Cabin Sleepover

We have had a really fun week. It started with a weekend retreat with 6 couples from our neighborhood. We got to stay in our friends' parents beautiful cabin (more like parade-of-homes) on 80 acres near Wanship. We had awesome food, stayed up till 3 am playing games and laughing our heads off, and had fun 4-wheeling and canoeing on the lake. None of us wanted to go home!

View from the front porch. There were moose drinking from the pond down there.

Canoe race

You didn't know Cam was so talented, did you? At least we have a back up if he ever loses his day job, eh?

The guys cookin' fresh fish to go with our morning french toast...hmm, what a combination!?!

Great friends! Thank you so much Humpherys!

Lava Hot Springs

We started our summer vacation at Lava Hot Springs. We went down the river in tubes, but our rear ends suffered some serious damage from the rocks so after that we stuck to the safer-than-the-river swimming pool. The kids had a blast. The water slides are really big... (that's Daddy on the left)

The climbing wall was awesome! Go Aubree!

Sunbathing beauties! By the way, Ben learned how to swim on this trip! By the end of the trip, he was jumping off the "middle dive" and swimming to the side all by himself! Way to go Ben!

Buddies

The boys riding the sea serpent

Daddy was the only one brave enough to jump off the highest platform!

Minnetonka Cave

These pictures stink because apparently I had my camera on the wrong setting while taking them. Bummer! Oh well. We decided to go check out Minnetonka Cave near Bear Lake. Really, I wanted a Bear Lake raspberry shake and I needed an excuse. But we checked out the cave on the way. And it was really cool! It was a lot like Timpanogos, only without the big hike. The most interesting part of the cave tour was being serenaded by dear Spencer, whose taste in music is, shall we say, eclectic (manah manah by the Muppets, Another One Rides the Bus by Weird Al, and We're Not Gonna Take It by Twisted Sister). Wow.

Daddy was obviously a bit nervous to enter the cave....

Can you tell that's Aubree's profile there in the stalagmites behind her? You can't? Hmmm.

Runnin' the River

After Lava Hot Springs, we went camping near Jackson Hole with the whole Kahuna Klan! We had an un-birthday party for all the grandkids, and a real birthday party for Grandpa. Doesn't he look lovely with his new wig on?

The best part of camping was hangin' with the cousins! Ben and Kobe, also known as the Terrible Twosome.....

The Girls, we don't know what they did because we never saw them except this one time when we took a rare photograph of the endangered species...

Adam 'n Sam, the brave river runners.....

Spencer waited so patiently for the big guys to come down the river. Is that them? No, that's not them. Is that them?......

The Klan takes on Lunch Counter.....Go Grandma & Grandpa! What awesome grandparents we have!! And that's Aubree and Jaysa in the middle there...you go girls!

Ya gotta love grubby camping feet...aw, aren't they cute? Well, maybe not so much.

Summer Fun

Okay, after the first week of summer vacation, when it rained nonstop (my kids said the first two days felt like two weeks), we were perked up by some lovely sunny weather and some visiting cousins that made the next couple of weeks not only bearable, but actually fun! We went to the zoo, though just being at our house feels like being at the zoo most of the time....

These are our little monkeys hanging off the railing at the monkey house....see, I told you, it's always like the zoo at our house!

Adam is so happy to have cousin Kobe here visiting for several weeks. These two cute boys have been known to hang out together very happily for 36 hours or more, and STILL complain when it's time to leave! They are such good friends!

We had a Father's Day BBQ and slip 'n slide party. We would have made Papa T. slide down the Shark-O-Death, but he had just returned from a fishing trip in Alaska and apparently had had enough sea wildlife to last a while!

Sunbathing Beauties

Preschool Grad

Happy summer everyone! Schools out! Hooray (I think). Here are a few pictures of Benny's preschool graduation. We already miss preschool (I do, anyway). We have the BEST teacher, and Spencer can hardly wait 'til it's his turn.

This is funny because it looks like Ben is half asleep while giving his part. Anyone who knows Ben knows what a ham he is. For weeks he practiced his part with great enthusiasm, jumping up and down and waving his arms at the end. But when it came to the real deal, this is exactly what he looked like the whole time. I thought, "who is this and what did they do with my son?"

Congratulations Ben! You did a super job!

I'm proud to be an American!

Dino Park!

For our cousin's Brie's birthday, we took an exciting trip to the dinosaur park. What an adventure! The kids ran from one trail to the next, exploring and finding gigantic dinosaurs hidden in the trees. Way cool!

The kids wanted to know the names of every dinosaur. T Rex we could handle, but most of them we couldn't pronounce with our limited vocabulary...why couldn't they just call them "big green monster with horns" or something?!

Thanks Brie for letting us come to your party! We love you!