august in review

calendar quotes:

"one cannot really be content with mediocrity once excellence is whithin reach" -President Monson

"everything about our lives is an indicator of our Father's respect for us, that He recommended and selected us for now, when the stakes are so high, when His kingdom is being established once and for all, never again to be taken from the earth...He believes in us!" -Sheri Dew

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well i'm finally getting to august, we had such a fun start to the month...we took a week vacation to yellowstone-here's just a few of the over 200 pictures(yes kent had the camera). we took lots of pictures with painted fish and buffalos...

we visited a place called ruby lake-one of our favorite spots, we needed more time here...and we definately will be back. we dug in the sand for "rubies" which turn out are really garnets, but it was still exciting-who doesn't love to dig for burried treasure =)
we visited virginia city on the way back from ruby lake and it was about 7 and the whole town pretty much closes down at 5, so none of the shops were open but we peeked in and walked the boardwalk. it was fascinating, i love old antiques and equipment-and i actually liked to have the place to ourselves, it felt very ghost town! also with all the places closed, my kids could only look through the windows and didn't have to here me say over and over "just look, don't touch!!!!!"

we found this old straw hat blowing around-all the kids tried it on...i thought koy looked like tom sawyer.

kent and i also celebrated 15 years of marriage, wow! we went to the playmill and saw "footloose". we didn't get a picture but this is when kent and i were dating...he had to act so tough! and yes, i cut all our pictures together in the shape of hearts, ahhhh love.

we brought all our bikes with us and were able to get around yellowstone a fun way and found some snowmobile trails to play around on.

i love this picture of kelsi and brooke, it's so cute!

we stayed at a timeshare while we were there, we were on the third floor-which was fabulous because my kids can't get enough of the elevator(and luggage cart). we were able to swim quite a bit-probably my kids favorite activity, alot of times they would ask when we were going back to swim...

they also loved the exercise room, and they actually worked out pretty hard. i was doing the triathlon on saturday so kelsi and kaden would pretend to do triathlons they would go swimming and then go on the eliptical(their version of a bike) and then run on the treadmill...kelsi ran 4 miles in bare feet on the treadmill and got blisters on her feet :(

they loved just hanging out too-i kind of feel sorry for anyone below us...i have to say one of my favorite memories was when they played hide and seek for about 2 hours on Sunday-koy had the best hiding spot, he hid in his daddys duffel bag. i don't think he would have been found except duffel bags don't laugh!

we took a day and toured yellowstone park, me and the kids had never been there. it was so cool...i wish we would have had more days, it was a little much for one day and i did get a little car sick.

the colors and sights were simply amazing, i wanted to read everything to figure out how it was all made and works! fascinating...

the kids got front row seats to see "old faithful"...koy was cracking us up, he kept calling it alfalfa. "when will we see alfalfa?", "where is alfalfa?", "alfalfa was so cool!" what a nut.

kent brought along a portable grill wherever we traveled, so we could just stop and have lunch whenever and wherever we wanted to...it was so nice and we didn't have to buy $5 hot dogs.

i don't have any pictures but we also floated a river(on tubes): the water was so COLD and it took alot longer than we thought-alot longer-luckily diane, todd & their kids came with us and they had rented a canoe so we ended up all hitching a ride to the canoe to get there faster. we know next time what to do.
we stopped and watched the fish-

our last stop was at the "johnny sack cabin", an old cabin that was built by hand and it was just amazing to see all the woodwork. even the kids loved it...and we're pretty sure that he had some sort of secret hiding spot in there-we just needed more time to poke around :)

this is a picture of johny sack, he was about the size of kelsi...i think he looks like a garden gnome.

what a fun trip.

kelsi made this way cute quilt "strawberry lemonade" with her grandma sanderson this summer. we entered it into the fair and she won a big 'ol ribbon-reserve grand champion, which is a fancy way of saying second place.

i just love to go collect the eggs from the chickens, you just never know what color or size your going to find. it's always a surprise! this day we got one regular size egg and a little bitty egg, it was so teeny.

well you always know it's almost time for school to start when you have the "celebrate youth" carnival-my kids wait all summer for this. brooke breezed up the rock wall.

we were able to squeeze a few more summer activities in too-one of my scouts flood their lawn and invited us a few times this summer. i forgot how much fun a flooded lawn is...it brought back good memories of my grandma andersons house.

the kids love to catch as many water snakes (6 of them) and frogs (at least 20) as they can!

what a month-i love the summer!