Trying to Finish Well!

We have mixed feelings about seeing the Month of July come to an end. It seems like this month has two different speeds. During the day it seems slow and relaxing but at the end of the week it went so fast. A lot has happened once we got home from our whirlwind vacation. Shane got a Job, doing Roof Maintance for Northwest Roof Maintance. Yeah... He's not as young as he once was and is feeling the hard days on his body. He starts Greek Intensive this coming Monday for two weeks then back to work for a week, then school starts full time. His plan is to work two days each week to finish the season. Kelli turned 7. OMGoodness where did the years go. It seems like I just started having kids not having a 7 year old. We had a fun week of her birthday, the two oldest went to Rainforest Kids Camp sponsered by a church close to campus every night. So we had the neighbor kids over for homemade Chocolate Cake which was yummy. The following weekend we decide to head to the Beach this...

After Jackson, Wy Shane asked if we could stop by some of his old rafting grounds. Wanting to break up the 400 + miles of the day I said "sure"! We stopped by the "Kahuna" and "Lunch Counter" rafting spots to see the water and hopefully a raft or two go through the spots. They did not disappoint us, the river was active since it was beautiful weather out. There were some nice older ladies who saw Shane & Seth sitting on the rocks and offered to take our family picture which is now on the top of the blog. I was able to get some action shots of boats going through. Everyone stayed vertical but sounded like they had fun. Someday when the kids are older I would like to try that out. We also stopped for dinner in Idaho Falls before heading to my folks for the next couple days. Thursday we had some of the cousins come over for a playdate/birthday for Kelli turning the big 7. OMGoodness The kids got to play in the pool, sprinklers, build boats and sail...

We left Spearfish after getting our tire fixed and having lunch heading down the road for Riverton Wy. We spent the night visiting once again with Shane's cousins Randy and Misti Ingalls and their two kids. We stopped for lunch at Moran Junction at the schools there so the kids could run around. We love Wyoming for the beautiful scenary, just like South Dakota for the vast openness and friendly people. We also decided to break the 400 + mile drive up more than we did on the way there. So we decided to stop at the Jackson Wildlife Museum outside the town. They had Iron Sculptures outside the building of various wildlife. Inside the Museum the had artwork from some well known western artist and some unknown but beautiful oil works, water color, pencil stetches. It was neat, we would have liked to looked longer but the kids being the ages they are didn't stay still for long. So we loaded them up for another chunk of driving.

We headed out on the not so open road June 29th with the final destination of Mudd Butte, South Dakota. We split the distance into two nightly stops the first one at my folks house in Buhl. The next morning after visiting with Grandparents we finally pulled out of Buhl headed to Riverton,Wy. Shane toured us around his old stomping grounds in Idaho Fall even taking a peek at where his old fort was. We made the nessasary stop for Ice Cream at Alpine Junction before chugging through traffic at Jackson. We are always amazed at the beauty of the Grand Tetons and the Wind River Indian Reservation. We stayed the night in Riverton visiting with Shane's cousin Randy and his family. They are a great family with open hospitality and relaxing stop over. We headed out of Riverton destination Grandpa & Grandma Ingalls house in South Dakota. We decided to avoid most major Highways on our way to the Ranch, winding through Wyoming Oil Country. Stopping off for lunch at Tumble Weed Cafe...