Tower Falls Drive

Josh and I have been to Yellowstone quite a bit, but neither of us really remembered driving the north-east part of the loop.  So we decided to go for it and this is what we saw:

Tower Falls

A petrified tree.

Undine (aka Underline) Falls

Elk having a pic-nick.

A bison parade. (Thank heavens we were going the other way!)

And we ended with a stop at Norris Geyser Basin.  Holden really liked shoulder rides!

Look how sweet my two boys are.  It's almost like they like each other!

Yellowstone Falls

This post is for my amusement.  Hopefully you will find it slightly humorous as well...

I wanted a picture in front of the falls.  Jensen didn't want to stand right there so he was being a stinker.

This is after Dad "made" him trip down the stairs.  I'm sure you can only imagine what the people around us were thinking as he wailed.  They were just glad it wasn't them, I'm sure!

Some kind stranger took pity on us and had us all in the shot.  You can tell he's still mad.  Gotta love life with kids!

This is him after the whole episode-little stinker!

Holden loved the "volcanoes" and "waterfalls".  Our car was full of those words and he kept asking for them all the way home.  We got him some postcards with pictures on them and he loved those.  He would sit and stare at them forever.  He had one of Yellowstone Falls that he would turn upside down and call a volcano-funny!

Here he is clutching his postcards while sleeping-so cute!

*side note*  Holden got potty trained last month so this trip was completely diaper free! Way to go Holden!  Eleven years and eleven months later the Braegger household is finally diaper free!!

Surprise!

We picked up the kids from school on Friday and headed to the cabin.  Or so the kids thought.  After we picked up Ally we headed north instead of heading up the canyon.  We told them there was too much construction the other way so we were going the long way to the cabin.  They grumbled a little but went back to their movie.

*This is me giggling because I am such a mean Mom*

Soon we passed the exit that said "Montpelier" on it.  Logan started freaking out because he knew that was our exit (he said something about being able to read, ya idiots). We kept driving and told the kids we were trying a new way to the cabin.  About 20 miles outside of Idaho Falls, they started to get kinda angry. (This is a stupid way to the cabin.  We should have been there by now.)  So we finally broke the news:  we're headed to Yellowstone!!  Needless to say, they were happier after that and Mom and Dad got to have a little fun with them.

My parents were staying up there so we stayed in their trailer and the van.  I ended up sleeping in the van both nights and it was cold and slightly uncomfortable, but I survived.

Josh got to sleep in the nice warm trailer and yet still felt the need to nap the next morning.  I think that's the only reason he likes vacations-to get a nap!

We started out with a visit to the Mud Volcano-one of our favorites.

Our traditional sour face picture at Sour Lake.

Logan was Holden's protector.  He was so worried that he would fall in the hot water.  He always made sure he was okay.

A pic-nick on the Yellowstone River.

Holden found a bid dandelion, but try as he might, it would not blow apart.  We also had some birds visit during our lunch.  One of them flew off with a quarter of a doughnut.  The kids said they could see the raspberry filling on his beak later. :)

First Day of School!

And here they are in the order of disappearance :) 

Ally headed off to the Sixth Grade at 7:05 this morning.  She is now in Intermediate School and rides the bus with the High Schoolers-yikes! I'm not too excited about that, but what do you do?  She was way excited to go and not nervous at all.  All of her classes ended up being right next to each other so she knows she won't get lost.

Her teachers are Mrs. Perea, Mrs. Neilsen, Mr. Barker and Mr. Ward.  Josh and I have known Mr. Barker our whole lives and he used to be our Bishop.  We know she's in good hands!

Logan departed for Fourth Grade at 7:20.  His teacher is Mr. Pedersen.

He was a little nervous because he doesn't know anyone in his class and he has to go to the bus stop without Ally.  He is also going to miss going to work with Dad.

Jensen arrived in style on a golf cart to First Grade at 8:35.  His teacher is Ms. Davis.  His teacher is battling cancer right now and is bald.  She has Non-Hodgekins Lymphoma and her blog address is mich-michellesblog.blogspot.com if you want to meet her.  She is super nice and the best First Grade teacher at Jensen's school.

Jensen has been pretty nervous for all day school, but he jumped off the golf cart and ran in like a champ.  He told me I didn't need to walk him to his class.  Yet another sign of my growing kids. :(

Well, now it's just me and Holden until 3:00.  What to do, what to do?  I'm a little giddy with the possibilities!

August Happpenings

There wasn't much happening in August this year.  Usually August is pretty slow at our house.  The kids spend their time bickering and complaining that they are bored and I count down the days until school starts. My kids were very uninterested in any of the things we normally do in the summer.  They are growing up. Sigh.

