Bible Bee

This weekend Luke participated in our local Bible Bee.  We found out Luke does well with memorization from being in Awana a few years ago so thought he may like the Bible Bee.  At first he was super excited about memorizing all of the verses to go to nationals (250 verses in his age division) but a few weeks ago at around 220 he lost steam!  It was really nice to listen and memorize his verses as a family this summer. He did well and got third place in our local competition... although he was pretty nervous about being in front of the crowd!  We are so proud of him and it was a really special day listening to all of these kids who had memorized so much of God's word! The kids who do this are really amazing, the senior group memorizing over 800 verses.  Wow, it is inspiring!

 This is his group in the yellow shirts, the primary division, 7 to 10 year olds.

 Luke trying to remember Proverbs 7:7

 This is the top five in his age group, look how little he looks!

Way to go Luke!

Jackson's 10th Birthday

Last week was Jack's 10th birthday, it was right after our Yellowstone trip so we just went hiking and had his favorite dinner at home.  Little by little he is gaining on Daddy.  

 This last weekend we had his party.  They played capture the flag which was a lot of fun!

 team green

 team black and white

 Some fierce competition!
 Can you see Layken took a call during the game?  "Hi yeah I'm just playing capture the flag, I just got caught, oh wait I'm out now!"

 They are both 10 this week, 9 days apart. That really seems like yesterday taking baby Jack to the hospital to meet Ainsley.  The nurse didn't know which baby was Leah's (Ainsley was over a pound bigger than Jack!)

 Sweaty, tired kids!

 Happy Birthday Jack!  I can not believe you are 10!  More than halfway to being out of the house and that really makes me want to slow things down, we love you so much! You make our home such a fun and happy place!
 Now get ready for the cute, while Jack was opening some presents Layken took some pictures of Tucker eating cake.

 This is the cute cheese smile, a little shy.

And she taught him to say "uh oh" on command, how adorable is this picture?

Yellowstone

 Last week the entire family made the long journey to Yellowstone for vacation. What a huge place!

 We came in the East entrance and went past Lake Yellowstone, we saw lots of elk, plenty of elk.  In fact the whole trip Tucker kept saying baby elk, baby elk.

 Then Old Faithful, Brad wasn't impressed. 

 Mammoth Springs was pretty, we did some hiking near here too.

 Our hiking crew.

 Notice the goldfish Selah was carrying, I pitched a fit about everyone having snacks during the hike, dropping peanut shells etc.  We may as well as been calling "here bears, here bears!"

 By the place we rented, notice I don't have the house in the picture, the scenery was much more impressive!

 The falls were all beautiful.

 The boys (and Layken) all went backpacking and on the way back without them we saw a black bear!  There was a traffic jam of people taking pictures and I sent my Mom out to take a picture, she went to tell Leah in her car what it was and who did I watch run past my car but Selah and Ainsley to see!  Great, another wonderful parenting moment for me!  Did I mention that I also let my kids jump into the rapids while rafting on the Yellowstone River?  Jack will post their campsite pictures from his camera soon.

 The big kids and adults also went up Mt Washburn while my Mom and I took the little ones home (and saw another bear on the way!) and during the 6 mile round trip they saw a lot of mountain goats up there.  Brad actually got out the bear spray for this guy, I guess he looked a little intimidating.

 At the top!

 Our last night we had a fire and hung out.

 Post backpacking/camping, look at those feet!  Levi says "look mine are the cleanest!"  Can you believe they even had socks and tennies on?

 On the way home we stopped at Little Bighorn and Devils Tower.

Selah didn't even look at Devil's Tower, she went straight to her new friends and stayed right here the entire time, we had to drag her away.  This week we are busy getting ready for Jack's party!  His birthday was yesterday and has been busy since playing with his new bow and arrow and pellet gun.  Wonderful... yet another great parenting moment.  Jack just yelled in "Mom, we found out the pellet gun won't kill anyone or even seriously injure anyone!"  I better go see what happened.

Our Garden month 2

After two months we are starting to harvest!  As tasty as the cherry tomatoes are I think my favorite part is the sunflowers.

I am sorry to report that this morning after being gone for a long weekend I went to work in the garden and the raccoons had gotten past our fortress and eaten all of the corn.  There is nothing left of it but trampled stalks and empty cobs!  I am so sad, I think I'm going to let Jack hide out at night with Grandpa and take care of them once and for all.  He's been wanting to do that all summer because they've been stealing the bird seed and I may just let him now.  No corn on the cob for us this year, at least not from our garden. At least they left everything else alone, for now.  

Jester Park

Yesterday we went to a natural playscape at Jester Park I heard about and have been wanting to go to.

 It was super hot but we stayed cool most of the time in the water.

 This is so Luke.

 Right by the playscape there is an area with Elk and Buffalo, they were trying to keep cool too, at least the ladies were.

 Mom and Dad joined us for a picnic (it was my birthday)!

 Jack was proud of his rock dam.

 I should have brought a suit for her.

 There was also a grass maze.

 Trees to climb on,

 and in!

And on the way driving out we also saw the buffalo!