Trip to Laramie

This weekend, we made a trip down to Laramie to watch a Cowboys football game. This was the only weekend we didn't have a game of our own to attend that the Cowboys were playing at home, so jumped at the chance to head down. Our neighbor, who is a season ticket holder, heard we were planning to go and gave us his 8 tickets that they weren't going to be using, which was a huge bonus! We left Saturday morning after Christian and the boys helped a family in our ward move and made our way down. We went prepared with all our warm gear and even stopped in Casper to stock up on rain ponchos because it was supposed to be raining and snowing, plus the game didn't start until 8 p.m. 

Our first stop in Laramie was dinner and it was a no brainer to us to eat at Corona Village. It was our favorite place to eat while we were going to school and it didn't disappoint!

After dinner, we ran over to Jacob and Mikayla's (who were actually in Lovell for the weekend) apartment and put on our layers and then headed down to the game. In the field house (the indoor practice facility), they had all sorts of booths set up (it was Ag appreciation day at the game), food vendors and inflatables for the kids to play on. We let them run around for about and hour since they had been sitting in a car for 6 and were going to be sitting more.

Heading to the game.

The boys practices their fishing casts at one of the booths.

Landon caught one!

Carson going down the giant slide.

Travis doing the obstacle course.

Travis and Landon racing through the obstacle course.

Go pokes!

 It ended up being great weather. It only sprinkled once on us for just a second. I sat through the whole game without putting on my coat.

Ready for the game to start!

 

The boys enjoyed some hot chocolate after half time.

The game was pretty long.  Landon kind of lost focus after so long and made himself a little bed on the floor of the bleachers. I'm just glad we were in a spot where we weren't surrounded by people.

Every time Wyoming got a first down, they threw out t-shirts. Landon was a lucky recipient!

 The game ended up going into over time and we didn't get out until almost 12:30. Everyone stayed awake through the whole game, but it didn't take long in the car for the boys to be asleep. We drove to Cheyenne when the game was over to stay the night since all the hotels in Laramie were booked for the weekend. We finally got to the hotel and in our rooms after 1:30, but everyone slept in until 9, and would have probably slept later if we hadn't had to get down to breakfast before they closed it.  We had so much fun traveling to Laramie and being there watching the Cowboys get a win!

Bowling Party

For birthdays, we usually just have a family party. When they are in 3rd grade, we let them have a birthday with a few friends. Travis has been waiting for the day he got to have his. It proved hard to try and find a day that we could do something with practices, games and life in general, though. We finally found a Friday after school (and before practice) for him to have a few friends go with him for some bowling to celebrate his birthday. He got to invite 3 friends and chose his best friends (Rocco, Kaeson and Sam...who ended up being sick and couldn't come). They had a blast bowling, eating pizza and cupcakes and being the only ones in the bowling alley.

Landon making some antennae to look like a bug.

Bowling away.

Rocco, Kaeson, and Travis being a 3 headed monster

Good friends!

Travis bowling.

A fun nerf gun from his friend.

Pizza time.

Carson and Landon messing around.

Corn picking

Corn picking/selling season has come to an end. The boys did a great job this year and we've finally gotten a pretty good system figured out and can pick quite a bit of corn in a pretty quick amount of time.

When we pick, we have at least one picker. Christian is the picker, and some times Grandpa Asay comes and helps also.

Christian picking corn

Grandpa Asay helping out.

Carson and Travis have the hardest job, if you ask me. They are the haulers. They carry the buckets full of corn back and forth from the picker to the truck. While they are transporting, Christian is usually filling up buckets, so they don't really get a chance to rest. Next year, we need to weigh a bucket and see how much they are carrying each load. Christian can typically load 2 dozen ears in a bucket and we, on average, would pick around 1000 ears, so that makes around 40 trips to and from the truck.

My main job is to box, count and record the amount of corn that is coming in. Landon is kind of a floater. A lot of the time he helps me and is on quality control. He is good  about making sure there aren't any pieces of corn that have raccoon bites in them and takes off any "baby corns" (smaller second ears that aren't quite mature). He also helps pick and haul.

Landon and I boxing up the corn.

This year we picked around 3600 ears of corn, down from what we picked last year. But, the boys are learning about hard work and all the money they make goes towards their mission funds.

Fishing in Yellowstone

Christian was invited by chemical company again this year to go out fishing with them in Yellowstone. They fished Wednesday and Thrusday of last week. The first day, Christian only caught 3 fish the entire day. Thursday, proved to be a much better day, and he caught 15 or more. They got to keep some, but had to throw back a lot. It sounds like there will be a fish fry in our future!

One of his 3 catches the first day.

Soccer

Landon and Travis's soccer seasons finally finished up. They both had fun and enjoyed playing. I'm always happy when it is over becaue it's so unorganized and occurs at the busiest time...right as school is beginning. I'm not sure if we will be doing it next year because it is always so crazy! We will have to see.

Landon's last game. Yes...everyone gets medals for participating...

Travis had a pretty successful season. He was aggressive and played hard. Their team did pretty well, but lost their last game. They would have liked the season to end differently, but oh well.

