A "Short" Hike

Josh has been talking about this hike around Jenny Lake in the Tetons ever since he took his Scouts on it last year.  Our whole trip he kept saying he wanted to take us all on the same hike.  "It's only a mile and a half, I think" he said.

I said fine, but I wasn't going to carry Bubby at all (which I ended up doing anyway).  Here we are getting started on our "short" hike.

Logan showing us the lake.

This was about a mile and a half into it.  "So how much farther to the falls, Josh?"  "Ummm...it's just a little farther."

Holden had a lot of shoulder rides on the hike, but was able to keep up pretty well when he was walking.  He liked jumping over big rocks and collecting little rocks in his pocket. When we got to the water, he promptly threw all his rocks in it!

Our friend the woodchuck.

"It's just a couple hundred yards now", says Josh. Ha!  More like half a mile straight up!

At least the kids are still smiling.

Well, we finally made it to Hidden Falls.  It was "only" 2.5 miles.  My husband is quite a good liar.  Then he tells us we can either hike back or hike .7 more miles to the boat dock and ride the boat back across the lake.  Seeing as how we had a two year old, we opted for the boat ride.

Happy to be on the boat!  They were such troopers and didn't even complain once.  The lady at the boat dock said that hardly any people take their kids on the hike all the way around.  Silly Josh and his one and a half mile (aka 3.2 miles) hike!!  It was really fun though and I hope we can do it again. Not until Holden is older, though!

He loved the boat ride!

After our hike I felt like we all deserved a treat so we stopped at the candy store in Jackson and then headed to the cabin.  We all slept well that night and enjoyed 4 wheeler rides the next day.  It was one of the best Labor Day weekends I can remember!

Geysers and More

The next morning we started at the Fountain Paint Pots-another favorite.

My awesome family tree!

Holden is pointing to yet another "volcano"!

I had to add this one because Josh looks so fabulous in it!  That's what he gets for not being a good picture participant.  We love the beauty of Grand Prismatic Spring.

Old Faithful

Gotta love Holden's expression as he watches it erupt.  "Big volcano", he said.

After this we headed for the cabin (for real) by way of Grand Teton National Park.

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!