The boys will play while the girls are away.

 James has been asking to go to the skate park almost every day since Grace and Anne started school. Finally mom took the boys and they had a great time.

 Even Robert decided to get in on the action. He may only be crawling right now, but he sure does move fast sometimes.

 James is pretty fearless at the skate park. He had some pretty good wipe outs, but just kept getting up and trying again.

 Finger painting is always fun, or is it supposed to be hand painting?

 What a cute drooly little guy.

 One of my coworkers has several apple trees. We got invited over for the apple party.

 The kids and dad got to climb the trees and shake all the apples down.

Mom picked up a lot of apples while Wally told her all sorts of stories about Antartica. For payment we got all the apple crisp and fresh pressed apple juice we could eat and drink.

Sun room menagerie

 We went to Vernal a couple of weeks ago for Gabe's baptism. The cousins all had a great time playing together.

 It was great to watch cousin Gabe get baptized.

 We have had many things get trapped in our sun room this summer. This is one of the two hummingbirds that have been trapped behind the glass. We also found a bat, several butterflies and moths and many various insects.

 The kids all made lego creations for the lego exhibition at the library. Here is Anne with "The Make-up Shop".

 James is proudly displaying "The Hotel Family".

 Grace's creation is "The Helping Hospital".

 Ben, Rohan, Richard and Claire all came for a hiking and fishing trip up in the Wind River Mountains. Grace, Anne, James and I also joined them while Mom stayed home with John and Robert. We camped for two nights by the Little Popo Agie river and forged our own trail through the forest to some sweet fishing. We lost count of how many fish we caught, but we are certain it was more than 200 between the 8 of us fisherfolk. We had a great time. Be sure to put it on your calender to join us next year.

Grace and Anne started school this week. They were both a little nervous and pretty excited. The muscle man in the background is actually Anne's teacher. Anne and Grace are both making new friends and already love school.

Summer time fun

Anne had a birthday in June and turned 7.

One of her presents was hard to wrap so she went on a treasure hunt to find her new fishing pole.

 Grace and Anne did Pioneer School with our neighbor Tally for a week this summer. They learned pioneer cursive and all sorts of other fun things.

 Grace, Anne, James and Kaylee all went to swimming lessons together. They had a great time.

 Jen and the kids went to the circus while I was out of town at a conference. One of the highlights was the motorcycle guys driving around and around in a giant cage.

 We went to Idaho for a family reunion during the week of the 4th of July. Here we are on a hike up to Aldous Lake.

 All the kids had fun playing in the irrigation water at Grandma and Grandpa Butler's

 We also went camping out to Birch Creek where we had some good fishing.

We had a lot of fun activities while waiting for the Melaleuca Freedom Celebration to start in Idaho Falls.

Fried Chicken and painted faces for all.

My cousins!

 Grandma Peggy and Great Aunt Glenna both have birthdays in June so they celebrated together at North Bingham County Park.

 There were games for everyone. This one included a genuine WWII parachute.

 I bet you can't guess John's favorite part about the party.

 We also helped Granpa Butler dig a big hole in his front yard.

 Cousin Jessica and Kaylee came to visit for the week and maybe longer. We've been having lots of fun. The girls planted flowers in the barrel by the front porch.

 We built a fort for the kids to play in.

 We went for a hike up in the mountains.

 We even caught some fish. Here is Jessica with her prize brook trout.

 Anne's was equally impressive.

The new pool in the backyard is great for those hot summer days. All the girls are in the big pool while the boys decided to chill out in the little one with the water squirters.

Prehistoric Times

 Edwin got to go fishing with a friend from work and caught these two walleye. They were delicious filleted and deep fried.

 Uncle Daniel, Aunt Becca and Gordon came for a visit last week on their way to Colorado. We had a great time with them.

 Robert and Gordon are going to be great buddies.

 The morning before he left, Uncle Daniel wanted to go on a hike up to the falls. There was still a little ice on the water so he opted not to go for a swim down the natural water slide.

Grace and Anne are wearing the dresses that their Mom and Aunt Karen wore for Grandma Fern's funeral when they were little. Grace is getting too big for Aunt Karen's old dress so we decided to take it to her when we visited Vernal this week.

We had fun going on a hike with cousin Lauren and cousin Gabe at Dinosaur National Monument and visiting the Utah Field House of Natural History.

 

Here we are at the quarry at Dinosaur National Monument. Anne wanted to take her bone back home with us, but the park ranger said, "No."

 

Jen and the kids went to play at the Fowler's during some visiting teaching. Brother Fowler made these boats for their grand kids to play on.

Grace and Anne had a field trip to end their year of home school. We went to Thermopolis, WY and visited the Wyoming Dinosaur Center. We got to go up to the quarry and dig for real fossils. Next to Anne's left shoulder is a bone, probably from a diplodocus. You can see a little bit of whiteout on the fossil labeling it bone number 1615. It was logged in the official book as being found by Edwin Butler. Grace and Anne also found some fossil bones while they were digging. The other big white chunks are other fossils covered with plaster of paris and burlap to protect them while they are completely excavated.