Last day of school!

School's out for the summer! McKinley has had a great year with her friends and teacher. She came home from her last day of school, threw herself on the couch and cried. When I asked her why she blubbered "I miss Mrs. Gotberg!"



Oh dear, the emotional life of girls!

Here she is on the first day of first grade:
And here she is on the last day of first grade:
Coincidentally she chose the same shirt for the last day that she wore the first day. I made her wear the same shorts to go with it. She looks so different!

Grand Teton Vacation

This year my parents took my whole family up to the Grand Teton National Park. We stayed in Colter Village which was about 45 minutes to Jackson and 20 minutes to Yellowstone.


The Grand Tetons were so beautiful. Colter Bay Village is situated on Jackson Lake, so my dad brought his boat so we could go for boat rides and fish.

The kids loved being out in the wilderness. And I loved having a shower and toilet. We stayed in separate little cabin rooms. I couldn't let the kids play outside by themselves because we were told a grizzly bear kept visiting in the early morning right behind our cabins. I was a little paranoid that night needless to say.

Here is the first grizzly bear I've ever seen! And it was in the field just down the street from where we stayed. I think this is probably the grizzly that visited behind the cabins in the early morning. We saw this one a couple times while driving back and forth.

One morning we went swimming at Jackson Lake Lodge in the "heated" swimming pool. Only it wasn't heated. It was freezing. But the kids still wanted to do it anyway, so I had to get in too. Kent sat in the lounge chair to take pictures. He doesn't like swimming much. He's more of a beach sitter, and I get soooo bored laying out!

We spent one of the days down in Jackson Hole. I haven't been there since I was probably 8 or 9! It was more touristy and crowded than I remember. And I swear there used to be an outlet mall there. But there wasn't any there! There were a bunch of art galleries (which we can't go to with our kids) and lots of gift shops.

We did do the Alpine slides up there and that was lots of fun! The slides were longer than the Snowbird ones! Sawyer loved going fast and gave Grandma a few nervous turns when he rode along with her.

The touristy thing to do was to take pictures under the antlers at the park, so we did too!

On Saturday we went to Yellowstone. We didn't have too long to spend there so we only hit a few things.

Old Faithful of course...

and the geysers and pools around Old Faithful...

Castle Geyser....

Then we drove up to the Canyon Village area to see the Falls. I thought it was the other water falls we were going to but it turned out not to be. But it was still pretty.

Then we had to make the drive back through Hayden Valley to check out the Bison. Lucky for us some of them decided to cross the street right in front of the car in front of us.

After dinner I went on the boat because Sawyer wanted to go fishing. It turns out his attention span isn't long enough for actual fishing yet, but I caught a fish!

and my sister caught a fish. I made her hold it closer to her so I could get them both in the picture and the fish just smacked into her face (hee hee hee).

It was a fun trip with all my family. We'll miss those.

Leap of Faith

Well, we finally took the leap, and decided to move to Connecticut. I can't believe it! And while we are excited for a new opportunity/adventure, we are also scared out of our minds!

We'll be living in the southwest part of CT, near the New York border.

The next step now is to sell our house, so if you know anyone who wants the best house in the best neighborhood near the best schools (seriously), send them this way. We'll be leaving whether or not we sell it before we leave so there's no point in sabotage :)

I'm trying to keep this all positive for my kids and focus on the positives and not just on what we're leaving behind. So if you talk to them, keep it happy :) We had one breakdown last week when McKinley finally realized that she won't be able to take her current friends with her. Sawyer is really not into moving and said he wants his same friends. He's also worried we won't be taking his toys and our t.v. I hope it's not too hard for them.....or us.

Birthday Boy

Hayden turned 3 years old this week and since I'm a slacker mom I am finally getting around to posting something about it. I got this idea from a friend's blog and thought it was adorable.

So here is a birthday interview with a 3 year old (verbatum):

What is your favorite color? My birthday party colors

What is your favorite thing to eat? Birthday cakes

What is your favorite thing to do? to rip my presents

What is your favorite toy? To play with my toys to not share my toys with not my friends.

