Ducks, Trains, Mountains, Camping, and Remembering

Everybody put on your seat belts . . . we have some catching up to do. We've had a busy couple of weeks and this post is loaded with pictures. We tried to make collages of many of them so as to not make this too intense, but still, you'll want to hold on tight. Here we go:

First up - about 1 1/2 weeks ago, we drove up to our front yard after school/work one night and a duck had decided that our front yard was a great place to take a break. She stayed for a couple of hours - we fed her, gave her some water and shade . . . and named her "Lucky". How sad were we when she took off right as it was getting dark, quacking her thanks to us as she flew away.

Then, we had an amazing Memorial weekend! We made our usual stops at 5 cemeteries between Thursday and Friday, taking flowers and cleaning headstones along the way.

One of our big surprises for the weekend was a stop in Heber for "A Day Out with Thomas". Thomas the train comes to our local historic railroad once a year and we haven't missed a ride in three years. It is one of our most favorite things!

Then we headed up to Wyoming for the long weekend at the Jackson Lake Lodge. Only one word can describe it all . . . beautiful! It was a bit on the cool side. We saw some light snow every morning, but we didn't let that stop us.

It was the perfect weekend for seeing wildlife! The cold,wet weather had slowed down the calving this spring so most of the trails in the area were closed because of bears and babies. But all the animals were out eating and enjoying some sunshine and we were able to see lots of them. In fact, this bull moose (in velvet horns) jumped right out at us on the Jenny Lake loop. We saw more moose, lots of elk, lots of birds, and this cute little ground squirrel who was busy gathering grass for a nest.

Saturday ended up being such a beautiful day that all the bears came out . . . and we ended up seeing six bears in one day. That is a record that we're pretty sure will never be broken. The first three were a grizzly mommy and her twin cubs - on the Teton Park road right before the potholes turnout. Later that afternoon we saw a mommy black bear and her yearling in Moose. And then on our drive back to the lodge after a yummy dinner near Teton Village, mom and dad saw another big grizzly bear right along the Teton Park road - they could have reached out and petted him. (We had fallen asleep and missed seeing him.)

We saw some beautiful scenery.

We took a perfect hike to Christian Pond - not too far from the lodge. Of course there was rock throwing . . . isn't that what water is for?
And one of our favorite adventures was a stop at String/Leigh Lakes to take our traditional hike down to the lakes. This time the walkway was covered in snow - lots and lots of snow. So we hiked on top of the snow and kept sinking down to our knees/hips. Then when we got down to the lake, I decided to chase daddy down with a snowball and didn't realize that I was running on ice . . . it gave way and I slipped into some icy cold water. It wasn't funny then, but it was pretty funny after I got warm back in the car. Lesson learned - don't walk on thin ice!Here are the boys sitting on the rails on the side of the trail down to the lakes - check out all that snow!We spent some time relaxing and just enjoying! And we spent some excellent quality time with family. We only got pictures with just a few of them, but it was so much fun being able to have time to visit with everyone. We wanted to ride the horses but they were soaking wet from the weather, so we had to make do with feeding and petting them.Splashing in puddles . . . there really isn't anything better than that!
Another family picture - great scenery at every turn, as always.Hum - notice who's awake in this picture? For some reason, staying in a hotel is cause for lots and lots of excitement. A huge thank you to Aunt Nia and Uncle Igor for inviting us - and to daddy and mommy for driving us there.

Finally, back at home - we had some nice warm, sunny weather this weekend and so we finally opened up our new trailer and started getting it ready for a fun-filled summer of camping. We decided to have our first camping trip in it right in our own yard. We played games, had smores, and slept in it. We're so excited to get it on the road!Whew - did you make it all the way to the end? Thanks for reading. See you next week.