Corner House

My parents have a project house out on the Willwood corner (appropriately dubbed the Corner House). It is quite possibly Owen's favorite place on earth, and there is rarely a morning when he doesn't ask if we are "doeing to Nana and Bampa's torner house?" (that's "going to Nana and Grandpa's corner house," for those of you who don't speak Owen)
It is little boy heaven there with dirt piles, tractors, tools, and ladders and a little tike-sized basketball court, and of course, an adoring grandpa who is at your beckoned call.
We spent the Saturday before last there. Chris helped with a shingling project and the rest of us just hung out and got dirty....even Ava.

Admit it, you want to steal her, don't you? She is scrumptious.

Doesn't Grace look thrilled? This is the kind of face I get most of the time when I pull out the camera.

Owen, trying his hand at golfing using a stick and a rock.

The highlight of the day for the girls was finding these 2 little toads in the grass after grandpa and Owen mowed the lawn. They really wanted to keep them as pets, but I convinced them toads don't live in captivity very well....besides we have 2 "pet" caterpillars and 3 "pet" crickets at the moment and I am feeling like that's probably sufficient.

My grandma's house is just down the road from my parent's house and shortly beyond that is her childhood home. This property is no longer in the family and the house will soon be torn down and a new home will be built in it's place. I ran over and snapped a few pictures before it is gone. I find houses intriguing, particularly old, run-down ones. I always wonder how they went from being someone's dream and labor of love to being abandoned and forgotten. I wonder what their story is. This home's story began with my great-grandpa. He lovingly built it for his family and my grandmother was born within those walls.

I can picture my great-grandmother standing at this very sink, maybe she even watched her babies play outside that very kitchen window.... and I wonder, as she watched them, if her heart swelled with joy and gratefulness for the miracles they were and if she hoped and dreamed of their futures while she watched them laugh and play......or maybe she stood at this sink to count to ten in an effort to not blow her top before calmly reminding them for the jillionth time to pick up their socks, or feed the dog, or stop teasing each other.

The view of Heart Mountain through one of the bedroom windows...

I think one of these trees was planted when my grandma was born, I really need to take some time to visit with her because as I was snapping pictures, I realized there is a lot I don't know about her.....

My grandma has spent her whole life near the "peaks" as she calls them, and nearly every time I visit with her she talks about watching the peaks....sometimes it's about how the evening light reflected colors off of them, or how recent lightening touched them and illuminated the sky, or how the snow blankets their curves . They are constant and she loves them and she misses them some years when corn is sometimes planted in place of sugar beets and it grows high at summer's end and blocks them from the view out her front windows.