The Austin's Family Cruise /Panama Canal

This is our Princess Cruise Ship. There were about 2000 people on this ship with 850 staff workers. It is a huge ship. There was a casino, movie theatre, 2 resturants, bars, a buffett, 2 pools, hot tubs galore, gym, spa, just to name a few. We sure had a great time relaxing and being with our family.

The Panama Canal. This is an amazing experience. This picture was taken from our balcony and you can see another ship behind us. This ship is 87 feet above sea level and before it can move forward the water ahead of him has to rise to 87 feet also. There are six total locks, 3 on the Pacific side and 3 on the Atlantic side. It is gravity driven no pumps. There is a canal captain steering us along with little trains pulling against us to keep from hitting the sides of the lock. It is very interesting and amazing experience. This took most of the day to go through.

Huatituko, Mexico. Our first Port. Dan, Emily, Darin and I went into town and looked around. We were there for only 4 hours. It is a beautiful place. We will hopefully come back someday. I love Mexico.

Emily and I went and did wine tasting on our Princess Cruise Ship. It was set up in our Dining area were we ate our dinners. We were able to taste samples of Chardonnay from Kendall-Jackson, Pinot Noir from La Crema, Cabernet Sauvignon from Wolf Blass (Australia)Sauvignon Blac from Errazuriz and Sauvignon Blac from Nobilo. From this we recieved a shooter glass to take home. It was fun.

In Costa Rica Diane, Doug, Darin and I went on a Countryside tour and Coffee plantation tour. It was very fun.

As you can see I volunteered to taste their coffee. I am smelling the coffee aroma by continuously sturring my spoon. HMMMM!!!

Only if you had smellavision. ;>) With your spoon you would then slurp your coffee instead of sipping it. You get more flavor from the coffee that way.

They used a coffee press instead of a coffee maker. BIG difference. I got a complementary hat.

Sunset from Aruba.

Aruba is only 19 miles long 6 miles wide. Beautiful white sandy beaches and blue water. The whole island looks like a desert with cactus galore.

We were able to rent a van and tour the island ourselves. We went to a beach and swam for a while and then drove around the rest of the island exploring.

Opening Day Success!!!

Opening Day Success!!!

Darin can't believe hunting season is over.

I am looking forward to good eats.

Quatro has Arrived!!

Yes, SHE has arrived all by herself. Her Momma is the one behind her and did a fine job of delivering. Whew! We are so so Glad!!!

She was born on 9/28 sometime between 5:00pm -6:30pm because I discovered her at 6:50pm.

She is tiny compared to Tres who was born 5 days earlier.

Well, sadly but thankfully this concludes our newborns of 2007. We will be expecting our first Uno 08 in March 2008. It has been a successful year of all our new arrivals. Hopefully next year we will have the same success.

Baby Girl Tres

She is one day old in this picture. She is doing really well. She and her Momma join the others in the pasture.

Its a GIRL! Baby Cow

This is Tres and she was born this morning. Momma' s water broke just after 7:00am and she arrived at 9:20 am. She had to have help from Darin and Pete. She is doing just fine. She is just a beauty.

I will post more pictures of her up close.

St. Joe 1st. Annual Smackdown Babyback Ribs Competitors

Tony has offically opened the 1st annual Smackdown Cookoff.

Holmes is preparing his Smoken Smackdown Babyback Ribs.....

As Darin is preparing his Winning (later announced) Smackdown Babyback Ribs.

Silver Creek Plunge

This is Silver Creek on your way up to Silver Creek Plunge, Idaho.
Beautiful drive.

Here is our campsite at Silver Creek Plunge. We were right next to the road. It was about the only place available when we arrived late friday night. We scouted for better camp spot the next day but no such luck. It is a beautiful drive up there however, we will not return to this area to camp again. There were way too many people and dirt bikes going up and down the road all day long and there weren't many places to go in order to get away from all the campers . The hot spring was a nice set up but again too many people and not that warm. It was not to our expectations. We heard coyotes at night and saw some Elk foot prints around our campsite. If you want to ride on your dirt bike all day long this is the place to be but if your looking for peace and quite we don't recommend camping here.

New Arrival !

