Henry is TWO!!!

Little cousin Henry turned TWO at the beginning of August.  He had a really fun dinosaur party--but when it was time to sing, he got a little startled.  :)

 Isn't this boy darling!??!

 The dinosaur egg hunt about to begin...

Cousins!

Making Room...

Now that we've found out that Little Lochhead #3 is a sweet little boy, we've been sadly giving away all of our baby girl things...  Six bins of Gracie's too-small clothes have found new homes this summer and we recently waved goodbye to her darling little ladybug crib set.  Such great memories...

Make way for more BOY STUFF!!!

Our Incredible Kids

Joshy's First Dentist Visit

He did it!  Sat in the chair and let the dentist and hygienist look inside his mouth to count his teeth.  Then he got fluoride painted on his teeth.  A brave first visit!

Gracie's the pro with the shades on.  We'll have to remember to go in August next year--they were having luau days!  We all got slushies on the way out the door!  Now that's my kind of dentist!  :)

Our Brookie

We got to have Brooke all to ourselves for a day when her mom worked and she had a Spokane soccer practice.  Our kids love to snuggle up with her.

Gracie asked today when Brooke was going to high school.  I told her that she's already been going to high school FOR TWO YEARS!  (Where does the time go?!?)  She wanted to know what school was after high school and I told her college...and then she figured out that she'll be SEVEN when Brooke goes to college.  That made me feel better.  But then I realized that that will really be a BLINK and Brooke will be off to college and my daughter will be in second grade...

I don't want to talk about it anymore.  Let's go back to watching Brother Bear on the couch...  :)

Yellowstone, the 2nd Half!

Day three we drove south through the park to visit the Grand Tetons.  We'd been hearing about this park for ages, as one of Granny and Pappy's favorite parks to adventure in.  We were not disappointed! Guysers in Yellowstone were pretty cool, but this park's peaks were so majestic!

We stopped at a lodge and spent time on their deck...this is where we spotted the first moose!  This is also where Joshy got his Spiderman "guy" that entertained him the rest of the trip.  (Gracie got a little stuffed fox whose name kept switching throughout the trip...)

Then Jeff drove us south to Jenny Lake where we took a taxi boat across the lake to access a day trail.

We hiked up a half mile to a waterfall--where Joshy's highlight was peeing outside with Daddy and Gracie's highlight was eating our lunch on a huge boulder by the water.  This pregnant hiking lady was excited about the SEAT and the FOOD.  :)

We continued south through the Tetons to Jackson Hole.  We'd heard a lot about this place from Papa Scott, who does business here.  It was gorgeous!  Cute little ski town with shops and atmosphere.  We spent an arm and a leg (and an kidney or two?) buying tram tickets up to the top of the mountain.  There was an amazing view--people ski down this mountain?!?--in every direction...and a ski bum shop at the top that sold waffles and ice cream bars.  It was quite windy, so we didn't stay up there long enough to get our full money's worth...but it was gorgeous!

We trekked back to West Yellowstone that night outside of the park to save some time...that's where we saw our 2nd moose!  We were weary travelers, tired from our days' adventures, so we devoured a delivered pizza and hit the hay (after we watched the second of the Ocean's 11 trilogy).  We vowed to stay in West Yellowstone to relax (and not step foot in the van!) the next day.  :)

Our last day started in the swimming pool.  Auntie is always up for a swim with these two little fish!

 Then we sauntered down through the shops in West Yellowstone (and then back for naps!)...

 ...took the park sign pics, FINALLY...

...and ended our day with an outdoor picnic in the park and swimming at the popular swimming hole along the river.  I was the only non-swimmer--Jeff even jumped off a rock cliff just to give my heart a workout.  Gracie LOVED the water...and Joshy tolerated it for a few minutes.  Then he became my lap warmer.

We had such a great time with our Julie, seeing a gorgeous park!  No better place to spend a few days with her..."all to ourselves!"  We love these trips with her!  Where are we going next year?!?  :)

Yellowstone National Park with Auntie Julz

We have a million pictures from our fun five days with Julie in Yellowstone and it's taken me weeks to decide how to pare them down!  I've finally decided to post half of them so that I could gain some momentum to get the second half done.  :)

We had a great time with Julz!  She arranged for us to stay in her family's timeshare in West Yellowstone, so we didn't have to mess with hauling a trailer or camping.  It was so nice!

