Settling in Washington/The last month+ of our lives

Our lives have been wild and crazy the last two months with packing, moving, finding a place to live, traveling, etc. In the middle of October we left Idaho to stay with Brian and Tia for a while.

Brad started work in Kennewick and we followed shortly thereafter. Here the kids are trying out their temporary bed. We lived in the hotel for 3 weeks.

While living in the hotel we had to go to a laundromat to do our laundry. The kids were awesome the 3 times we had to go. One time a lady had her nasty dog there! The girls loved it.

We found some fun stuff to do while we were living in the hotel, like go to a cool dinosaur exhibit:

After we found a house to buy I took off back to Oregon to hang with Tia some more. We spent Halloween together and celebrated Lydia's baptism.

After the baptism we drove to Twin Falls to put all our stuff in the moving truck and bring it up to Washington. That next week after we got back to Washington we found out that Red Lion would be selling the Kennewick hotel...so we went back to looking for a rental. That was a long week. But we found a nice place, in a fabulous ward and are continuing to enjoy the Columbia River and other stuff in our new area.

Moving

We've been super busy the past month selling our house and moving to Washington! We've been very blessed so far to have listed our house and have so many people come see it and have two offers within the first month. Our realtor is amazing and we've been so lucky to know Judy for the past years since she helped us buy the house. Our insepction is tomorrow and hopefully the appraisal will come shortly thereafter. In a couple days the kids and I will meet up with Brad in Kennewick to find a new place to live. Fingers crossed everything will go smoothly! Until then We're hanging out with Tia and fam in Oregon since they just moved too!

Recently

Last week was T week, so we had a fun dress up Tea party

We bought a brand new Subaru outback! And promptly got a bumper sticker on there

This week is S week, so we've been doing Science experiments:

 And making fun S crafts

And we've been learning about the Stripling warriors, the Last Supper, and soon we'll talk about Swaddling clothes (which will also include the Savior and Star) and then the Good Samaritan! This has been really fun, especially since during Stake Conference last weekend the kids got excited when they heard speakers tell stories that we have talked about at home.

This week

This week we started school. We decided to jump in with the letter F. Our school day consists of about 15 minutes of circle time where we sing primary songs, say a prayer, hear a bible story that's based around our letter of the week, practice an article of faith and learn a new primary song. We do that after we get up, eat, and do some tidying. Then in the afternoon, while Claire naps, we do an activity based around our letter of the week and bible story:

This day was letter "F" for fiery furnace! We talked about Shadrack, Meshack, and Abindago, and then our activity was putting plates in our own "fiery furnace" (the oven) and then melting crayons on them. Will practiced his "F" writing, Ruth drew a picture of the 3 guys and the angel.

One day this week Ruth read a book about mud pies...and then it just happened to rain.

This day "F" was for "flood." Using chalk, Ruth wrote the word flood and Will practiced writing "F's" and then we took the hose and "flooded" the chalk away. Also very fun.

We've also spent tons of time at the park since it hasn't been too hot. Claire has become an original monkey and has had a blast climbing all over the park and trying to keep up with the big'uns. Ruth has also mastered the monkey bars, which has been a really fun process to watch. And Will is becoming more brave, and being more willing to try things that make him nervous.

And I have been starting Halloween costumes. Ruth is going to be a mermaid and Will was going to be a robot, but this King's robe turned out so well, he may end up being a king instead. I just wanted to throw together something fun for Will to dress up in since we were going to the fabric store for mermaid stuff. You can't tell, but it has a really big gold button as a clasp and shiny, gold braid down the sides. He loves it, and wanted to sleep in it tonight.

Yellowstone/Teton Vacation

We left Friday night and stayed at the Red Lion in Pocatello to break up our drive. Saturday morning we ate a big breakfast at the hotel and drove through the Ashton marathon to go see Lower and Upper Mesa Falls, they were so beautiful.

