Backyard Fun

We have been having so much fun this summer trying to stay cool playing in the backyard. 

Ryker loves to drink the sprinklers.

Rocks and mud are a boy's best friend.

Jaxon is in love with the fresh peas from the garden.

Jaxon's favorite thing is eating lunch on the grass.

Ryker could eat watermelon all day everyday.

Luke hung up a swing. The boys love it.

Note: Not our backyard but still a lot of fun!

Louis Lake

A few moms decided we needed a lake day and planned a trip up to Louis Lake. Its about an hour and a half from home so it was quite the adventure. I caravaned up with a couple other cars. We got stuck in some construction and got a little lost but made it up there in the end. The boys loved playing with friends in the sand and water. Jax was a little bit more brave when it came to playing in the water. The wind was a little crazy but we had a great day. The boys were so exhausted they slept the whole way home.

Chalk the Walk

The library put on a Chalk the Walk where people get to come and decorate their sidewalk with chalk art. My Aunt Char posts pictures from a Chalk the Walk in her area that are pretty amazing so that was what I was expecting here. The one here was a little less amazing but still fun. Our friends the Hancocks drew dinosaurs that Jax thought were pretty great.

There was also a cakewalk put on by one of the churches. They had some pretty delicious looking cakes so Luke, Jax, and I each bought a ticket. The girl in charge let Jax pick out the number and he picked his own. He was so excited and picked himself out the smiley face cake, which wasn't the one Luke would have picked if he had won.

Someone tried to sneak a bite!

Balloon Rally

Every year there is a festival that includes a balloon launch and car show. While we don't have any pics of he car show we got plenty of the balloons. We walked the kids over at 6am and got to watch them inflate before they got the burners going and floated away. Ryker wasn't really sure why he was awake. Jax was ready for adventure. He is a morning person for sure.

The kids were pretty impressed. They would not take their eyes off the balloons, even to smile for a picture. Jaxon was trying to get me to look up and instead of pointing he gently moved my head around to look where he was looking. 

 It was a beautiful morning for watching balloons. The rising sun made for some cool pics and kept the temperature just right. Baxter really wanted to run wild and say hello to each of the hundreds of people gathered around the launch field. He had a few admirers come give him some love. 

I liked the brightly colored ones. Courtnie's favorite is the teal and multicolored one below right. After they all took off we went home and made some breakfast.

Man Trip

I have a friend named Zach who told me about a tradition he had where his friends got together for a hike every summer. Only those friends were all getting on with life and too busy to go so we started talking about us going. Our first trip was last summer with the intention of climbing Wind River Peak but we got rained out. So this year we tried again with a few friends and did not get rained out :)

The hike in was supposed to be 12 miles but we took a wrong trail and added 4 miles of beautiful scenery to make it about 16 miles to camp. We did a little fishing the next morning then discussed the plans. The other three guys were not feeling up to the challenge of climbing the peak so Zach and I set out to see if we could make it. The map showed 2 trails when really there were 3 but only two were obvious trails. So we took the one that was clearly marked and agreed with the map and ended up at the wrong place (A short way past the sign we were supposed to see a rock pile on the other side of a stream covered by bushes). It wasn't far from where we wanted to be so we started climbing a ridge thinking we would still make it to the top only to be confronted with a large cliff dropping and rising again to the peak we wanted to be on. We were so close we could have thrown a rock at it but couldn't get there. So we enjoyed the amazing views from our high ridge then slid down a huge snow chute back to the lake and the trail we were originally looking for. We followed the nearly invisible trail back to where it met back in with the other trail and made it back to camp. Then the real fun started: everybody wanted to go and sleep in their soft beds... So after 8 miles of climbing we packed up and agreed to get everybody back to the truck, 12 miles away. So the longest day I have ever hiked was 20 miles with about 4000 ft elevation change (twice), with a full pack (not to mention swarms of mosquitoes). Great trip!

Rails to Trails

I love it when our little town has fun things going on for the kids. This weekend they had a bunch of activities and musicians along the bike trail. I heard the youth in our ward were doing face painting and a dunk tank so the boys and I decided to check it out. Luke had gone with some friends to hike Wind River Peak so it was fun to get out of the house.

 Jaxon thought the face paining was great. He was so proud of his face. They had a little mirror to show the kids after and he couldn't stop looking and smiling. Ryker was a little less excited. 

 There was a dunk tank and also this little stand that you hit the targets with bean bags. I was super impressed with Jax's aim. He hardly ever missed and he was so excited, especially when all the grownups were cheering for him.

 Ryker wasn't really finding any of it very exciting until he got a sucker. Then he thought life was pretty great.

These are some of the young men in our ward and they were pretty great about helping him out. They were also pretty impressed with his awesome aim.

Pirate Party!

Our good friends' son Emmett just turned 5 and had a pirate party to celebrate. There was a plank to walk, a pirate pinata, and water balloon canons. Emily and Brandon made an awesome pirate ship cake. Jax wanted to help blow out the candles and Ryker was really excited to eat it.

The baskets were the pirate ships and they launched water balloons as canon balls at each other. There was a lot of laughing and smiling kids.

The pinata turned out to be nearly indestructible with the plastic bat, but the attachment point on the top ripped open so we swung it around by the feet and sent candy all over the yard. Jaxon picked up a single sucker and turned to us smiling. It took some encouragement to get him to pick up a few before the other kids had their hands full. 

Ryker couldn't take his eyes off the cake. When it was finally cut he went around getting bites from whoever would share. Jaxon lost interest once the fire was out and went back to playing on the plank and the pool. He started a little gladiator challenge with the bigger boys to see who would fall off the plank first.