Yellowstone Wildlife Sanctuary

Today, I got to accompany Travis' class up to Red Lodge, MT to visit the Wildlife Sanctuary. It's a place that takes in abandoned/injured wildlife and rehabilitates them and then allows the public to come and view them. We were able to see turtles, birds, elk, bear, Bison, coyotes, mountain lion, lynx, bobcat, fox and a porcupine. Our favorite was the bobcat. He was pretty lively!

 

 

The porcupine. He was fun to watch and was very social.

Travis with his friends Kaeson and Rocco.

Travis by the bobcat.

The elk.

 After walking threw all the animal exhibits, we loaded the bus again and drove into Red Lodge and walked to the candy store. Each student got $3 to spend on candy in the store. It was a little crazy to get 30 kids to pick out just $3 worth of candy! There was a lot of taking out and adding to bags to get them just right at the check out!

Kaeson, Rocco and Travis with their bags of candy.

After the candy store, we rode on the bus to a park near by where we had lunch and then they kids got to play. The park was really fun and had lots of different things for kids to do. About 1:30, we loaded back on the buses and headed home. I thought there would have been lots of sleeping kids on the way home, but they seemed to be more wound up than on the trip up!

Playing catch up!!

I'm trying to play catch up with this post. We have been super busy this last week with lots of end of school things and baseball! Here is a glimpse of what we have been up to this last week.

 

It's been raining A LOT lately! Carson was supposed to have a game one night and they waited up until the very last minute before it was time to actually start to call the game. The kids warmed up in the rain and when 6:00 came around, they decided it was too wet!

 

Last weekend, we made in impromptu fishing trip out to a "secret" spot. Matthew and Charlene met us out there and fished with us and Grandpa and Grandma Asay showed up right as we were loading up in the car to leave. The kids were all able to catch at least one on their own...even Landon! He and Landon were on the other side of the pond from me, so I wasn't able to get any pictures of it. he did explain to me how it was bloody and he got blood all over his hands. Travis was the fisherman of the night and caught quite a few on his own.

 

 

 

Landon and Chloe were quite content to just sit on the "dock(it's just a few wood pallets put together)" and "fish". The sat there and poked at the moss growing in the water.

Travis lost another tooth this week. He hit heads with another kid in his class one day knocking it loose and then a few days later, got hit in the mouth with a basketball and it really loosened up! He came home with quite the snaggle tooth and pulled it out all on his own! He was excited that the school nurse had given him a tooth necklace to take home just in case it came out on the bus.

 

On Sunday, we went to Powell to have dinner with my mom and dad, my sister (who had flown into Billings late Saturday night), my grandparents and brother, Jason, and his wife. We went to see Jason and Cassie's new house and then visited.

 

Our Memorial Day, was spent plating the garden, having lunch with Grandpa and Grandma Asay, and then putting up insulation in our basement with Grandpa and Grandma Foulger.

 

The boys were really good helpers this year. They always look forward to planting the garden and have been asking since we bought our plants when we were going to do it. This year, we planted 12 green pepper plants, 8 jalapenos, 8 Hungarian wax, 26 tomato plants, 2 zucchini, 1 squash, 2 cucumber, a watermelon, cantaloupe, a row of onions, some parsley and some chives. Our plants aren't looking the best right now (they got dried out in all the wind we've had), but we are hoping they come out of it!

It took us 2 hours to put up the insulation in our basement. My dad and I cut and put the insulation into place, Carson and my mom stapled them to the studs, and Christian did some stapling and had to anchor our bottom plates into the concrete. We got everything done except two walls that both need different sized insulation. Now we are all ready for the dry wall guy to come and get started!

Travis found a toad in the window well when he was playing in it. He released  it into the pond after they were done playing with is.

 

Art Show (and other things)

Well, the end of the school year is upon us! They only have 13 days left...craziness! With the end of school almost here, there are lots of things going on at the school. Last Tuesday was the annual Art Show at the school. Landon and I met the two older boys after school and walked around to look at all the art. Here they are with all their art projects!

