Twin Falls

I wanted to go on a last mini vacation with the kids before school started. Somewhere kinda near, but not too close. I picked Twin Falls, no real reason why. But boy was it fun and we did a lot! We hit three National Parks (Haggerman, Oregon Trail, and City of Rocks), saw a fish hatchery, an alligator farm (who knew they had those in Idaho), went to two great restaurants, a historical museum, watched base jumpers off the Perrine Bridge, saw Shoshone falls, stood under a different un-named waterfall and at the spur of the moment while picnicking in the park, rented a kayak and paddled up the Snake River. The motel had cable- which we don't have at home and a fridge and microwave so we went swimming every night after dinner then had a popcorn party and watched cartoons on cable since we can't do that at home. They thought that was pretty cool, but thankfully all the outdoor stuff was their fav.

Snake River from the Perrine Bridge. We kayaked under it and up stream for a mile.

a view of the River and the bridge from the dock.

A 'cave' the kids found in City of Rocks - definitely need to go back there for three or four days and let them romp.

the Perseids

We headed to Payson again this last weekend for the Perseid meteor shower. It's up on a plateau and away from the city lights so the viewing is generally good. This year we saw a couple awesome - once in a lifetime meteors. It was a great weekend. Perfect weather- we hiked around the lake, had lots of friends join us and enjoyed Pauls famous smore's.

Golden Spike

Friday I took the kids up to the Golden Spike National Historic Monument. It's seriously in the middle of no where. But talk about fun. Learned a lot of cool things and let me tell you little boys like trains! We hit the ATK rocket display on the way home, a 50's era ice cream shop for shakes and then a little museum in Brigham City that was advertising a special quilt display. I took my first applique class about a month ago and it's a lot of fun. The kids didn't even mind stopping and while we were there we found a cute little display called Annie's Attic. It was an old fashioned door mounted in the back wall. I wasn't even sure you were supposed to open it but Curious George - aka Andrew insisted and we found a room the size of our bathroom that had little windows to peek into other displays along with a kid quiz about life in the 1800's. Definitely worth a stop.

taking a break....

So the changes that were coming this month - I've operated a medical billing service for over five years and my longest client of almost four years gave me a 30 day notice last month as they are taking their billing back in house. I had a feeling it was coming. I expected it almost a year ago. They moved to a bigger office, they have the right staff in place now. It's bittersweet. I loved working with them. And although I expected it I still had the initial shock of OMG! How do I live with a two thirds reduction in income. But my next thought - not even a whole half second later -was wait a minute, I can read, I can cross stitch, I can scrapbook.... I've gone from working 50-60 hours a week down to thirty with my part time job (that I thankfully still have). Wow, you know all the things you can do with an extra thirty hours a week? The timing wasn't bad. The kids go back to school in three weeks so we won't have a day care bill then since Andrew is moving to first grade and we still have enough of summer left to enjoy some of it together. So I have my eyes open for another client, but in the mean time, I'm enjoying the break, the freedom from the responsibilities, and seeing the kids a lot more. I see it as one of those nice unexpected changes. One door closed, but another one opened :)

field days

Along with the changes coming up this next month, I have been able to re-arrange my schedule to 3 ten hour days. Boy is that hard to get used at first when you're used to being there for six hours a day, but it's been fun. The days off I've taken the kids to attractions around the valley and a bit beyond. We've gone to Kennecott Copper Mine, Hill AFB museum, and Timpanogos Cave.

I have to say I was nervous for the cave. It's a difficult hike for adults - 1056' vertical rise in a mile and a half. I told them we could stop as often as they wanted, but they couldn't whine. They were amazing. We were nearly 3/4 the way up when Andrew in his nicest voice asked if there was much more to go. By that time I could see the roof on the entrance and pointed it out and they were good to go the rest of the way. We even lucked out and no one else was booked for our time slot so we ended up with a private tour!

We finished the day with a picnic by the creek in Tibble Fork. It was a nice way to cool off and water is always fun for kids.

Changes

This was the picture I took the morning we woke at 4:00 am to get to the other side of YNP to wolf watch. I not only made Paul stop the truck, I had to make him back up....he doesn't like stopping, let alone going backwards, it was impeding his progress. Everyone else was so busy looking forward I didn't think any of them caught this. There was so much steam/fog rising off the lake since it was warmer than the air. It created nice visual effects the whole drive. Everyone else was glad I made him stop (I think he's still wondering). It might be my favorite picture I've taken there. I love how everything is constantly changing if we just stop and notice. The sun rises, it sets the wind blows, it's never the same. Big changes are coming for our family next month (no, I'm not pregnant). I'm a little nervous, but more excited.... and I think the changes will be beautiful.

YNP 2010

I didn't down load my pictures yet so you'll have to settle for this one from google of Grand Prismatic Springs (thanks to the photographer). We hit Washington again for the forth and it was wonderful seeing friends we only see once a year. A few of them from Canada followed us part of the way home hitting Phillipsburg and Bozeman Montana before stopping in Yellowstone. Amazing trip this time. Thursday we woke up early and headed to Lamar Valley hoping to see wolves. We saw eight bears (one was a momma and three cubs, a grizzly, two black bears and a cinnamon brown), a wolf with three pups, a coyote, herds of buffalo of course, and pronghorns, which we missed in Oct. It was awesome. I saw more bears in one morning than the rest of my life put together. We didn't see any moose this trip, but I'm more than satisfied.