More Fun

While the kids are at school we do all sorts of fun things...like take a bath.

Just kidding, I'm pretty sure this was taken at night while the kids were there.

Look how cute they are.

 They both really like the bath. 

Bensen is a little afraid when we drain the tub, he thinks he will lose all the toys he leaves in the water, so he is pretty good about getting them all put up.

 Vivian is 4 months old!

 Seriously time flies when you are not pregnant!

 One fun thing we did do while the kids were at school was go down to Orem to visit Grandma and Grandpa Allred.

 The kids love to go down and visit.  The older two were pretty mad that they had to miss out!

They always ask when we get to go down and visit.

It is a little hard because there really isn't much for them to do and they are pretty noisy so we only stay for a little while.

As we were getting ready to go my Grandma told us how much she loves when we visit and that she wishes we would come more often. :( If only we lived a little closer!

I sure love them and I am so grateful that my kids love them just as much as I do.

Back to School!

I know some moms have been dreading back to school, and I feel kind of like a bad mom say this, but I am so ready for school to start again!

My kids have been in a constant fight for several weeks now, and I'm frazzled!

So, bless this day, hopefully I can have a little more patience now. It has been lacking.

This year Jaycee is in 4th grade.  How did that happen? She has been little nervous for school start. She's afraid the homework is going to be too hard. No lie, so am I. I struggled with 3rd grade math! Oh man, all of my short coming are coming out!

Luckily I married Mike who can totally do 4th grade math.

 She will do great! Her teachers name is Mrs. Gustafson.  She is new to South Weber, this will be her 6th year teaching. She seemed nice.

 Mae is in her class this year. Lucky girls. 

 Wes is in 1st grade this year. He has been super excited for school to start, he loves it.  His teacher is Mrs. Toomey, we are excited he got her, she is the teacher Jaycee had in 1st grade, and we loved her!

 Wes is excited for school lunch and 3 recesses.

 Bensen was excited to wear a back pack and go to grandma's.

He is so cute!

 There were no tears dropping Wesley off. Like I said he was excited.  No cousins in his class this year.

 Jaycee was ok, until she sat down and saw that there was a packet she was supposed to work on. It was a getting to know you packet, she was worried she would do it wrong, and that she would miss the bus. Silly girl. I told her Mae would make sure she didn't miss the bus, and if she did, I would come pick her up.  That's how nice I am. :)

They came home happy as could be. They both had a great first day! Hopefully the greatness continues for the rest of the year.

Island Park, Part 2

The second day of our trip we went into Yellowstone. I love Yellowstone! 

 Everything is so beautiful, majestic even.

 Last time we went it was October and everything was shut down. I think we all enjoyed it more in October.  This time around there was A LOT more people.  I don't love crowds, and there were crowds everywhere we went!

 It was still fun though.

 We didn't get to see as many animals this time, and we only spent one day in the park. Last time we had at least 3 days. But we had some other things planned this time around.

 We made our way down to Old Faithful. Making several stops along the way.

 I was hoping to be able to see Prismatic Spring a little better, I guess you only get the really good view from the air. In October it was colder and much more steamy, we really couldn't see anything. 

 We had a picnic when we got to Old Faithful, then we went to see it go off. 

Can you see my parents in the background?

 This is how Mike feels about Old Faithful! :)

 Overall, our trip into Yellowstone was a hit. Like I said, we love Yellowstone.

 We stopped in West Yellowstone and bought t-shirts for everyone. (Except Viv, she didn't want one.)

And had dinner, but I already forgot the name of the place we ate.

The next day we floated down the river.

 Viv didn't like it, she finally decided just to go to sleep.

 As we were putting the boats in we saw a momma moose with her baby. About half way down the river another moose ran out into the river headed right for us! It was just playing in the water, it was pretty amazing.

The kids loved this, for some reason Wesley was nervous and didn't want to go, he is glad he changed his mind. He spent most of his time hoping between boats and jumping in the water. Jaycee also loved getting in the water. It was mostly really shallow with only a few deeper spots. A lot of the time we were dragging on the bottom. We were out there for several hours, and about 3/4 of the way through, Bensen fell asleep. We really had a great time. 

 Joy made us hay stacks for dinner this night, then we decided to head home, my parents left at the same time we did.

On our way home we took a detour to Mammoth Falls. It was pretty amazing.

 First we stopped at the Upper Falls, the map made it look like a pretty good hike to get to it, but we weren't sure my mom would be able to make it, and the sun was starting to go down, so we headed down to the lower falls.

 There was a guy there talking about how neat the upper falls were, and that they were bigger, so we headed back up there.

 The path there was all paved, there were a lot of stairs, but my mom made it.  She was a champ.

And the view was spectacular!

 God truly made some amazing things! And we love to explore them.

We are lucky to live so close to such beautiful things.

After Mammoth falls we headed home. My parents truck broke down between Idaho Falls and Pocatello! But what is a Bailey family vacation without a little drama? After pulling off the side of the road in a one lane construction zone, with a trailer, in the rain, a highway patrol man trying to help us, the truck decided to start back up, and we were on our way. Slowly, but on our way.  Our max speed the rest of the way home was 40 mph! I swear we could see the Brigham City temple for over an hour!

We had a great trip, I'm glad we got to do so much this summer! It has been busy.  

Now who's ready for school to start?

Last trip of the Summer, I promise. Island Park. Part 1.

Our first stop on this trip was Bear World. Look at that cute bear wave hello to us! It doesn't get much better then that.

 The first time we drove through the bears were so fun.

 The second time through they must have been sleeping or something.

 We love Bear World. It never disappoints.

 I think the kids favorite part was the petting zoo.

 Jaycee even dared to touch and feed the animals this time.

 They also enjoyed the rides a lot better this time. 

 Last time we came here we also had Lagoon season passes, so these rides seemed pretty small.  This time they loved them.  We haven't had season passes for a couple of years now.

After Bear World we hurried to Island Park.  We stayed at Mack's Inn in the RV campground. We got there just in time to go to Mack's Inn Playhouse.  We had dinner and a show, The Three Amigos.  It was funny, the kids loved it! All except Bensen that is, he was board with it, but what can you expect from a two year old?

It was a great start to our trip.