visiting Uncle Brian's "zoo".

Clara's Uncle Brian lives in an amazing place!  His job while living in the gorgeous Idaho mountains is to care for animals who come to him as a result of all sorts of different situations.

We got to visit him while in McCall for Kurtis' birthday, and saw the most incredible little things!

For instance:

Here's a baby great-horned owl,

a baby goose,

 Luna, the fox,

 Clara giving Luna her favorite treat, a raw egg,

and Luna proudly parading her "catch" around her enclosure,

and three baby bear cubs!

It was so much fun to see all these wild things first hand!  Clara is the luckiest little girl to be able to meet all these new animal friends!  Thanks for letting us visit, Uncle Brian!

Kurtis turns 33 and we camp.

Kurtis turned 33 on May 31, and we decided to go camping just outside of McCall, ID to celebrate with his parents.

We took the time to do a little fishing.

And we made it into town to let Clara warm her feet in the sand.

It was an exciting trip because it was our first time taking out our new to us camp trailer!  Can you say...game changer?

Here are C and Pop relaxing by the fire!  It was c-c-c-cold!

We had to get a couple shots in front of the beaut!

And of course, Clara showered her dad in kisses for his birthday!

We had a great trip for many reasons!  We had the campground all to ourselves, which is always a treat!  And Kurtis even got to enjoy some birthday cake thanks to the oven in our camp trailer!  This is an entirely new way for us to camp, and we're not sure we'll ever go back to sleeping on the ground!!!

Cousin Peter.

We learned some very sad news in May... my cousin Peter lost his battle to AML.

Clara and I made the trip to North Dakota with my parents and all the Kaufmans for his funeral.  It was the saddest of circumstances, but wonderful to see my Dad's family.

Here is a lovely picture of Pete, "stolen" from my Auntie Ann's fb page.  He was quite a young man.

And here are a few pictures from our quick trip...

and the events held to remember Peter.

I've got to give photo credit to my Auntie Dawn and my mom for taking the pics during our few days in ND.  I was completely irresponsible and didn't take photos while we were in Minot.

Mother's Day 2014.

To celebrate Mother's Day this year, the Brooks side of the family went out to a fun dinner on Friday night to a local brew pub, Crooked Fence.  Some of the family members were going to be out of town on Sunday, and celebrating early was a fun to stretch the holiday out a bit and celebrate all weekend!

But I'm a bozo and didn't snap a single picture that night.  Boo.

On Sunday, we went over to my Mom's house for brunch.  We snapped a few photos on the patio...

And then, we went to the Morrison Center to see the Boise Music Week production (free tix) of The Secret Garden.  The play began at 2:00 pm, which is exactly when Clara usually goes down for a nap.  So, she slept through much of the play.  Thankfully, Auntie Em is a good resting place!

I love this pic that we captured!

Posting about this months late reminds me...Clara and Kurtis got me a fabulous gift!  A massage (which I still need to schedule, btw!).  It was a fabulous Mother's Day!  Kurtis and I are so lucky to have such wonderful moms, and I'm beyond blessed to be Clara's mom!