Saturday outing

Yesterday for something to do, we went out on the BLM behind Zeller's to shoot the guns. We packed a lunch and took it with us and after lunch, we took a walk around and looked at all the cool rocks and hills.

Each of the boys took a turn using Christian's gun.

Carson is acutally getting to be a pretty good shot with his little bb gun.

Travis and Landon serenaded us with bullet whistling.

The boys had to see if anyone hit the bulls eye or not.

 We walked around these hills and found some really cool rocks and things. We could have seriously spent all day out there exploring things!

Landon had a great time climbing up the hills and then sliding down on his butt.

The boys found lots of rocks but our two best finds were this heart shaped rock and one you could see through that appears to have some sort of plant matter inside of it. 

In other news, we had a (reall) cold snap the other day. It was supposed to get down to freezing Wednesday Thursday nights, and it did (I saw it at 28 degrees one night)! We covered our tomatoes and as many pepper plants as we could and hoped for the best. Most of the peppers and tomatoes survived, but our squash, zucchini, cukes and a few hot pepper plants are toast! I was pretty much over the squash and zucchini, so that didn't make me too sad! Now I'm just crossing my fingers that it warms up a bit and my tomatoes continue to ripen so we can can some salsa and tomatoes!

Before the frost!

Our sad little garden after the freeze!

Freezing corn

 The last two evenings, we have been helping grandpa and grandma Asay freeze their sweet corn. Over the two nights, we managed to bag and freeze probably close to 120 bags of corn! Each family took around 20 bags to have to eat over the winter and we are so excited to have it to eat!

Landon and I looking for some ears to pick.

On the hunt to fill our buckets.

Christian looking for some.

Travis with our load of corn.

Grandpa and the boys ready to head back and get started.

Charlene, Carson and I were the cutters/baggers the second night. Carson was really starting to get the hang of it and was going pretty fast. The first night, Kasi, Christian and I cut and bagged!

Family home evening!

We are trying to take advantage of every warm day we have! It was a nice evening yesterday and Christian was able to get home a little early from work, so we hooked up the boat and headed to the lake for about an hour. Carson skied a few times and is starting to get a hold of going over the wake and even managed to get back over once too! Travis knee boarded, but we cold see some dark clouds move in so we decided that we would head home before it got yucky. It was a great activity for family home evening!

I love us! Too bad my phone takes crappy pics!

Our weekend!

If our weather man is correct, this weekend might have been our last time on the lake! It's supposed to get down to freezing Wednesday night and I am SO. NOT. READY. for our summer to be over! But, if it was our last boat outing, it was a great way to end! The water was glass the whole time we were there, it was around 80 degrees and there was hardly anyone on the lake. The water was actually a little cool, but it didn't stop us from going. Grandma Asay joined us and it was fun to have her on the boat with us. The high light of our day was that Travis finally "skied"...sort of! He never stood up, but he skied on his butt for quite a while! I hope we can have one more day so he can actually get up.

Look familiar Staci? Here is Travis "skiing".

A panoramic view of the lake. Look at that water!

Carson did a great job skiing too. Next year I think we need to unattach the skies and see how he does.

Landon hanging out.

Carson kneeboarding.

The boys tubed for what seemed like forever. They rode back there while we took a drive up the canyon. On our drive we saw two groups of Big Horn sheep.

Carson thought it was fun to drag his leg behind and make a big spray.

The boys have been really into football lately. They convinced their dad to dig out his old football jerseys so they could play Saturday morning while we were waiting for it to warm up before we headed to the lake. They were so excited to have actual jerseys that fit over the top of their shoulder pads!

First day of school!

Tuesday September 2 was our first day of school. Even though our first day got pushed back almost 2 weeks, it still didn't feel possible for it to be time to go back! Travis and Carson were both up before they had to be and were pretty excited for the day! I took the kids to school to make sure that Travis could find where he was supposed to go. They both immediately found friends and were off. Landon and I stuck around until the bell and watched them head in. It wasn't until a group of us moms got together that I got weepy. I was pretty proud of myself!

First day of 3rd grade and kindergarten!

Travis found his good friends Rocco and Parker first thing!

Landon had fun playing on the equipment while we waited around.

All lined up and ready to go to his first day!

For the first two weeks of school, the kindergarteners only go half of a day to help them adjust to being in school. Landon and I went to meet him after the school so we could help him find which bus he would be riding home when he was done. We had made plans for him just to ride home with us but once he saw his friends on the bus, he decided he wanted to ride too.

He made it home. And loved riding the bus.

Carson's first day:done!

 When the kids got home from school, we had our annual first day of school "party". The kids got to enjoy cinnamon rolls, smores chex mix, watermelon, meat and cheese on crackers, oreo cookies and drinks. We have a great group of kids in our neighborhood!

The neighborhood kids:
(back) Avery Walker, Candace Walker, Parker Steenbakkers, Owen Walker, Rocco Rael, Haley Rael, Alex Walker
(front) Carter Lundberg, Tyler Walker, Kenadee & Olivia Rael, Alissa Rael, Carson, and Travis. We were missing several older kids that were at high school sports practices.

Enjoying some treats.

From the sounds of it, they both had good first days and wanting to go back tomorrow! I hope they both have great years and learn lots!

Labor Day Weekend

This year for Labor Day, we decided to join my family on their annual camping trip near Jackson,WY. They have gone there for the last 6 years or so and always invite us and it just has never really worked with our schedules. This year since the kids hadn't started school, we decided it would work out to go. We left Lovell Friday around 2 and drove the 4 hours to our camp site through Yellowstone National Park. It was a beautiful day so we stopped at West Thumb for a bathroom stop and to walk around and see the geothermal sites.

