Ketchup" and Mustard on Utah Trip!

My favorite National Park is Mesa Verde in Colorado. I went as a kid and never forgot that trip. I talked my parents into driving my kids and I (a 4 hour drive from St. George, where they live) and camping with us for a few days. This particular dwelling is the most famous, called "Cliff Palace."

From the NPS, "Mesa Verde, Spanish for green table, offers a spectacular look into the lives of the Ancestral Pueblo people who made it their home for over 700 years, from A.D. 600 to A.D. 1300. Today, the park protects over 4,000 known archeological sites, including 600 cliff dwellings. These sites are some of the most notable and best preserved in the United States."

This is the same dwelling as the one previous, with an apartment! Everything was accessed by rock climbing and wooden ladders, like these:

The boys always tried to be FIRST to climb them all.

But Katrina wasn't shy either! She loved all the ladders!

This ladder was particularly freaky and dangerous. I hate heights! I was hyperventilating when I got to the top of it, but Briana seems fine and cute as ever!

Here are Emma and Rachel holding a pottery shard that could be 1500 years old. The people tossed their garbage off the cliff walls, in front of their dwellings and many pieces of broken pottery were found at the base of each dwelling!

Rach and Katrina practicing their metate skills . . . the same way the Indian women ground corn and seeds thousands of years ago . . . on the same stones!

These "Cliff Dwellings" are so fascinating! This is a pic of my kids, plus my parents, sister Briana and brother Eric. Ten of us drove on this trip in my suburban that seats 8. It was a tight squeeze, but we had a great time.

There were cool carvings and artwork all over, but these were the coolest!

Ben enjoyed all the tight spaces and things to scramble and climb on! The Ancestral Pueblo were a tiny people, with the men as short as me (5'2" at the tallest) and the women about Josh's height (under 5').

What a cutie! There was A LOT of hiking to all these sites and Ben did great, hardly complaining at all!

In this photo, you can see that the ceiling is all black. That's left over soot from fires inside the top room, the logs sticking out supported a porch or another room.

This dwelling is called "Balcony House" because of the wonderful intact "balconies" that are so well preserved. The balconies were used to view the gorgeous vistas that these homes provided!

Like this one. What a view! This place is so great to visit, you all should put it on your 100 things to do before you die!

Kiva is a Hopi word for Ceremonial Room. Each Dwelling had a few Kivas. One had been re-constructed to allow tourists to climb down inside and check it out. Here's Ben on his way down the ladder.

This is the view from inside the Kiva. Pretty cramped quarters . . . now just imagine a fire going and everyone smoking the pipe! Yuck!

Our cute Katrina with a view of an open Kiva behind. They were circular rooms.

The cliff dwellings were protected from enemies and the elements, tucked into open caves. The citizens would climb to the Mesa top to farm and play.

On the TOP of all the Mesas, there were also dwellings. This is a Kiva from the top.

Nina and Ben pose in the Kiva.

Rachel climbing around a secret passageway!

Notice the carvings on Josh's side. Very cool.

When we left Mesa Verde, we stopped on the Indian Reservation to stand on 4 corners . . . the spot where 4 states meet each other. This was something I had remembered doing as a child and I wanted my kids to see it.

Here's my brother being in 4 states at once.

And Josh! What a great trip! Thanks Mom and Dad!

More "Ketchup" from the Summer!

I'm still so behind on chronicling last summer's Utah trip! We did so much and I dropped off the blogging hemisphere, darn it!

One afternoon while in Salt Lake City, we drove all around, looking at past Prophet's graves. After awhile, most of the kids wouldn't get out of the car. My two sweet oldest girls, Emma and Rachel got out to stand by the grave of our beloved Prophet, Gordon B. Hinckley.

The same girls posed next to Brigham Young's grave. He has his own special cemetery in Downtown SLC.

We met in Monroe, Utah for a Levie family reunion. My Paternal Grandmother was Geraldine Levie Goold. Her husband, my dad's father, recently passed away. This was the first time my kids had been to a grave of someone they'd known. Ben is kneeling on the box of ashes, of my dad's oldest sister, Janet. We were gathered at the cemetery that day to bury her ashes next to her parents.

We wandered around the cemetery, looking at our ancestor's graves. One of my favorite Great-Grandmothers, the one I'm named after, was buried in Monroe also.

Sarah Jacobina Wicklund Goold, born in Sweden 1852, to Danish parents who were immigrating to America. While in Sweden they joined with the restored gospel of Jesus Christ and found passage to SLC, when Sarah was 4, with the Willie Handcart Company. Little Sarah had many hardships, as did her 9 month pregnant mother. The whole family made it to Utah and each raised a righteous posterity. It was really special to show the kids this grave.

As we continued our trip to St. George that afternoon, I read the kids all sorts of stories about their ancestors. In this photo, my sister, Briana, is standing behind Emma and my favorite aunt, Linda, the one I grew up with in Alaska, is standing near my dad and me. My niece, Ariana, is in front of Emma and my cousin's oldest, Olivia, is standing in front of me!

Utah in December

I mentioned a few days ago that we went to Utah last month for the BYU vs. Oregon State Football game. We also went for a more important reason. Damian's Great-Uncle, John, and his posterity are all LDS. They're the ones that introduced Damian's parents to the gospel. One of John's youngest daughters was sealed in the SLC temple and we went to witness that very joyous occasion.

I didn't take any pictures of the gorgous bride and her sweet husband. But I did get these, that night in the Marriot pool. We cousin swapped and Damian's cousin Val took our girls. We kept all the boys. The boys swam until midnight and were quite ENERGETIC!

Pictured: Ben and Josh Idiart, Matt Correa & Tanner and Spencer Davies and their crazy hairdo poses. Tanner won the coolest swim hair competition. We had about a million different competitions, and each boy won quite a few. Even Benny, but his were rigged, to make him feel good.

Before we left, the boys showed me their best Hula Dancing. What a bunch of Goofs. Ben was too cool for this "competition."