Please welcome the arrival of Dos. June 12th between 5:00-6:30pm he finally arrived!!
We were expecting him to arrive on his due date June 10th but nope ...not quite yet he wasn't ready. Darin kept a close eye on Momma making sure she was ok and to see how close she is getting but with all the chores going on too we missed this exciting time of his arrival. His momma did all the work and we are very proud of her. Darin found him at this spot in our pasture all cleaned up and walking! We are sorry we missed it all. It was a very different experience from when we had Uno.

He is a soft little fella!! We are very happy with his markings.

Up close his has very long and beautiful eyelashes.

Rough Day!!!

Here is our first bull calf, Uno, that was born in March. He is 3 months old now and has no idea as to what is just about to happen to him.

Uno is patiently waiting as Darin and Brady set up the calf table.

Locked down!

OMG!! What the Heck???
He didn't know he was going to be turned to his side.

Momma hanging around her baby as she didn't like him being helpless. He didn't know what was going on and probably that was a good thing.

Dr. Renner castrating as Darin and Rob assist.

Dr. Renner branding.

Here is what our brand looks like.

Miss. Idaho and Black Momma

Here is Miss. Idaho and Black Momma hanging out in the pasture.

Black Momma is pregnant and is due on September 22nd. We will AI Miss. Idaho this month.

Firewood

This picture is the second of three loads from ONE tree. Its all home now and a total of four cords of wood!! What a nice relaxing weekend we had :^)

First Cutting

This is our first cutting from our west side pasture of 12 acres. We were able to get 295 bails of hay.

Zack and his brother Ben helped us stack our bails into the barn. It was a very hot (98*) day. Did these two "city slickers" know what they were getting themselves into and will they do it again?? We think not!! They did worked hard and did a great job. We appriciated the help very much.

Thank you.

Campsite at Burgdorf Guard Station

This was our spot for the weekend. We loved it. There were 2 more places available but no one came. It was just Darin, I, Henry (the host) and his wife. We felt we choosen a great spot to camp. We would come back to this place again.

We were soaked from the rain earlier in the day. A warm fire built by Darin hit the spot.

War Eagle Lookout

We tried to get to War Eagle Lookout but couldn't get through with the snow.
This fire burned in 1995. Can't believe how much this area is gone. It is pretty on the way up but once you've reached a certain area and as far as you can see there is nothing but burned trees that were once standing there.

Here is our bike that we tried to get through to get to the lookout but we ended up pushing it back out the way we came in and it was a good thing because we found out later that the rest of the way still had snow.

Elk Heaven

Burgdorf Meadow is just absolutely beautiful. We saw about 50+ Elks during our stay. This is heaven to them. The young ones were playing "tag" by running in circles around the adults and then kicking each other with their front legs. It was a sight to see. It was the perfect time of the year to see all of this.

Summitt View

It was May 6th and we were on top of the Galena Summitt (8990 ft) with a beautiful background view of the Sawtooth Mountain Range. This drive is between Ketchum to Stanley, Idaho.

Fish Hatchery

After feeding the ducks we went to the fish and game hatchery and saw lots of fish. She like this and always wanting to see more.

Feeding the Geese

Sunday Morning we all went to Ann Morrison park to feed the ducks and geese. There were a lot of geese and some had babies too. She had a great time giving BIG size bread to them. She was fun to watch.

Zoo Boise with Elise

Heidi and Elise and Mom came down to visit me last weekend. I took all of them to Zoo Boise. Elise enjoyed all the animals they had there. The Monkey were the most memoriable because they were in action of swinging and singing. She also enjoyed seeing the Turtles as you see in this picture here. The Day at the Zoo was beautiful and fun.

Homemade Wine for our Anniversary.

Darin and I celebrated our 1 year anniversary!!
We opened a bottle of homemade wine that was given to us at our wedding and was told wait until our one year anniversary to open it. It was well worth the wait as we both enjoyed the aroma and flavor of this wine.

1 yr. Anniversary Wine

Here is what is looks like when poured into the glass.

Wine with Filet Minon, Jumbo Shrimp,

Ceaser Salad and sauted mushrooms.

Elise's Egg

Looky here girl, Aunt Krista and Uncle Darin found your egg. ;>)

Hunting for more..

Micheal John's boys

Matthew, Sean and Gus.

Egg Hunt at the Ranch

Here are a few pictures of friends and cousin's kids that had a great time finding the Easter Eggs.

Here is what it looks like now, we will get better pics when we can roll it outside. But this is right after the last coat went on.

New Paint!

Here is what it looked like before.