Lately

September has absolutely flown by! Fall sports and school have really kept us busy! Here are some things that we have been up to.

At the elementary school, they have a bucket filler program that recognizes kids for doing good things at school. Each class gets to nominate one student per week and they get recognized over the loud speaker and get to get a few little prizes. Travis and Landon both were recognized by their teachers. It's always fun to hear about the good things my kids are doing at school!

We are in the thick of football with both Carson and Travis. They have loved playing and have done well so far!

Carson as a captain.

Travis planted his very own patch of corn this year and has been WAITING for the day that he could harvest it. He was diligent about watering it and checked on it several times a day. He was so excited the day he finally got to harvest some for dinner. It was the best corn we had all summer!

We've had some crazy football weather, but it doesn't stop us!

Travis has had the opportunity to be a ball boy for the Varsity football team. He was on could 9 the first time he got asked to. He loved it!!

I have been super busy subbing at the school, but one of my first free days, I decided to tackle the pantry and organize it. It feels so good to have things back in order!

The middle school celebrated Homecoming by having different dress up days each day. Monday was class color day. The 8th graders were black.

Tuesday was twin day. The football team had a game that day, so a bunch of them just wore their jerseys.

Wednesday was tourist day and Carson nailed it! He looked great!

Thursday was pajama day, but I failed to get a picture of Carson in his sweats. Friday, we didn't have school, but we sported our blue and white for the game!

I was able to go on a field trip to Red Lodge to the Wildlife Sanctuary with Landon's class. We spent a couple of hours at the Sanctuary learning about the animals and their habitats and got to have lunch at the park and play. 

Landon's class.

Grandma Asay got to come along too!

Aparantly it was an exhausting field trip because Landon got home and fell asleep on my bed!

Any chance Travis gets, he's been practicing football. The neighborhood kids will usually get together and play, but one day he build himself some "goal posts" so he could practice kicking field goals. That kid is sure determined and has such a great imagination!

Chokecherries!

For a couple of weeks, we have been talking about going into Dry Head to pick chokecherries, but weren't able to find a time that we could do it. We finally had a free afternoon yesterday, so we loaded up stuff for a picnic, picked up grandpa and grandma Asay and headed in. We were happy to find that the bears hadn't eaten all of them! The chokecherries were bigger than I had ever seen them. We managed to pick about 3 gallons of them and then cooked some burgers for dinner before heading back home. 

A fuzzy caterpillar Landon found.

I was able to can 14 jars of jelly that we look forward to enjoying!!

Jackson

Our Labor Day was spent in Jackson. This has always been a trip that we look forward to and it will probably be the last year we get to go since Carson will be in high school next year and have football. We were lucky enough this year that Carson had early practice and that Christian was able to get home early from work so we could hit the road. We took off around 4, made a stop in Powell to get gas and a birthday cake and got to the campsite a little before 9. We were able to get settled in for the night and slept great.

Saturday, we got up and had breakfast, cleaned up and the boys went for bike rides, and then drove over to Jenny Lake where we took a boat across the lake to the other side to do some hiking. We first hiked to the falls and then hiked up to inspiration point where we looked out at the lake.

Doing a little bike maintenance. It seems like every year we have to do some sort of fixing on the bikes.

Riding the boat across Jenny Lake.

The mountains were beautiful!

Our group of hikers staring out.

We stopped at some smaller falls along the way.

There were raspberry bushes all along the trail and the boys would try to pick the ones they could.

The Falls at Jenny Lake

After making it to the falls and checking things out there, we decided to hike up the rest of the way to Inspiration point. Landon and Grandpa didn't go all the way up (which is probably a good thing that Landon didn't because the trail was pretty narrow and high and that kid doesn't like heights)

Grandpa (in the orange shirt) and Landon (right behind him) hanging out below.

Inspiration Point: elevataion 7200 feet.

It's hard to see but there was a fat little chipmonk under the rock Christian was standing on.

On the way down, Landon would hide or sit any little crevice  he could find. Some of the poses he was doing were so funny!

When we got back to the campground, Megan and Sloane had arrived. We got some dinner cooking and then went down to the lake to play in the water until the sun went down.

Sunday, was Travis's birthday. We had pancakes, bacon and eggs for breakfast. Travis opened a few gifts before breakfast and the rest after we had eaten.

#11 pancakes for the new 11 year old!

For his birthday he got rollerblades, a hammock, 3 sets of Harry Potter legos, new shoes, rubber baseball bases, and some new clothes.

Trying out his new hammock

After breakfast was done and picked up, we headed down to the lake for some kayaking and fun at the rock beach. It was an absolutely beautiful day! We sat and soaked up the sunshine and enjoyed good company!

Landon introduced Sloane to the Hobbit movie. She was quite intrigued by it.  

Hanging out on the beach.

The boys on their kayaks in front of the Tetons

Travis doing a little paddle boarding on the kayak

Christian taking a turn.

Carson being a propeller.

Landon and Christian.

Travis trying to catch something with his net.

Carson and Travis tried to see how many big rocks they could put on the kayak before it sank.

Landon, Grandpa, Christian and Travis.

After spending a few hours down at the beach, we went back to camp, changed, and played some cards and visited. Usually, we go down to the fire pits and cook foil dinners, but we decided to just cook the hamburgers at the campers and eat there. It was nice to not smell like campfire! We spent the rest of the evening eating and visiting until quite hours began!

Landon and Sloane are like two peas in a pod. She just loves him and he loves that she likes him and only him!

Matching shirts!

Singing happy birthday to the birthday boy!

 

Dinner time.

 Monday, we got up early and got things loaded up so that we could be back to Lovell by 3:00 so Carson could go to football practice. It's a good thing we allowed for extra time because when we went to pull the jack up on the camper to attach it to the truck something in the gear shaft broke making it so that the jack wouldn't stay up. We went super classy and duct taped it up so that we could get it home. We had a blast this year and are sad that it will probably be our last one. I guess we'll have to come up with a new tradition closer to home!

Our group this year at Jackson!