Sibley Lake

The week before school started, we tried to fit in as much stuff as we could before Summer vacation was over. One of the things we did was head up the Big Horns for a day trip. Megan, Jabin and Sloane were here visiting for the week, and Jabin had never been up the Big Horns, so we decided to take Grandma Foulger's new kayaks she got for Christmas up to Sibley Lake for some fun. We packed lunches and loaded into our car and headed up the mountain. It was a pretty quick trip (Carson had a scout boating activity that he didn't want to miss out on) but we managed to all get a few turns kayaking, caught bugs and frogs, had lunch and then hiked to the dam to  pick raspberries.

Heading up the mountain!

Carson heading out.

Travis and Carson.

There was a mommy duck and bunch of babies that kept coming over to where we were looking for treats.

Travis.

Jabin took Landon out with him and Travis followed them around.

Travis giving Carson a launch out.

One of the frogs they caught.

 Travis found some fishing line and a stick and decided to rig himself up a fishing pole to use out on the lake. He tried using dragonflies, worms, pop can tabs and other bugs to try and catch something. He didn't have much luck.

getting his fishing pole ready.

Fishing away.

It was a beautiful day!

Travis and I heading out.

Landon caught a pretty good sized frog while we were there. He also managed to get super muddy and wet!

Lunch time.

Wild raspberries.

MMM!

Landon picking raspberries on the dam.

Camping on the Big Horns

We finally made it up the Big Horn Mountains to camp for the weekend. We left Lovell mid afternoon and got back late Saturday night, but were wishing we could have stayed longer! We took our camper up earlier in the week so we could park it next to our friends, the Mangus', and camp with them over the weekend. After getting our camp set up (amongst all the cow pies...which was my only complaint about the camp...the boys were covered in poo), the boys made a fire and we got things ready for foil dinners and cooked them on the fire. Our friends showed up as we were eating and they joined us and ate their dinner, and then we roasted marshmallows for dessert. We stayed up talking while the kids played ghost in the graveyard.

Last year in school, Carson won a hammock in an art contest. He has been dying to get to use it! He finally got to this weekend. It was a pretty comfortable little hammock!

The boys were in heaven playing in the trees and finding sticks!

There was a nice little meadow just on the other side of the trees behind our camp. 

While we were working on getting dinner ready, it started to rain and hail on us. We were sure happy to have a camper to go into!

Carson and Travis eating some muddie buddies as they waited out the storm

Making foil dinners!

Travis used some bailing twine, wire and sticks he found to build a swing.

Getting the fire going!

Landon got a little too close to the fire and singed the eyelashes on his right side!

Travis doing a little whittling.

These pictures don't do the sunset justice, but it was beautiful!

Saturday morning, we got up and the boys were quite eager to get a fire built, so they worked on that while I got things ready for breakfast. Breakfast in the mountains is my favorite! We had pancakes, bacon and eggs. We brought up Grandpa Asay's  little homemade grill to cook it all on and it was delicious!

Breakfast!

After breakfast was done and cleaned up, we sat around and talked with our friends while the kids played in the trees trying to build traps and snares to catch chipmunks. Around 2 we loaded up the fishing gear and headed to fish up at the Ranger Station. The kids had a blast catching frogs in the marsh! The little frogs were everywhere! You would take a step and have 2 or 3 jump away. It provided lots of entertainment for the kids and a few of them ended up getting pretty wet and muddy!

Travis trying to make a snare.

Travis and his tadpole.

Christian trying to fish the stream next to the pond. He was able to catch one fish here but none in the ranger station pond!

Carson and one of the frogs he caught.

The kids catching frogs. They were wet and muddy when they were done!

Travis fishing at Ranger Station Pond.

We didn't have much luck and more and more people started showing up after we got there, so we decided to move to the pond over by the cow camp. We had more success there and they were a lot bigger fish.

Happy little purple flowers!

Travis getting some pointers from his dad on what to use for fishing.

I was even able to catch one little fish!

Travis's catch. Travis, Carson, and their friend, Jared were having a contest to see who could catch the most. Travis was the only one that caught anything, so he won!

We fished until about 6:30 and then headed back to camp. We at some taco salad fast and then packed up our camp and headed home. We decided to leave the camper and came back Sunday afternoon to bring it back down the mountain to clean it all out and get it ready for our next camping adventure!

Weekend Adventures

We had a fun-filled weekend enjoying the outdoors. Friday evening after Christian got home from work, we loaded up a picnic and our fishing poles and headed up the mountain to go fishing. We fished until about 8 and then ate our picnic and headed back down that mountain. We managed to catch around 20 little brookies but turned them all loose. Carson was the top fisherman catching 9 fish.

Christian out fishing the stream.

Landon's first catch.

The Indian Paintbrush flowers were so vibrant!

We could see a storm moving in as we were finishing up and it made for some pretty interesting clouds.

 

Saturday, we had made plans with some friends to take a boat ride up to the dam. We woke up to cloudy skies and it not being very warm. We were a little hesitant to go (especially as is it was sprinkling rain on our way out) but everyone else was still up for going. It ended up being a great day and we spent 8 hours on the boat. The ride up was a little chilly and we wore our sweatshirts most of the way. The two bigger boys were tough and tubed with friends on our trip up.

Our 4 boat caravan (it's hard to see) up the canyon to the dam.

Braxton F., Trey W., Carson and Taggart S. on the tube. They had so much fun!

Braxton, Trey, Grace S., and Travis taking a turn.

 Landon took a little snooze on our way up to the dam.

 

Not your typical boat riding weather.

 The scenery up the canyon is beautiful. The landscape changes so much from where we started at Berry's Landing.

Once we got to the dam, we made our way to the marina where the kids played in the swimming area, had lunch and we grabbed ice cream.

A happy bunch of kids:

Hannity, Maddie and Laney F., Landon, Trey W. Grace S., Carson, Jameson S. Miranda W., Travis, Taggart S. Maddy Jones and Braxton F.

 After lunch, we drove as close as you could to the dam so we could say that we drove up to the dam and saw it.

The dam

 We played on our way back to Berry's Landing. Travis skied and tubed, Landon and Carson both tubed. We stopped and let the kids all play for quite a while we enjoyed the sunshine that had finally come out!

Felkins, Wardells and Shumways

We hadn't anticipated staying out as long as we did and had planned to do some projects at home, but we had a great day and enjoyed the company!