We saw our fair share of wildlife!  The kids loved the "HUNDREDS" of bison...we saw 2 moose, both outside of the park!...lots of elk...and a couple of bears.  Julie started a tally sheet with the kids in the car, and they were in charge of marking down a tally when we saw an animal.  They loved this!

Our first full day in the park we decided to do the north loop.  It was a full day in the car, with lots of stops to view paint pots, geysers, and water.  This was our first little mile hike on the boardwalks around the painted pots.

Our family is into "silly shots" and we can rarely get a nice smile for pictures.  So all week, we took a silly pic and then a serious pic.  The silly ones turned out better!









All day we promised Gracie that she could get her feet wet, so once we got to the east entrance of the park, we stopped for a little refreshment.  Rock throwing, water wading, and even falling into the creek...Gracie had wet pants!  She didn't complain one bit--it must've been hot!
And then these pics were taken at Mammoth Falls, where we had dinner that night on our way home.

Daddy couldn't help taking a dunce cap picture of Gracie...

And Joshy gave his best snarl for Auntie...

The last stop was a port-a-potty for Jeff.  Yes, he's taking a book in.  :)

Day Two's destination was to Old Faithful...and we hit a momentous moment in our van's lifespan...

More painted pots to walk around...

This was a little preview for Old Faithful...

And here she is, the mecca of the park.  She's old.  She's faithful.  She's crowded with tourists!  :)

"Oh, my.  We'd better stop whining because some families are video taping and they'll wonder who the whiny kids are in their video..."  :)

When you watch this video you have to count how many continuous pictures the tourist next to us takes!  Wow.  Wonder what he'll do with those zillion pictures of a spouting geyser!  :)

More to come!  :)

Goofballs

Silly.  Creative.  Giggling.  Upstairs.  Downstairs.  Lots of clothes.  On the floor.  Silly faces.  Hey Mom.  Hey Dad.  Look at me.

What Happens in Vegas...

It's true that Las Vegas has never been on our list of "must-see" destinations...but when the opportunity arose for two parents to take a 3-day childless exploration of the city--and two kids getting to be spoiled by both sets of grandparents--we jumped at the chance!  Jeff had a school training, and I went along to see if I could figure out what to do with myself without children to chase.  It was such a fun time!  We got to stay at the Mirage, home of the Beatle's "Love" Cirque du Soleil--and we got to see the show!  IT WAS SO AMAZING!!!

The Venetian...

In front of Caesar's Palace...

The David.  The Jeff.

The Bellagio fountain was our favorite.  The song we heard was "Time to Say Goodbye" by Andrea Bocelli--so amazingly beautiful!

The Mirage volcano...we saw this at the end of our first marathon night in Vegas, and I laughed when I found myself thinking that this exploding visual effect wasn't as amazing as...the immense fountains that where choreographed with music selections...the river flowing through "Venice"...the statues at Caesar's Palace that reach up five stories...  After ONE DAY I'd grown accustomed to the extravagance of this city!

Our second favorite was this stone man.  We sat for 20 minutes just watching him mess with people as they walked by...quite entertaining!

The conference co-workers with their Hangover friend, found on the Strip.  :)

Dueling Pianos--one night we went to this bar in New York, New York with the rest of the Rogers teachers and their wives.

And the last day we walked down to see the rest of the strip before we left.  We ate at the little cafe at Paris and then took the tram to the Luxor, Mandalay Bay, and Excalibur.  It was SO HOT that we took very few pictures and raced for the indoor walking and the shade.  :)

All-in-all, we had a wonderful three days.  My favorite quote that sums up our time came from my husband after we'd seen so many highlights on the first day:  "I feel DIRTY for liking Las Vegas--but it's not the dirty Las Vegas I had imagined..."  :)  Thanks to the amazing grandparents for spoiling our kids for us in our leave!!!  We were quite spoiled, too!