5K with the girls

I have wanted to try a 5K for about a year now. So I talked and bribed the girls into doing one in Declo over Labor Day weekend. I started running one minute and walking two minutes; now I know some of you are running experts,but this was my training. The girls didn't want to train as well. Blakely said I wouldn't have signed for this if I knew I had to train. So with some pushing we got a few runs with each other. My favorite saying was "You are not going to let your 34 year old mother beat you, are you?" One night running a coyote ran right out in front of us running away from our dogs. I then proceded to tell Blakely that the momma coyote was probably not far behind so she better start running fast. I said you only have to run faster then the slowest person. I know not nice. Saturday we got up and headed to Declo and got our shirts and took off running. Katelyn had found a friend to run with. So it was just Blakely and I running and walking together. Mom coaxed and encouraged. We pulled each other along. I ran back and got Blakely and walked with her. I loved doing the 5K. I will try and keep running so I can find another 5K and do it. (I have only ran twice this week:( Blakely vows not to do it again, but maybe I can get a friend to run with her she would change her mind!

Yellowstone

One of my goals for the summer was for our family to go somewhere together. As the summer dwindled down; it was now or never. We had decided to go to Yellowstone. We had just put carpet in our livingrooms and were preparing to put carpet in the bedrooms, so amiss the mess we left Saturday morning. After too many stops we got up to West Yellowstone in the afternoon. We checked into our hotel; which on seeing the swimming pool with the water slide the kids only wanted to stay there. We headed in the gate and headed up to Mammoth Springs. We stopped to see the hot spots along the way. We did see some elk and one moesing buffalo headed somewhere down the middle of the road. As the day wore on the kids desire for the swimming pool grew greater. We looped around and by the time we got back it was 9:00pm. So in a very hurried manner, we ran off to the swimming pool. We swam until closing. The kids and I found some dinner and returned to the hotel room to eat. Sleeping wasn't too bad, but I have discovered it is time for two rooms. We got up and got ready for church. Church in West Yellowstone has a lot of visitors has you can imagine. We then headed back into the park for the south loop. Being the smart parent I am to not have the fussing of Saturday night, I bribed. If they could not fuss; when we got to Old Faithful we would buy a pop for them. For the most of the children, it worked. Sunday we enjoyed stopping and wading through a stream. We loved walking the Old Faithful loop and seeing the tail end of her explosive show. We stopped by Yellowstone Lake and dipped our toes(some of us dipped our bodies). We drove out through the Grand Targhee Park and as we left low and behold there it was.... A Bear. We slowly drove past and gawked like all the other tourists as the park rangers directed traffic. We enjoyed the beauty of the Grand Targhee mountains and quickly drove through Jackson Hole. I finally got to see the Palisade Resvoir(which Shawn always talks about). We decided it would be fun next year to take Grandpa's boat(if he would let us) and go camping up at Palisades. We finished our vacation race through Idaho Falls and home at 10 o'clock at night. I enjoy this time together even how short it was and wish for opportunities for family get aways.

washington trip by Blakley

I went up to Washington with grandpa a couple of weeks ago. grandpa was going up to meet Uncle Brad & Breck so they could go fishing in Cananda. I stayed with Aunt Vicki & Uncle Scott's family for about two weeks. We got there Wednesday evening. I had brought up all of the Harry Potter movies cause I knew Dallin liked them our goal for the time I was there was to watch all of them. We started the first one but i was so tired i fell asleep within the first 5 mins. We finished it the next morning. That day we really didn't do anything. grandpa and Brad &breck left early the next morning. That afternoon Alyssa came back from girls camp. the next day was Saturday . We went swimming and then dropped Dallin off at the house & did a little shopping.We went to Plato's closet & Old Navy. On sunday we went to church then had a delicious dinner. MOnday Aunt Vicki dropped Alyssa & I at the mall we ate lunch first. Alyssa introduced me to thai food. niether of us finished so we carried it in boxes around the stores. the first store we went to was bath & body we had fun trying on the lipglosses & deceided to come back a buy them if we had enough money after all the other stores.Next alyssa wanted to find a scarf so we went into this wierd store called Fuego where she bought a pink peace sign shirt. We then went to american eagle wich was having their big sale.we both found cute shirts but then found out they were not actually on sale.Then we ran into aero which was also having a sale i got a dress there for 12 bucks.we then went to romy and charlie ruse we got matching shirts for 5 bucks there then we took a break and got some smoothies from jamba juice. then we went back to b&b and i got lipgloss and bodyspray. we then walked over to target to look around . finally we called Vicki to pick us up .it was a long day.the next few days we just kinda watched tv and movies and had a belated friends party for Dallin at the pool. Friday grandpa and them got back all of us cousins slept in the livingroom. we watched percy jackson and then breck dallin and I stayed up until about 3 in the morning.the next day we went to the space needle nd got to go to the o deck.brad and breck left at about 10 oclock to catch their 1oclock flight back to kentucky. Grandpa and I left monday morning and got to his house at about 9 we waited for my parents to get there. I finally got home at about 11pm.

