Poor David!

Yesterday the boys had a lot of fun playing at the park with other kids from church. It was a primary activity with lots of fun in the water. They had water gun fights, blew bubbles, played in the sprinkler and ate popsicles. It couldn't be a better day, but then again, it wouldn't be a primary activity without some kind of injury right? One boy split his lip and ended up getting stitches (poor little guy!).

After playing in the water for about an hour, David's hands were really tender - you know that wrinkled soggy feeling on your hands when you've been in the bathtub for too long? Well he decided to play on the park toys and held onto some bars to swing a little bit. I'm sure you might guess what happened to the palms of his hands.... he tore lots of skin off of them. It wasn't enough to make him bleed, but it was a big layer of skin and it has left him pretty raw. I wrapped up his hands in gauze and surgical tape. He also requires lots of TLC so he's been getting plenty of that. I sort of enjoy that he is letting me give him so much attention. Spoon feeding him his oatmeal? That's fine with me! Taking care of business for him in the bathroom.... well I could skip that.

Funny Story

Just a few weeks ago, I got a call from my neighbor who lives in back of us. She started off by saying she wasn't mad, but had to share the story because she was very amused (I'm thinking.... "what did they do now?"). She told me that the boys rang the door bell a few times and ran off. On one occasion, she was ready for them. She opened the door just as they rang the bell and told them not to do that anymore. She also asked them for their phone number. Without thinking, David just blurted our phone number out. I think that he's very proud of his memorization skills so he went into 'robot-mode' and rattled it off. Jared looked at David like he was an idiot and he realized his mistake. Before running off, David quickly added "oh, but don't call it!" Of course, I had a talk with them about ringing door bells and running away, but we all had a good laugh over this one.

Two trips to Yellowstone and a Wedding

On the weekend of the 4th, we headed out to my grandma's house in Ashton, ID. We spent the week up there and had something to do almost every day. It was a lot of fun, we visited Yellowstone twice and were at the Rexburg Temple to see my sister get married.

Tuesday we all hiked Mt. Washburn in Yellowstone. It's a 3.2 mile hike to the top (and of course the same coming down) so that's 6.4 miles total. The boys had their own Camelbacks so they felt like real hikers. I even found a stick along the trail for them to use. We saw many small critters along the way and a coyote. The coyote was just walking along the trail on our way down, I could have reached out to touch it.

















While in Yellowstone, we saw three bears. The traffic was unbelievable around those sightings. We were responsible for one of the traffic jams as I was the first to spot a black bear in the woods. It got a little too close for comfort, but the van was close enough for me to jump in and take more pictures from the window.



We saw a beautiful elk with a nice rack of velvet covered horns, I was only 25 feet away from it so it was a real treat for me. I must have taken 50 photos of it, this was my favorite one.....



At some point during the week, we visited a petting zoo and Larry found a new wild girlfriend.... I caught him during the perfect moment when he was saying, "Ohhhhhhh."

I don't know what it is about animals and Larry, but they love him! This one just leaned into him and he knew just what spots made her turn to putty in his hands.

I had to get up at 5am to get this next shot, it's in Island Park near Swan Lake (it might even be Swan Lake, but I can't be sure). If the sun had come all the way up, then the fog over the water would have disappeared. I saw it on the way up to Yellowstone the day before and wished I had stopped then, but making a special trip by myself was better because I could spend 20 minutes getting the right shots and walking around in the marsh. I took 3 differently exposed photos and turned it into an HDR photo with a special software, here is the result....



Some other random shots around my grandparents' farm.....



Another HDR photo - this is of an old tractor on the farm...


It seems like we go to the Bar J Wrangers in Jackson, WY every year, but I never get tired of the comedy and music. This guy was looking for a person with a camera. When he saw me, he made a face.


And of course, there was my sister's wedding. She married Gnanam from Mauricious (a little island off the coast of Madagascar) and his parents flew all the way here to attend - even though they are not LDS and could not be there for the actual ceremony. They brought sari's from India which they flew there to purchase back in January. I had a lot of fun wearing mine, they certainly are beautiful. Tara wore a wedding sari. I will post a few of her favorite photos....