We came around a corner in the park and saw this big guy coming right at us in the road! The boys were so excited to see an animal!

My boys on our walk at West Thumb.

First thing when we started our walk, we saw this baby elk. We were curious as to where the momma was but found her just a short distance away getting a drink and eating.

The momma elk.

This was one of their favorites because it was bubbling mud.

 After we made a the small loop at West Thumb, we continued on to our camp site. We met up with grandpa and grandma Foulger, Megan and Jabin and the Whitlocks (family friends) at Coulter Bay campground. We got there and the boys did a little bike ride around the campground while we started to get dinner ready. We had corn from grandpa Asay and bbq beef sandwiches for dinner and then it was off to bed. Jabin and Megan were nice enough to let Christian, Landon and I bunk with them in the camper they brought while the two older boys slept in grandpa and grandma Foulger's camper.

Shucking some corn for dinner.

Dinner in the dark!

Landon in his bed. It was perfect for him!

 Saturday morning we woke up to a little bit of rain in the morning. We ate french toast for breakfast and then went down to Jackson Lake so the boys could fish.

Enjoying breakfast in grandpa's camper.

There is nothing better than hot chocolate in the morning in the mountains!

The mountains were beautiful!

 The boys were in heaven! They set up their poles and then threw rocks in the lake forever! The guys decided to have a contest to see who could hit the buoy first with a rock using Carson's wrist rocket. I'm not sure any of them hit it, but they came close!

Trying to find the perfect rock!

Travis flinging some fishing line around. He found a pretty cool lure on the end of it!

Christian trying out the fishing. If the weather had been better, he would have tried to fish in a river, but it just didn't happen. I guess we will just have to go back!

hanging out.

After hanging out by the lake for a while, we decided to go on a walk around to the marina. 

Starting out our hike.

Our family in front of the Tetons.

Our destination. Grandpa was telling the boys about the time he built the Tetons and decided to  put a dam in so that they would grow bigger and then they got really big! He told the boys this story about 4 times and it changed every time!

 We walked to a point and watched the boats and enjoyed the nice day. There were all sorts of silly rock formations that people had built. Jabin told the boys that they were where people were buried. The boys decided to build one of their own.

Carson by the big rock formations.

Building their own.

Carson and his "nose" that he found.

Three cute boys.

After a while we decided we needed to head back and have lunch and get ready for the day. We showered, the kids had naps and then we drove into Jackson for the rest of the day.

Landon enjoying this root beer at lunch.

 When we got to Jackson we walked around a few of the little shops. Christian was on a mission to find a hat he had seen in January when he was there for meetings but wasn't successful.

The boys had fun trying on these buffalo hats.

Our family in front of the antler arches.

We put our names in for dinner at Merry Piglets, a funny name for a Mexican restaurant, and went and waited for the shoot out to start. They were delayed because of the sound guy, so we didn't end up getting to watch it before it was time to eat. At dinner, we told them we were celebrating Travis birthday, and they brought him a huge fried ice cream to share with us all.

Travis sitting on one of the cool statues on the boardwalk in Jackson.

He was pretty surprised!

Ready to dig in!

After dinner, we headed over to the Playhouse and watched Paint You Wagon. It was so good and the boys LOVED it! It's a small theater making it very cozy and the performers were really close. We ended up getting back to the campers around 11:30, making for a late night!

Landon riding on the saddle before the play started.

Sunday, we slept in and had a huge breakfast and kind of hung out in the campers until it stopped raining. When the rain stopped, we decided to go on a big hike around part of the lake. We hiked for about 2 miles and the boys did great and walked the whole way! They had lots of fun seeing all the different kinds of mushrooms and trying to find animals. On one of our first stops, we found a bunch of tiny little toads. The boys had a blast trying to find them in the rocks. I think we caught about 6 of them.

Our group at the first stop.

Looking for more toads and seeing if they can swim...and they could!

Carson and two of the frogs.

A cool leaf Carson wanted me to take a picture of.

We stopped one more time to take some pictures and rest for a bit.

Landon trying to climb up using some roots. He was filthy by the time we were done with out adventure but he sure had fun!

Almost done!

We stopped at the end and threw some more rocks before we went back and had a light lunch.

Our group hanging out.

For dinner that night, we went down to the fire pits (they didn't have any at the campsites themselves) and cooked tin foil dinners and then roasted marshmallows for a treat. We didn't linger very long because it was cold!

Waiting for our dinners to get done cooking.

Christian, Carson and Travis roasting some mallows.

Landon enjoying a smore!

Monday, Travis' birthday, we got up got ready and headed out about 11. Most everyone was going to head to get pizza, but we decided to just head home so we could get stuff organized for the kids to start school the next day. We made a stop at Wal-mart in Cody and then Travis picked to eat lunch at Wendy's.

Our group:Jabin, Megan, Travis,grandma Foulger, Jill, Carson, Grandpa Foulger, Christian and Landon.

Jabin and Megan brought a gift for Travis to open and he was so excited for more ninja turtle stuff!

On our way home we saw two buffalo (this guy was walking down the middle of the road) and a moose.

 Once we got things unloaded and semi put away, Travis opened a few more gifts. I sure hope he had a great birthday!

 

That evening after dinner, Christian gave each of the boys father's blessings and we all snuggled on the couch before it was time for bed. It was a great weekend and we look forward to going back again!