The first week of school

ABBY STARTED KINDERGARTEN!!!

Ready to go!
Abby's new teacher

Abby has successfully finished her first week of school! She loves going to school, knew a few kids in her class already, and there were no tears on her part.

Texas kindergartens are ALL DAY 8-3! That is a long time for these little bodies. Every morning there is crying and screaming and gnashing of teeth (okay not so much the teeth part but there is crying and screaming). Abby is so tired that she doesn't want to get out of bed. She has taken the pillow and put it over her head hoping I'd go away. There are a lot of tears shed and complaints of being tired still. She goes to bed at 7:30 and I wake her up at 7:00 but she's so worn out, the mornings have been a struggle. However, once we are out the door, Abby is as happy as can be. The first day I thought there would be issues with me leaving her. But, from the get go she was "bye Mom!" and walked right into her class. Here's hoping she adjusts quickly to the long days.

Kaitlyn's Day

Kaitlyn turned 3!!!!

The morning started off with waffles with whipped cream,

followed by bowling with the family


and video games. Kaitlyn especially loved the "roller coaster" ride.

Dora cupcakes for the celebration. (We had just been home the day before and this was the best I could do for the Dora request, Dora sugars I found at Party City and pictures I printed out and put on tooth-picks, easy enough. Kaitlyn was happy with it that's all that matters.)

New shoes were given! Yeah for new shoes!

I love what it says on the box.

And a new scooter for a NEW 3 year old!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO OUR SWEET KAITLYN!

WE LOVE YOU!!!




Kaitlyn is dancing in the chair she is so excited to blow out the candles. (try not to listen to me singing).

How does that ice-cream taste?

7 months

Hooray for 7 months! Olivia is pulling in at 17 lbs with 2 bottom teeth. She can sit on her own, loves to eat, she has the chubby thighs to prove it, and is doing a push crawl. She's at the point where she'll let you know if she likes something or not with a squeal or a scream. (After the road trip, any time we put her in the car seat it was a scream) Olivia also makes a little yelp to get my attention and then laughs when I pretend that it makes me jump. I can't kiss her cute little cheeks enough.

Loves the exasaucer!

Hanging out with the Yosts

While hanging out with Grandma and Grandpa Yost, the girls loved playing in their huge yard, helping out the garden, seeing some cousins, and just plain being spoiled by their grandparents. They were so sad to leave all the fun. We'll have to plan on a longer stay next time.

While in Idaho we: ate at Big Juds - ordered a 1 lb hamburger

and shared it between 4 adults,

Helped grandpa mow the yard,

played miniature golf (I think the girls made it to 5 holes before they gave up),

ate the Sunday paper,

did crafts with Grandma,

played in the rocks,


wanted to bring a bunch inside,

so sad when mom made you dumb them,

went to a movie and got cotton candy (nothing like pure sugar!),

and were wiped out after driving straight through once again - 24 hours in the car. Todd did most of the driving too.

Thanks for a fun time in Idaho Grandma and Grandpa!

Yellowstone- Day 2

Day two took us to the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone. It is AMAZING! We took the North Rim Drive first which is new. We stopped at a few view points to ohh and ahh and one stop have a picnic lunch.

Looking out into the canyon.

Lower Falls from the North Rim

Canyon

View from the South Rim

Our postcard picture

After we spent time driving the North Rim, Abby was very adamant about not getting out of the car again to see more of the waterfall. I had to coax her out to see the falls from the South Rim. Once out she loved walking around.

Where is Kaitlyn?

Elk grazing on the lawn 5 feet away from us in Mammoth.

We drove all the way up to Mammoth Hot Springs because this is the one place in Yellowstone I have never seen. It is at the top of the Grand Loop and takes quite awhile to get there. The kids fell asleep on the long drive so I went out and walked around the boardwalk by myself for 20 minutes. The area was so beautiful! I loved the contrast between the bright orange and white. Pictures don't do justice.

Abby again was refusing, on the way to Mammoth, to get out of the car. She was demanding to "not stop!" and "I'm not getting out of the car anymore!" Of course after her brief nap in the car she was willing to walk around with Todd while I stayed back with Kaitlyn. Kaitlyn could have used some more sleep. She refused to talk to me or get out of the car. She wanted to do "NOTHING!!" and made sure I knew it.

Mammoth

It looks like snow but it's mineral deposits.

Yellowstone - Day 1

The main reason we were going to Idaho to was see Grandma and Grandpa Yost. They were going to be out of town for a few days so we planned in a couple of days to see Yellowstone. It was crowded but not too bad. The longest we had to wait in traffic was about 30 minutes for construction.

One the drive in, the cars we slow and we soon found out why (of course every stops for any kind of animal). There was a bison just sitting by the edge of the road.

Along Firehole Canyon Drive we pulled over and saw about 10 elk grazing just below the waterfall.

We made a stop at Fountain Paint Pots and did the 1/2 mile walk. This was one of our favorite stops.

These vents made a loud noise- there was a lot of gurgling under the ground.

While we were standing on the boardwalk watching another geyser in the distance, this hole starting filling up with water, starting bubbling, then blew a small geyser just 3 feet in front of us that we were sprayed a little by it.

Worn out.

The girls did well but after you see one geyser, you've seen them all. After we walked around Artist Paint Pots they were pretty much done with geysers. We took them to Old Faithful and they enjoyed that but did not want to walk around the basin anymore.

Grand Prismatic Spring in Midway Geyser Basin (This spring is on the cover of National Geographic Aug. issue) The colors here were just amazing. We even saw a red dragonfly.

My walking buddy