Swimming Lessons 10

Swimming Lessons had one less child this year. Blakely felt like she was a good enough swimmer to not take lessons. I reluclately agreed, because it was now time for Brady to start taking them. Brady loves the water and is a fish, but that first day he cried almost the whole time he was in the water. The teacher suggested that I not be in the pool area. So I stayed out the rest of the week.By the end of the week he loved it as you can see. The other kids swam well and practiced diving. My kids love the water. Great job Katelyn, Garret, and Brady.

Scout Family Fishing Night

Every year our ward as a family fishing night. This year we went because Shawn is helping with the Wolves. We took our cousins Ethan, Ayva, and Ry with us since they were staying with Grandma. Ever since the Father and Son's Overnighter, Garret has wanted to fish more. He asks everytime he sees water, "Can we fish there?" Shawn had to go buy fishing poles since we are such avid fishers. We ended up going to Emerald Lake. Shawn spent the whole evening putting on worms and casting the line out. Each family member wanted to fish all night long. We caught fish, but all were too small to keep. Ethan and Garret caught the most fish. Ayva was the worm keeper. She played with the worms all night long. So being the good aunt I am I told her of course she could take them to Grandma's.(Grandma loved that!)Our family was the last family there. We fished until the sun was setting. We will have to fish again really soon. The only person caught by a hook amazingly enough was Blakely's friend Alysha.

Steadman's 2010

We love Steadman's. Which is a huge waterslides that a farmer has put in by his house in Raft River. I rented the place last year for some family fun. So I decided to do it again this year while my sister was in town visiting. I called that afternoon before we left to double check on things with Steadman's. She said that it was quite windy over there and I thought to myself we live in Idaho; the wind always is blowing here, no big deal. Well, she was not lying. We had 40 - 50 mph gusts of wind. It was very windy. The kids of course did not mind the wind and slide down the slides and went down the zip line. Blakely learned how to knee surf down the slides. Shawn went down once with his work clothes on. Everyone was pretty much blown out by 8pm. So,even though it didn't turn out like I wanted it to we enjoyed friends and family. Next year hopefully the wind will not blow and I will stop to take some pictures.

Girls Camp 2010

The end of June brought Girls Camp to our house. Blakely and Mom got to go to camp this year again. We had girls camp up at the Oakley Stake Ranch. Early Tues. morning we headed out on a hike. Since there was still snow up in the mountains we decided to hike across the base of the mountains and hike into the camp. It was a good hike as it was not too steep(until the end). We hike through farmer's fields, cow pastures,creeks and barb wire fences. We visited the old Willow Creek cemetery(which interesting enough was fenced off in the middle of a cow pasture.) As we made it to the gate that told us we were almost there, we had to cross a much bigger creek(some of us did fall in.) The leaders wanted to hike the last mile and half up to the cabin which was straight up. We pushed the girls until we did have to call in the truck to pick some of them up.
We set up camp and then taught the some camp requirements. We practiced our skits and songs. We had a wonderful dinner of bagel pizzas. We had fun that night even if some of the skits and songs were a little unusual. The girls stayed up until 3 or so in the morning. They were above us in the cabin so you could hear everything. The next morning we had Ziploc omelets and started our next set of camp requirements. After lunch we had down time which I followed the younger girls around and took pictures of them playing in the creek. We then had a camp competition. Which our team did not fair very good at the knot tying, but very good at the fire starting. That night we enjoyed a night hike followed by testimony meeting. Then it was onto a snipe hunt. Scary! There were snipes everywhere.
The next morning was clean up and birthday pinata and heading home. Another great girls camp. Hoo Haa! My another children stayed the days with Grandma Peterson and were spoiled. They will have to keep working for Grandma all summer to paid back her generosity.