Then we drove for a couple more hours into Yellowstone. We got there at lunch time so the first picnic area we saw, we stopped and fired up some hot dogs. Then we saw a few small geysers, Gibbons Falls and Old Faithful, which was Ruth and Will's favorite thing.

We found our campsite after that, cooked up some dinner and played in the tent for the rest of the night. The next morning we got up early and went on an amazing hike through the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone and part of which included the Uncle Tom's extremely difficult trail. I was uncertain about taking the kids down this trail, but it was so fun and well worth the view here at the end.

After our long morning hike we got in the car and drove to Lamar Valley where we saw lots of bison, this guy was not more than 10 feet from the car. It was nice to relax for a while and let Claire get a nap.

Then we ate some lunch at the Mammoth Hot Springs area and traveled the Norris Geyser Basin. We all really enjoyed this mile and a half walk because each of the geysers were so different, we especially liked the bubbling blue mud hole and the green dragon's cave. The day was winding up so we went back to our site, organized things, ate some dinner and then walked down to the lake.

Monday Brad and I got up and made breakfast and cleaned up while the kids slept in. We packed up the tent and said goodbye to Yellowstone. We drove down to the Teton National Forest and stopped at Jenny Lake. Here we did the 2 mile round trip hike up to Inspiration point

 The Teton's are very beautiful

 On the way back down from that hike we stopped to see Hidden Falls.

After all the hiking and walking we did over these past few days we went into the general store and bought some slushies. We got back in the car and headed down to Jackson Hole where Brad took each of the kids up the ski lift and down the alpine slide. They loved it.

Then we killed some time at a great playground in Jackson until it was time for the Chuckwagon dinner.

During our entire trip, especially as we hiked around, Ruth asked everybody she saw where they were from. She is so friendly and loved conversating with people from all over the world.

Yellowstone, Grand Tetons National Parks. August 2013 | My new trip on Roadtrippers.com!

South Hills Hiking

First we did the mini-hike to Ross "Falls"

Then we found another hiking trail and followed it for about a mile up through the sage brush covered hills. This hike wasn't very exciting, but good for the kids because they learned patience, about switch backs, the requirements for being a leader, and what horse poop looks like.

 And then we found a very shallow stream to play in. Claire loved stomping across the bridge, until I let her get in the water. Then she wanted to dive in with the big kids and was mad at me for not letting her. When we were done we practically had to drag Ruth and Will away from he stream and rocks. It was a lovely afternoon made all the more lovely because we were blessed with cloud cover and a cool breeze.

I was also proud of Ruth because she saw a soda can someone had thrown under the bridge and she picked it up so we could throw it away. This summer has been the best so far, I love being outdoors with my family, there really is nothing like it.

Outdoor fun

Working on the alphabet with Will. As we sang the song they jumped on the letter. His new favorite letter is "P." My favorite part of this activity was that after we jumped the alphabet one time he said "What about this?" and drew a lower case "L" which he knows because of his name! So then next to all the upper case letters we wrote all the lower case letters. 

And here we are playing with ice on a really hot afternoon. Claire loved taking everyone else's ice and sucking on it. Ruth and Will enjoyed drawing pictures or letters and then watching them evaporate. We've been having lots of fun as a family recently too, mostly because Brad and I are trying to be more willing to go outside even if it's hot to play games or just push the kids on the tire swing. The other night we came up with a make-shift bean-bag toss. And it's not so bad in the backyard because of the trees.

Weekend Fun

 Saturday we went to Craters of the Moon and climbed a cone and into some caves and saw lots of dried lava. The kids once again were troopers on the hike. It's so fun to be able to go out and really do things.

In front of the temple after church

At Shoshone Falls after church. We brought the t-ball set and had fun chasing the ball down. Brad found some frogs in the stream. Will and Ruth loved throwing sticks into the stream. Claire napped happily in the car with the windows rolled down. I happily laid on the blanket, in the shade, and enjoyed everyone else's activities.

Summertime

popsicles, swimsuits, tire swing

vanilla shake mustache

painting outside

dragon eating bug and lake with river

cold lake water!