Pre-season scouting

Jason and Keith are super excited about their elk tags this year. They drew tags really close to Buffalo in the Big Horn's. This weekend they decided to take an overnight scouting trip. It looks like they had a lot of fun. Jason said that they saw lots of elk sign, but no actual elk. Hopefully, this trip will bear fruit this coming fall! It's not even August and Sandra and I are already "hunting widows"! Acutally, I am very glad that they had a fun trip. Maybe Keith will need to bring Sandra up here the next time so we can be "widows" together.

Jason

Lake Angeline
Seven Brothers Lakes

Keith

Peak above Lake Angeline

How does your garden grow?

We were only gone on our trip to Salt Lake for four days. Jason mowed the lawn the morning that we left, and it was amazing to see how much our lawn and garden had grown in those four days. I don't think that Jason was planning to mow stripes into our lawn, but he ran out of gas for the mower. It is fun to see how tall it grew though.

This is our little vegatable garden. The sunflowers are almost six feet tall and the corn is growing like crazy. We have already harvested two tomatoes. I think that we plan to expand the garden next year because it turns out we CAN grow things in our soil!

Lindsey loves her sandbox! I couldn't get her to come inside the first morning that we had it.

I think that this is by far Jason's favorite project that we have done this year. He spends hours turning his compost pile. It is starting to turn and nice rich brown and look more like dirt.

Five years

Jason and I celebrated our five year anniversary on the 17th. We had a great time by going out to dinner and a movie. It isn't very often that we get to go on a date, so we really appreciate Jacob and Edie watching the girls for us. I am so very grateful to have the wonderful husband that I do. He takes such good care of me and the girls. He is a wonderful provider, husband and father, and I couldn't ask for better. I love you so much, Jason! Here is to the next five years and more!

Happy Birthday, Lindsey!

Happy Birthday to my sweet Lindsey Lu! She turned three years old on the 16th! I can't believe that it has been three years already. I remember waiting for her to come. Waiting and waiting and waiting. She was almost 10 days late. I had been scheduled to have an induction on the 17th, but she finally decided to come on her own a day early. I have always said that I can't force her to do anything, and that has been true from the minute she was born. She has always done things on her own time schedule. Even now, she is refusing to potty train, but I know that she will do it when she is ready. She is such a fun little girl. She is learning to play with her sister and help out when I ask her to. She loves to sing, read books, color, and play with her baby dolls. She can be such a mother to those baby dolls. Covering them up with my dish towels and using scouring pads for their pillows. I am so glad that she is a member of our little family. She is such a delight and we love her so much!

Lindsey had a great birthday. She played most of the day in the water with her cousins at Grandma JoAnn and Grandpa Joe's house. She had so much fun in the water that I couldn't get her to take her swimsuit off. That is why she is wearing a swimsuit for the pictures. I tried to change her to dry clothes, but I figured that it was her birthday and I didn't want to push the issue. She was spoiled rotten with all of her new toys, and really loved the birthday cake. I have been trying for two days to upload a video of her blowing out her birthday candles, but it isn't working. So you will just have to be satisfied with pictures!

Megan playing in the pool.

Lindsey playing on the slip-n-slide.

The birthday cake. Joe and JoAnn brought these birthday candles back from China. They are very cool and sing the happy birthday song for hours and hours. Cut the cake already!

Eating birthday cake and ice cream.

Jacob and Andrew enjoying the birthday cake.

Megan loved the cake too.

Getting ready to open presents.

Lindsey had lots of help opening her gifts.
"My Jesse doll!" She was so excited to get HER Jesse doll! Thanks Grandma Sherry and Grandpa Lyle!

All the loot!
Jason and Jonathan.

Circle Park

We decided to go for a family hike today and try our luck at fishing. We hiked up a trail called Circle Park, which is only a 15 minute drive from our house. We loaded both girls up in backpacks and set off for our 1.5 mile hike. I am not used to carrying a 30 pound pack, but I thought I was in pretty decent shape. I guess not that great. It was actually pretty hard! We got up to the little lake and had a small picnic lunch, and got ready to fish. I never knew I had such great fishermen in my family. We quickly caught one little fish. As Jason was trying to get it off the hook, it slipped out of his hands and Luke snatched it up and ended it's life. Luke went crazy everytime we threw the line out into the lake. He would yip and whine until finally he would just jump in the lake to try and catch one himself. He is a pretty good swimmer too! The girls had a great time fishing, but all too soon, they started to get grumpy and we knew it was time for us to hike out. Both girls fell asleep as we were hiking back to the truck. We had a blast, and we hope that we can start doing this more often. Enjoy the pictures because there are a lot of them!

A little frog that we tried to catch.

Megan watching the action.

Meg being cute.

Luke trying to catch the fish on his own.

Luke scouting for more fish.
"Don't take my picture, Mama!"

Lindsey fishing with Daddy.

Jason and Megan

Luke still trying to catch that fish on his own.

Lindsey helping Jason reel in the fish we caught.

Trying to get the hook out of the fish.

Oops! The fish slipped!

Megan is out!

Lindsey was almost asleep too.

Shell Falls

On our way home from Cody last weekend, we stopped at Shell Falls. I had never been there before, and it was fun to see the waterfalls. Here are a few pictures.

Megan is the only one that would pose for me. Lindsey absolutely refused to let me take her picture.

Runner's Stampede

Somehow, I managed to convince my sweet husband to run a 5k race with me on the Fourth of July. I'm not sure how I did that, but he was a trooper and finished strong. He finished in about 31 minutes, and I am so very proud of him! I finished in 25:42 which was good enough for first place in my age group! I have never placed first in anything before, so I am very happy with that. Here are a few pictures that Jason's brother, Jacob, took for us. Thanks, Jake, for letting me use them!

Riding

We spent our Fourth of July holiday in Cody this year with my parents. Part of the reason why I like to go home during the summer is that I get to go riding with my dad. This time we had to keep the ride short because I had my 10 year high school reunion to go to. We decided to ride up Elk Fork. We went on the 3rd and that place was hopping! Everyone and their dog was going for a ride up there, including us! It isn't very often that Dad and I can have a picture together when we ride, but we found a very nice lady up there willing to take one for us. It turned out very nice! Thanks, Dad, for sending me a copy! This picture is really for my brother Eric. This is how it is: Whenever Eric gets to go riding without me, he will text me the morning of the ride just to rub it in a little. Well, I am going to rub some salt in the wounds here. The horse that I am riding is the one that Eric normally rides, so HAHA! It was a really fun ride even though it was short. I think that Eric is going to have a little competition for his horse the next time that we can go together because I really enjoyed her!
This is what made the whole ride worth while. We saw a mother moose and her baby on our way back home. This little guy was having so much fun running around and playing in the grass. It was a lot of fun for us to watch him run around like crazy. I had almost as much fun watching him as I did on the whole ride. Almost!