This is Nimbus having a turkey snack.  We are trying to teach him good manners by making him use utensils.  However, that plan backfired.  Holden decided the turkey was free game because of the fork and decided to share with Nimby. Dirt, cat germs and all. YUM! Just building up his immune system, I guess!

We had some pretty crazy storms in August.  On this particular day, I was on my third time of bailing out the basement when I looked up and saw all these new waterfalls coming down the face of the mountain-amazing!  We had a lot of rain that day!

Ally and I got crafty.  These are pocket sized Book of Mormons that we decorated.  It was fun and they turned out really cute.  We also decorated binders, mine for Young Women and hers for school.  That reminds me about my new calling!  I am now the Second Counselor in the Young Women's Presidency.  Yay for Beehives!  By the end of the year I will have 21 Beehives!!! Yikes!  One of them will be Ally, though.  I think I'm more excited about that than she is...

Ally decided to join summer band and play the oboe.  She ended up hating the cello (anyone want to buy a slightly used cello?) and researched instruments until she decided on the oboe.  Let me tell you, oboes are VERY expensive.  Thank heavens I don't have to buy one yet.  Sixth graders get to use them for free!  She was the only person in summer band who chose to play the oboe, so she got private lessons for two weeks-sweet!  She was playing songs after only three days. That's my Ally!

Last week I decided to take the kids on one last "fun day".  It took forever for them to find something that sounded fun to them, but we finally ended up at "Fat Cats".  We bowled, played mini-golf and had pizza.

This is Holden's victory dance.  He loved playing "ball".  It didn't matter if he knocked any pins down, he just liked pushing the ball off the ramp. Aren't his shoes cute?

My boys.  This is what happens when you tell Holden to smile...

Me and my girl.  We have to stick together, there are too many boys in our house!

It was a fun summer, but we are all ready for school to start again!

Something Fishy

Tuesday was our annual trip to the Uintah's to go fishing at Washington Lake.  We usually go the week before the fourth of July, but because of the heavy snowfall this year the campground didn't open until July15th.  We were joined by our friends the Kotter's and Josh actually took the day off work to join us as well.  It was so much more relaxing having more adult hands to help out this year!

We started out with our traditional hot dog roast, followed by smores.  Holden was really enjoying his lunch of a pickle with a chocolate bar-yum!

After about a half hour, Jensen finally caught the first fish of the afternoon!

Holden got to catch a "pishy" and you should have heard him squeal with delight.  He is obsessed with fish and was so excited to see and touch one!  He loved checking on the fish and "helping" us with our fishing poles.  He was so much fun to watch.

A rare moment of patiently waiting for the fishies to come. 

Ally and her catch.  She hung around long enough to catch a fish and then went back to the trailer because she was bored.  

Logan was all about helping us get our fish in because he was wearing Grandpa's boots.  Gotta love the beautiful scenery.

The catch of the day!  We did throw quite a few back so this isn't an accurate count.  The only bad thing?  I didn't catch anything!  Oh, well.  There's always next year!

Angel Moroni

We have been looking forward to this special family moment for months!  July 12th at noon was the day and time the Angel Moroni would be placed on "our" temple.  I thought long and hard about when we would leave for the temple and where we would try to get a spot to sit.  We left our house about 10:40 and found a pretty decent parking place and a way decent place to sit! I was super excited.

As we were walking to find a place to be, it started to rain very lightly.  So I grabbed the umbrellas out of the van.  Good thing I did because it turned into a downpour!  It rained until about 11:50 and then it stopped!  What a blessing, I thought.  Perfect timing to set the angel Moroni.

What are they peeking at through the fence?

Why, Angel Moroni, of course!  He was so beautiful-glowing almost!

Well, after the rain stopped, the wind decided to blow.  Noon came and went, 12:15 came and went, then 12:30 came and went. The wind was still blowing!  By then the rumor mill was working pretty hard. It was passed around that it was postponed because of the wind and they would continue when the wind died down.

Bummer!

I wasn't sure what to do.  By 1:15 my kids made it perfectly clear that they were starving and wanted to leave.  It was still windy, so we headed out to get lunch.  After we were done eating I noticed the wind was gone. So we headed back over and it was already lifted to the spire!!! Aughhh!  We missed it!

We walked back over to our awesome spot-which was taken of course-and waited for him to be attached to the temple.  By then it was getting hot and muggy, so my kids were not in the best of moods.  I gave up and headed back to the van.  As we were driving away, I noticed he was being attached.  Good grief!

Oh, well.  We will definitely remember that we were there for the occasion, even if we didn't get to see the action.