Jackson 2017

We enjoyed another great camping trip in Jackson this year. Actually, this was probably the best to date! It was so warm (mid 80's) and just perfect...minus the smoke from all the fires around. We left Friday as soon as Carson was done with football practice. We thought he would be done around 5:45, since that's what time he's usually coming out of the locker room, but come to find out, they were done at 5 (due to the high school football game that night) and had been waiting around for us for almost 45 minutes! But, we were on the road just before 6 and on our way to the camp spot. We only stopped once on the way down, and that was at Fishing Bridge to use the bathroom. It was dark most of our trip through the Park, so we didn't stop any more to walk around and didn't really see much wildlife. We did spot a cow elk and a buffalo though. We got to the Coulter Bay Campsite around 11 and got ourselves partially settled for the night.

We got up the next morning and made French toast for breakfast. Grandpa and Grandma Foulger gave Travis his birthday gift after we were done. He was so excited to get his laser x sets (it's a laser tag system) and headed out with his brothers to play.

After breakfast was all cleaned up and everyone was ready for the day, we took a long bike ride around the campground with Brett and Cathy Whitlock.

It's so fun to be able to bike around with the Tetons in the background.

Once we were done biking, we fixed up some taco salad for lunch. Megan, Jabin and baby Sloane showed up just in time to join us for some lunch. We headed down to the lake once we were finished for some kayaking and playing in the water. It was no warm that the boys were wishing that they had brought their swimsuits. They settled for getting their clothes wet instead.

Carson kayaking away.

Christian and Landon taking a turn.

When the boys came back, they were so excited to tell me about the leeches they were catching! GROSS! I guess Travis had a few on his legs after being in a little marshy area and that inspired them to try and catch them!

After hanging out at the lake for a while, we headed to our campers and got ready to head into Jackson for dinner at Merry Piglets and to attend The Unsinkable Molly Brown at the Playmill. The play was pretty good this year, but long. Travis and I spent the entire second half out in the lobby because his belly wasn't feeling so hot and needed to be close to the bathroom.

Our annual family pic by the antler arch.

Travis was surprised at dinner when they brought out fried ice cream and sang happy birthday to him!

As we walked around the little shops in between dinner and the show, Landon wanted his pictures taken by all the big bears he saw.

Because we got back so late Saturday night after the play, we all slept in Sunday morning and then had our annual camping blueberry pancake breakfast with everyone. I think there were 17 of us in total this year. We had blueberry pancakes, fried eggs, bacon, sausage and fruit. Delicious!

Landon was Grandpa's bacon helper

After breakfast, all 17 of us went for a hike up to some little pond. While we were on our hike, Abby and her husband who were in the back of the line, saw a bear come out of the water and run right passed them. It freaked us all out for a while, but we kept on hikin'.

Our family in front of the Tetons

A hiking we will go!

Christian and I in front of the marina as we started our hike.

This is the pond that we hiked up to. It was full of lily pads and moss, but was so pretty. We stopped for a bit here to rest and visit.

Travis sporting the new shades he bought with some of his birthday money while we were in Jackson.

Landon, Brett W., grandpa Foulger, Christian and Carson hanging out at the pond.

We spotted two wood peckers working away on a downed tree along the way.

Apparently, there was good service in this spot!

After hanging out for a bit, we hiked back down and had pulled pork sandwiches for lunch and sat around and visited for a while before heading down to the lake to enjoy the sunshine and beautiful day!

We could not get enough of baby Sloane and her smiles! The boys just love her!

Landon was quite the frog catcher. He caught one little one and one huge one that was swimming in the water where he was wading.

The big frog he caught.

Grandpa and baby Sloane enjoying the afternoon.

Jabin, Megana dn Landon and Travis kayaking

Travis just chilling on his kayak.

Megan and Landon.

Landon trying to shove Megan off of the shore.

Carson, Travis, and Megan.

The boys spent a bunch of time trying to catch more leeches and minnows. Travis brought down a plastic bag to catch the minnows in, but it had holes in it, so that didn't work out real great.

Landon playing with the now destroyed bag.

Travis trying to find things to catch.

Landon found the perfect stick to try his hand at spear fishing. He didn't catch anything despite his trying.

Travis in the "leech field" or "giardia pool" (as we called it) trying to catch minnows and leeches.

Hanging out at the lake.

Carson trying to catch some creepy crawlies!

Somewhere there is a leech on his stick.

Leech!

That evening, we grilled some burgers, ate yummy treats, visited and played games.  The boys played laser tag in the dark and watched a movie and grandma's camper while the adults played telestrations. There's nothing like a game of telestrations to get you laughing until you cry. I'm sure our neighbors were happy to see 10:00 come around so we had to quite down!

Landon and Jabin playing laser tag. They were sneaking up on Carson and Travis who were on a team together.

Monday morning, we got everyone's campers packed back up and ready to go. We headed out around 11 and made our way over to Leek's Marina for pizza. When we were done with our lunch, we went our separate ways. We had planned to stop at West Thumb to get out and walk around since we didn't get to on the way to camping, but all three boys were out, so we just kept on trucking.

Lunch by the marina

You know it was a good trip when you look back and see this. It's a good thing they got some rest because as soon as we got home, we changed and headed out to grandpa Asay's and picked 80 dozen ears of corn!