Happy Independence Day!

We had a great 4th of July weekend. Most of it was spent up at Uncle Noley's cabin. (More on that in our next post.) We tied mom up to try to get her to let us stay at the cabin for "just one more night" but we ended up heading back home to spend the afternoon and evening of the 4th at home at our neighborhood party. It's an annual event that we love - and everyone (and we mean everyone!) was there this year.

Cousin Josh came and spent the evening with us since his wife had to work. We enjoyed spending some time with him.

Uncle Bob took all the kids and a few moms and dads on a golf cart ride. That may actually have been the highlight of our evening! (We love golf cart rides!)And we had an amazing fireworks display in our circle - although sparklers are still our speed.
Other than that, this was a busy week. We did have a great time one night going to a neighborhood park to play and have a picnic dinner. We never get tired of playing at parks!

Bear Lake Vacation

Sorry everyone - we're really behind on blogging. We've been having an incredibly fun summer and haven't been home very much. But we will attempt to catch you up-to-date with our comings and goings in the next few days. Be patient - summer is a busy and fun time for us.

First up - our recent vacation at the end of June to Bear Lake in Northern Utah. Bear Lake is a beautiful, but very cold lake and we haven't spent much time in that area at all. We enjoyed a full week away being able to see some of the area. We got up early with daddy a couple of mornings and went fishing. Check out this UGLY fish we caught. The fish were spawning while we were there and weren't very interested in eating our worms. We spent a lot of time just playing around. The condo that we stayed at had a great play area. We also caught up on some sleep and just simply enjoyed a few totally relaxing days. And more playing . . . . fun times for boys!Uncle Carl and Aunt Francine met us in Bear Lake for a few days. They had their trailer and so we spent some evenings hanging out with them at the campground. They brought us these incredibly COOL hats - mine is a moose hat and Sam's is a bison hat. We LoVe these hats!We taught them how to cook and eat smores. Yummy!We all went hiking up Bloomington Canyon - trying to make it all the way to Bloomington Lake. But with the very wet spring and early summer that we have had, the road wasn't passable. We even tried the 2 mile hike in to the lake, but the trail wasn't passable either. So we hiked as far as we could and then played in the snow. We found a beaver stick and played baseball with snowballs. After we got back to the truck we had lunch in the shade and played in the river. A beautiful little waterfall.We also went to Minnetonka Cave. Believe what you read about this cave - it really was about 40 degrees inside the cave. And check out this tiny little bat that we found inside the cave - top left picture. He was soooo cute!

Uncle Carl and Aunt Fran didn't forget about my birthday either - we had a super yummy bbq and birthday cupcakes that night. The "week of Mason" really was a full week long and I loved every minute of it!We played and played and played . . . and relaxed and relaxed and enjoyed. Check out this climbing wall that we both scaled with ease. And we officially LoVe playing miniature golf. Our condo resort had a fun little course that we played multiple times. Sam especially has decided that golf is in his future! I even scored two hole-in-ones during our last game.
We had a great vacation and enjoyed spending some time with Carl and Fran. The weather was beautiful! And so was the company!After we got back home, we went shopping and got some new tools (real tools, not play tools) with our gift cards from Aunt Jen Jen and Uncle Michael. Check out the Pirate Ship bird house and Truck bird feeder that Sam and I made using our new tools.

The Week of Mason Begins

More on the Week of Mason in a moment . . . but first up, a few activities we participated in earlier this week. We spent a little time at a local Arts Festival recently and came across this fun Old Western Photo set. They dressed us all up and we had some pictures taken. The dressing up was the absolute best part! Oh, and the pictures turned out good too. Here is one of the pics.

There was some playing in the park - check out this super tall slide.We made a trip to the Dinosaur Museum. We finally got a picture with the woolly mammoth - he is mommy's favorite!Then there was a trip to our favorite sandwich shop for dinner one night when mommy had to work late. The special prize inside my kids meal was some Green Lantern stuff. It made eating dinner extra tasty. And the green lantern glasses, ring, and bracelet made me extra sleepy afterwards.We did some arts and crafts - bird house painting.And then . . . the Week of Mason began. And what a week it promises to be! We decided that I should have a whole birthday week instead of just one day. So Saturday, I got some birthday balloons and got to open my presents from dad, mom, and Sam. I wanted "Thomas the Train" things for my birthday this year - and that's what I got. Thomas balloons, Thomas trains and stations, Thomas coloring books, Thomas movies, etc. I also got a Home Depot gift card from Aunt Jen Jen & Uncle Michael. I can't wait to go shopping.And then on Sunday, we were supposed to be headed to Uncle Noley's cabin for another celebration but with the cold weather and rain, we moved the celebration to our house. We celebrated both my birthday and Father's day. Daddy surprised me with another fabulous birthday cake - Thomas-themed of course.Here I am with my cake. It's getting harder to blow out all the candles with just one puff.
We managed to sneak in some family pictures.And here's one with the "men" of the family.Watch for more from the "Week of Mason" in a few days.

Sam Alert: Hey everybody - Sam here. I have two cute pics of me from the week.

First up - me painting my bird house. It turned out perfect - just like I wanted . . . a little on the 70's side.And here I am with some frosting face. You can't eat frosting with a utensil, in my humble opinion - just get right in there face and all!Sam out - have a great week!

Life is Good!

Ahh - these are the beautiful days of "sprummer" and we're loving them! We've finally had some non-rainy days and have enjoyed spending time outside without coats on.

This last week marked my last day of school. I have absolutely LOVED school! Here is a picture of me on my first day (last Feb) and then this week on my last day. I get to go to summer school a few days each week starting at the end of the month just to keep my skills up and make sure that I'm ready for kindergarten. I can't wait to get back at it . . . plus there's recess and art and music. The favorite parts of my day!

Sam has been keeping himself busy working around the house and yard. He has also been busy potty training - yay Sambo! Here he is doing some vacuuming. Interesting technique, yet surprisingly effective!We've picked up a new sport for the summer - golfing!And of course, there are the "rubber duck races". Anything that involves water is tops in our book.There's always time for arts and crafts. I'm working on a dinosaur book with illustrations right now. And we've been learning some new songs - ever heard of "Twink A Link" - it's a classic and it is the reason I'm plugging my nose. It involves the stars, the moon, and a stinky skunk. Google it!

Sam Alert: Howdy everyone, Sam here. I'm just hanging out, growing up, and being as cute as ever. Here I am hanging with dad - we went to the library this week and everybody came home with a collection of books to read. Mickey Mouse, Little Einstens, and Handy Manny were in my stack along with Jan Brett.

Hum - I think this marshmallow is as big as I am. Just give it to me straight!

Have a great week - Sam out.

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.