Yellowstone/Time with Kollers

Pictures from the trip to Yellowstone

Finally, pictures from the trip

Here the kids were excited about going on vacation. They had to show off their special vacation shirts we made.

I'm back.

Well, I am alive even though I have not published anything for 4 weeks! It was sad to see that on someone's blog :( Anyway, we are back from vacation, things are unpacked and cleaned up, and the kids started school today, so now I have no excuse for not writing in here again. We had a wonderful two week vacation that took us through nine states and had us sleeping in eight different places. Amazingly the kids did great! It was fun making our trip to Utah to see our family into more of a tourist-like vacation. We saw Mt. Rushmore, Devil's Tower (the rock from the movie "Close Encounters of the Third Kind") and Yellowstone (with my family) during the first part of the trip. We then spent some time at my parent's house where my sister took us horseback riding and hiking (very fun). We then traveled to Jeff's parent's house where we stayed one night before going up to their cabin. The cabin is always a favorite for the kids because they get to run around getting dirty and eating junk food all day. They also loved riding the 4-wheelers and shooting guns with Grandpa. Taylor even learned to drive the 4-wheelers on his own, with me as a passenger. That was an interesting ride, but he did pretty good. After the cabin we went back to the Blair's for a day, and then took off for Lava Hot Spring, ID. It was so fun to see all of the family and watch the kids play with their cousins. In all, it was a wonderful trip which we didn't want to end. It was actually hard getting back into the regular daily activities again - thus the reason I have not blogged until now. Anyway, I will post some pictures soon. We got a new external hard drive to free up space on our computer for all of the pictures we took. Once I learn how to use it I will get pictures out. Hopefully that will be soon.

Swimming

We went swimming at Gage Park this past Friday. Jeff got off work early so he could go with us, since swimming at a public pool with five kids is not something I'm willing to verture alone. We all had a lot of fun. Even Carter seemed to enjoy the water. The coolest thing was Taylor decided to try jumping off the diving board, and he did it. After the first time, he did it again and again and again, etc. He ended up jumping off the high dive, and then off the high platform. I then had to jump off the platform too, since I couldn't let my nine-year-old son do something I'd never done. I only did it once, and it was a little too high for me. I must be getting old. Anyway, I was really proud of him.