First Day of School

We just had the first day of school on Wednesday!  Cloudburst is now in 3rd grade, Sunshine is in 1st grade and Tornado in preschool.  For three days each week, it's just me and Sunrise.  Sunshine was so nervous that he didn't learn enough in kindergarten to make it in 1st grade, even though he was in the top 3 readers in his class.  Silly kid.  Cloudburst was so excited to see her friends.  And Tornado didn't even look back as I dropped him off.  We're still waiting to hear if Cloudburst will be in the upper math group.  So far their teachers seem fantastic and we're excited for the new year!

Yellowstone

Mmmmm, fried Oreos?

A bucking bronco?  Why, we must have been at a rodeo!  It was the first for our family.  We caught the rodeo in Star Valley on our way up to another fun spot...

Did I say fun?  I meant smelly.  We went up to Yellowstone.  And it was fun AND smelly.

We stayed in the Grizzly RV park, which had seen a few grizzly bears the week before.  We made lots of noise on our little hikes!

After I brilliantly broke off the key to the Rhino IN the ignition, we booked a bus tour of the highlights of Yellowstone.  The kids loved Paint Pots.

The park has a boardwalk for visitors to walk on, since the ground can be scalding hot in several areas.  Tornado said, "Mom, stay on the boardwalk. I like you in my family and I don't want you to get boiled."

Thunder and I were pretty worried about Sunrise trying to jump in for a hot swim, so we hooked him up to us via his special bear backpack.  He was not so happy about that.

We put one on Tornado too, can't be too safe here.

Then we headed off to Old Faithful.  It erupts about every 90 minutes.  We took off in the opposite direction of the crowds and found a great spot to sit on the boardwalk.

We ate lunch while we waited.  Old Faithful did not disappoint when he finally erupted!

We had so much fun exploring and letting the kids run free.

This is taken at the Old Faithful Lodge.  What a beautiful, rustic building.  You can't tell, but Tornado was actually in time out on this bench.

Here is our big yellow bus!  Our tour guide was great.

We learned all about wildlife on the park and the reintroduction of wolves in 1995.  It was so interesting to hear about having wolves back in the park as the top predator has restored balance to most of the ecosystem there (elk herds back to regular sizes, trees growing taller than 4 feet due to less elk, more red foxes and rabbits, less soil erosion around river banks, more dense foliage in many places)

This is Upper Falls, I believe.

Inside the town of West Yellowstone is a fantastic park to visit called The Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Center.  The have live wolves in one section, and live bears in the other.  It was awesome to get so close and watch them eat and move around.

We went on lots of fun walks, and the mosquitoes sure appreciated us being there!

On our drive home, we stopped in Idaho Falls where we used to live.  We stopped in Reed's Dairy for chocolate milk and ice cream.  It's the best- they put potato flakes in it and it is amazingly smooth and creamy.  And we drove by our very first house!

It was a great trip.  It will be fun to go back when the kids are a bit older and we can do some more fun hikes.

Are you ready for some football?

We have entered a different world.  The world of football.  Am I the only one who had no idea what an insane world this really is??

Thunder signed on to be the head coach, and we didn't realize quite how big of a commitment it would be.  But he truly LOVES it!  It has been neat to watch him with the boys.

The team is composed of 1st and 2nd graders and we have been practicing 3 times a week.  We were informed that we were the only team in the league doing this (every other team was practicing 5 times!!)

Most parents have stayed to watch every practice.  They are very involved with keeping their kids competitive and in line.

We have gotten to do a lot of cheering.  There is a park near the practice field that the kids enjoy.  I suppose I don't really need to attend practice since my own husband is the coach, but I enjoy watching.  It's exciting to watch the boys learn something for the first time.

They had their first scrimmage already, but no official games until next week.  Some of the kids were so nervous to play in front of the crowd on a big field at the scrimmage that they cried.  It's a lot for them to take in at this age!

They learned a lot out there, and so did the coaches.

It will be a fun season!

Bread of Life Food Drive

This year we had a Day of Service at our church on August 13.  The Bishopric asked everyone to really stretch themselves and try to contribute as much as possible.

Many people spent many hours purchasing food, and collecting food.

There were so many different people who came to help, and there was a great feeling there.

The kids got really involved.  Cloudburst and Sunshine each spent $24 of hard earned money to buy cans of food.  Tornado spent $2 (half of all his money).

Even we could help out!

We were able to deliver nearly 6,000 pounds of food to the Utah Food Bank.  It was a great day.