Wisconsin Trip

These are a little out of order as this trip was actually in July. Never the less, I wanted to share some of the pictures. Nicholas got a whole week of nothing but trains. We took Amtrak, the metra, visited a train display at the botanical gardens and had a personal tour of an wonderful train display owned by one of Dad and Beth's friends.

Dad, Beth and Nicholas

The entire backyard was one big train display. Nicholas wanted to re-landscape our backyard. Everyone was so patient with him and he got to run all of the trains. He would have stayed ALL DAY!

GoodBye Minnetonka, Our last trip of the season

Last weekend was our last camping trip of the summer, to our favorite place, Porcipine Campground by Bear Lake in Idaho. We had 3 campsites with 9 people. Our normal hiking trail was closed because of prescribed burns (ask me about that story later) so we had decided to visit Bloomington Lake. The pictures of the lake are below.

We found a poor broken tree by the campsite and decided to have the kids decorate it. It got to spend its last days as the official camp tree before going to tree heaven.

Last day of the camping trip. What a dirty motley crew. You need a shave Donnie!

It is firefighter Pat correcting geometry homework and entertaining the dogs. Is ther a fire somewhere?

Hyrum Camping Trip

Our Labor Day adventure began with a trip to Hyrum Lake for Camping and boating. The kids were anxious to use the new float tube behind the boat. This was the trip where I tried unsuccessfully to water ski again. There sure was a difference between 18 and 43, boy I felt old the next day. Here are some pictires of the Nicholas and Jordan enjoying themselves.

Thumbs up means faster Mark. When are we going to start?

Whoo Hoo!!

Back To School

It was 7:15 am and Nicholas was ready for school. He looked so handsome in his school uniform with his new haircut.

He arrived at school on time and didn't want his Mom to even walk him in. I however insisted and took more pictures before taking him to his classroom.

There were 20 eager students in the classroom all ready to use their new pencil boxes. Notice that Nicholas gets to sit right next to the teacher. This is certain to put an end to his talking (okay maybe not).

Poor Mrs. Platz, is it recess yet?

The Train Men

Nicholas and Papa went to a train show in Evanston. Nicholas got his official Hostler shirt complete with his embroidered name. Isn't he handsome!

Camp at Yellowstone

All the comforts of home, even the sewing machine. The kids had fun helping Nanie sew. Not so sure Nanie enjoyed it quite as much.

We had all kinds of weather. This was a torrential down pour which was followed by dime-sized hail. I lost the trailer awning in a wind gust the day before. The kids enjoyed making snow balls out of the hail. We had a snow ball fight well past dark.

Old Faithful and Geyser Basin

Nana and Nicholas waited patiently for Old Faithful to erupt. It was so hot Nana had to buy a hat and Nicholas stayed in her shade.

Nicholas at geyser basin

Vacation

The Wakefields and the Williams were off on another camping adventure. We had rain, hail heat, wind and a bunch of other excitement.

Bootsie is our newest family member. Nicholas does love his cats.

School is about to start

Trying on uniforms, new shoes and school supplies are the business of the day and yes, that includes button shirts. School starts on the 18th of August and both Nicholas and I are trying to get ready.