We even made the paper on our trip around the school to look at all the art. For what ever reason, the lady wrote that we were the Mangus family! We had lots of family and friends test us and tell us how good the "mangus" family looked in the paper.

As I said earlier, the end of the school year is getting close and it's a good thing! Carson's pants are starting to get too short and he came home the other day and showed me how the sole of his shoe had come apart. Not only that, but his big toes had started to poke through his shoes on the top. Needless to say, we got him some new ones!!

Christian attempted to go fishing one day after a work delivery, but as you can see, it had snowed and was cold. On his way to the river, he spotted this nice LARGE  bear print in the snow! YIKES!

He made up for not getting to go fishing previously and caught some nice ones when he went with some guys from work.

We kind of had a busy weekend. Friday after school, Grandma Foulger came a picked Travis up to take him to Billings to have a one on one date. They spent a considerable amount of time in Scheels looking around and having fun. They even rode the Ferris wheel while they were there. They made a few more stops at some stores before they ate at Texas Roadhouse for dinner (Travis' pick). They picked up my sister around 9:30 from the air port and then drove back to Powell where Travis spent the night. He said he had an awesome trip with Grandma! It's so fun for them to get to spend some one on one time with her!

Enjoying his steak at dinner. Grandma said he every last thing on his plate!

While Travis was chilling with Grandma in Billings, the rest of us watched Carson play baseball. It was cloudy, windy and cold! They lost their game and were happy when it was over so they could get warm. After the game, we went out to Grandpa Asay's house so Christian could help brand some calves.

Carson got walked to first base and continued to get walked home.

 

Saturday morning, Christian's brother, Jacob, got to facetime for Mother's day. We headed out to Grandpa and Grandma's about 9 and got to talk to him for about 2 hours. He looks and sounded great. We are excited to have him come home in a couple of months!

The brothers chatting with Elder Asay.

After we were done talking to Jacob, the boys and I left to head to Powell to pick up Travis and hang out with Megan while she was here. We ended up going to the Aquatic center to swim. When we arrived we found out it was free day, which was a fun surprise. We swam for a little over and hour and then grabbed some lunch on our way back to Grandma Foulger's house. We hung out that after noon and left in time to make it to Ian's birthday party at the bowling alley. While we were in Powell, Christian stayed to help his dad move some cows. It was a cold and dusty ride for them.

Crazy boys after swimming. Travis and Carson both brought their snorkeling gear and spend a majority of the time snorkeling around the pool.

Stetson, Carson and Travis had lots of fun together while they were bowling!

 

What we've been up to.

I'm catching up on our last week. On last Monday, we went out and found asparagus for family home evening. We made quite a haul (enough for two meals) and found some huge ones! It's about time to go back out again and find some more.

My boys walking the ditch banks looking for asparagus.

These were our prized finds. We found one super tall one and on that was seriously an inch thick the whole way up!

Our findings.

One day while Travis and Landon were playing outside, I all of a sudden heard a bunch of laughing and walked out of the house to be greeted by this face! Landon had blown a "snot rocket", as Travis called it, and it just stuck to his face. Totally gross!

It rained a couple of days last week. One day, I caught Landon outside cleaning off my "slippers" (flip flops) in the rain spout.

Carson had his first baseball game Saturday. It was a beautiful day and we all got a little sunburned. I think his team really learned a lot (like you might only get to bat once in an hour and half game or you might have to sit out an inning, or that it moves at a much different pace)in their first game! It's a lot different than the coach pitch they played last year.

We attended the opening ceremonies that morning to kick off the start of little league games.

After opening ceremonies and team pictures (the real reason we went over early), we grabbed some fried chicken, macaroni salad and watermelon from the store to have for lunch before we had to go back for Carson's game. It felt like summer!

Enjoying lunch on the deck.

 



Asking me for some sunflower seeds. I didn't have any to give him, but when grandma Foulger let him pick out a treat after his game, he picked sunflower seeds! Now he has some for his next game.

After the game, we came home and Christian raked up the dead grass off our yard. The boys thought it was fun to get to ride on the 4-wheeler on the grass. After a quick dinner, we went to the movie and saw Home.