It has been an unusually slow fire year so far which Erich and I have been taking advantage of. We have been traveling on the weekends, something we rarely get to do in mid-summer. This weekend we were off to Utah where we had a little family get together with Erich's parents and sister in law. It was fun to get Jake together with his cousin Rhone. We went to the Air force museum and out to Antelope island. It was a gorgeous evening and fun to see bison roaming around so close to the city. We definitely love being closer to family now that we are in Twin. We were also excited to fit in a little visit with our good ol' law school friends.



(Grandparents take note! Jake took his first steps last night!!! This is a picture from down at the river. Erich and I went swimming off the ropseswing you see in the background and Jake had a ball playing with the sticks, dirt, and grass.)

Freedom, Fun and Family

Fourth of July has to be one of my favorite holidays especially since spending a summer in Africa and realizing what a blessing it is to live in America! Lucky for me the fourth of july celebration lasted all week. To kick things off Jake and I were up in Grangeville, a little town that knows how to celebrate big. They have 3 days of street games and festivities including what could be the nation's largest "egg toss" competition. It is pretty funny, the streets are lined with people tossing eggs back and forth including the "eyes closed" toss, the "behind the back toss" the "hike toss"....you get the idea. It was really fun unil the egg exploded on me and got me all gooey. As always it was a real treat to be back in Grangeville for a visit with great friends.
For the actual fouth Erich had to work so we watched the fireworks in Twin. Jake was lots of fun and had no problem staying awake for the big show. He was quite enthralled with the lights and the booms, Libby on the other hand was petrified. After the fourth Erich took a long weekend and we went to Pallisades for a few wonderful days of boating and camping with my parents and sister. For me there is NOTHING better than a hot day on the lake with glassy water and family to share it all with. With Erich's job it is rare that we get to spend the fourth of july together, let alone take a 3 day summer vacation so it was a very memorable week of the fourth. I sure am grateful for my freedom and family.

(the egg toss, look close and you can see how high those eggs are in the air)


(dad and Jake watching the fireworks)

Too much fun to take pictures

This last week we got to go back up to Grangeville. It was so awesome to see our friends and to be in our house again. We were so busy having fun playing cards and eating great food that we forgot to take any pics of our lazy, comfortable weekend. It was a good thing we had sucg a relaxing fathers day weekend because the week was anything but lazy. Erich got to go to Boise to train for cargo let down (for those not down with the language it's pretty much what it sounds, dropping cargo loads down out of the helicopter). Then he had a lot of stress with mechanical malfunctiosn on the helicopter. While Erich was busy with work I was busy picking out the whole interior of our house (yes Erich trusts me to make all the decisions). It's fun to drive by the lot now because they are working on the framing. Anyhow that's an update in the Gleckler world. I'll keep it short since my last few posts have been so long!




(as you can see Jake is better at getting the food on his face than down to his tummy)

Another week of exploration

We are still discovering more and more treasures of Twin--this week a lot of the exploration was done via bike. Erich has a bad habit of going out and buying his gifts before I have a chance of purchasing/giving them to him. Lately he has been wanting a bike trailer for Jake so I went ahead and bought it and gave it to him as an early Fathers Day gift. Thus, this week we've been doing a bit of bike riding. We really wanted to go to Sun Valley and ride but we got rained out. So instead we rode the country roads around here. It is pretty fun just cruising around the farm fields. We also went and biked out to one of the lakes here. I can't help but check out all the good waterskiing spots!


(the fields around here are quite beautiful)




(as you can see Jake is quite into standing up these days)

When you are in Twin you can see some mountains to the south. From a distance they look more like sage covered hills but once you get up in them they are actually quite tall and beautiful. We were quite excited to discover a little ski resort and hiking trails all less than 30 miles from home!

(who knew Twin Falls had trees and mountains?)


(it started raining pretty good on us so we hunkered down under some trees until it passed)


Jake has FINALLY decided he is interested in food, which freed me up to attend a temple session. The temple is gorgeous, especially the inside.


(It awesome having a temple right here)


(Quite the little smiler!)

(Gotta love being a mom)

They are really moving on our house. Last Sunday when we went out there it was bare dirt, now we have part of a foundation. Things are really developing fast. Last week there was only 1 house being built on our block, now there are 5 going up, including our neighbors. I guess things still move in this economy so long as the price is right!

More about Twin Falls

Here are some pictures of the lot/subdivision/area where we are building. We are pretty excited about it. We are three houses down from the park, real close to the canyon rim trail and just down the road from Winco, Walmart, and Gold's Gym! Our backyard borders up to an undeveloped part of our subdivision so at least for the next couple of years we will enjoy a several acre field behind our house.
Thanks to those of you who voted on the exterior colors for our home. We ended up going with a darker sage green, tan, and a creamish colored trim. Hopefully it turns out as pretty as we have envisioned :)


(this is a zoomed up view of the canyon rim from what will be our backyard)


(this is a picture of Jake trying out the swings in the park next to our lot. He wasn't too sure of the swing--he was smiling big but a little shakey too)



(the park by our house, or future house)


(a little waterfall along the canyon rim trail which you can walk to from our place)


(Looking down to the canyon from the trai...and yes I saw waterskiers down there!!!!)




(since no blog is complete without pictures of Jake! He is quite the crawler these days)

Hidden Treasures

I have driven by Twin Falls a number of times in my life and I have always ridden the area off as boring, dry, and relatively ugly. Since moving here I must say my perspective has completely changed. I can even say I am excited about living here. I love the vastness of the sky, the intense sunsets and weather patterns, the peaceful sound of sprinklers running, the hot weather, and the mighty river and canyons. Erich and I had a lot of fun this weekend scoping out the area, finding all the boat ramps and dreaming of the day we buy a boat. We found some fun places to hike though they were sage-filled instead of tree-filled, and rattle snake infested instead of tick-infested. After seeing 2 rattle snakes we decided we better watch more of the trail and less of the scenary! Nonethess a very fun day of hiking and exploring. Obviously our life here will be rather different, but I am pretty sure we will find things to do and love about Twin Falls.

As for a Jake update he continues to be our primary source of joy and entertainment. Crawling is no longer exciting enough for him; he now pulls himself up and stands on everything. He is loving his life down here. He spends hours playing in the grass and with Libby (our dog), though he and I certainly miss our friends up in Grangeville.