What do you want to be when you grow up? Daddy

Do you love mommy? Uh-huh (that's yes)

What do you want for your birthday? Legos.

What's your favorite thing about Hayden? The "H".

No, what do you like about Hayden? I share my toys with Sawyer and Kinley and Mommy.

Happy Birthday Hayden!

First camping trip of the year

Kent had the week off and decided he was aching for some camping in the mountains. So we headed up to the Manti-La Sal Mountains after Sawyer's soccer game. And yes, that is snow on the mountains.

We saw quite a few deer (I think McKinley totaled 13 for the trip).

We spotted 3 deep in the field just across from where we camped. So the kids are trying to stay under cover and not spook the deer. Sawyer has been playing a hunting game so he was the leader of telling everyone to stop because they were "red"---the game turns a red sign on when the deer spook. He kept trying to talk Kent into getting his gun to hunt the deer.

So we all went for a hike to follow the deer. Sawyer was on the lookout for signs. He spotted some deer droppings and got extra points. He thinks the deer are that way!

Because we went camping in the very "rustic" sense of it, we were not at a developed campground and Kent was able to bring his guns to do target practice. The kids were so excited to try it. The boys picked up all the shells to play around with afterwards...a mother's dream come true of course.

I shot my first gun (although I think I shot my brother's BB gun when I was little) and didn't do too bad. Here is my target....

and here is someone else's who wishes to remain anonymous...he (or she) also isn't as patient in aiming as I am:

McKinley packed a bag of things to bring to keep her entertained. So on the down time she and I played tic-tac-toe, and MASH. Kent brought a book from home to read, but I didn't have anything to bring, so I ended up reading McKinley's school book, and getting a little teary-eyed because it is about a little friendship of two kids, one of which is moving away.

We brought our dog, which is very similar to having a toddler in camp again.

It was a quiet, pretty spot, with lots of trees and shade, and deer, and I guess if I have to go camping, then this place was a pretty good one.

Growing pains

This week I finally decided that it was time to put away the crib and let my soon-to-be-3-year-old sleep in a "big boy bed". Luckily things have been going very well (knock on wood) and he has not been getting out of bed at all yet. We had this full bed in storage to use temporarily until my dad makes the boys twin bed stands.
Apparently now that he is a "big boy" he thinks he can just go ahead and grow up now! We got this bike from Kent's sister yesterday and Kent fixed it up. Today Hayden has been riding it around our basketball court like a regular big kid. This is getting ridiculous. Speaking of growing up fast, our puppy is getting big too!
I'm not sure I like this growing stuff.

Memorial Day Weekend

We had a very looong weekend. We started on Friday by patching holes/dings in the wall and repainting the family room, kitchen, stairway, and landing a lighter color to brighten the place up.We also repainted the master bathroom and finally put up the oil rubbed bronze accessories we've had since we tiled our shower last year. And I repainted McKinley's ceiling because we had a patch job from when the water people were looking for access points, which was years ago.

Then on Sunday Hayden had a fever and conjunctivitis so I took him to the instacare who also found he had an ear infection. So he got started on medication. He threw up that night and so we hauled a mattress into his room so I could sleep by him. He was still in a crib and that of course makes it hard to catch throw up.

Needless to say Sunday night was miserable, and Monday morning I felt sick and had a fever. Blech!

My parents had invited us over in the afternoon to eat loverly filet mignon and other fixins and use their new hot tub. I was so sad. I took a nap and later that day felt a little better so I took McKinley and Sawyer over to enjoy some food and hot tub, while I watched from a comfy chair. We had to miss the neighborhood BBQ that we were actually going to go to this year.

We are trying to arrange a broker market analysis to tell us what our house may be able to list for, and that will help us in this whole Connecticut decision.

So we are either fixing up the house for someone else, or it has given us the kick in the pants we've needed to do the little jobs so we can enjoy it for ourselves.