My Crazy Life as a Farmers Wife

Judith Gap Graduation

This weekend, David's cousin, Shane, graduated from Judith Gap High School. He was one of four graduates in the tiny Montana town. Our whole family drove up for the special occasion! It was great to visit with the Bairds and our family band played at Shane's graduation party...practically the whole town showed up! On the way home, we took the kids through Yellowstone National Park. It was a fun marathon vacation!

Birthday Boy & 3-Day Getaway

My one and only son, Russell, turned nine years old on Monday. I can't believe how the time flies...but I love every moment I have with him! We celebrated his birthday with family and then we hit the road first thing the next morning to go visit my sister, Tawsha, and her kids in the Boise area.

1. Russ & his little cousin, McKarlee 2. Russ and his best buds/cousins at his birthday party 3. Russ with his new skateboard he got for his birthday 4. A birthday trip to Chuck E. Cheese's 5. A strawberry tart for the birthday boy at Panera 6. The little girls talked us into taking them to Build-A-Bear 7. Posing with their new stuffed animals 8. Happy Meals at the park for dinner 9. Kate & Adi riding on the path 10. The kids all riding their scooters on the pathway 11. Lily posing for mom 12. Kate & McKarlee blowing on dandelions, making a wish 12. Visiting the aquarium 13. Grace & McKarlee riding in the car 14. El Gallo Giro for lunch (2 adults and 7 kids). The craziest part, is that a couple of older ladies came up to us and said we had the best behaved children they have ever seen. Must have been a lucky moment for us ;) 15. Hanging out in the park with cousins.

Rocky Mountain Regionals & A Road Trip

Towards the end of August, we took Grace & Russ to the Rocky Mountain Regionals Fiddle Contest in Casper, Wyoming. We attended the same contest last year, and made a nice road trip after the contest, so we decided to take a road trip again, covering different ground this time. We started off in Casper for the contest...

and then we hit the road, traveling mostly through the beautiful back roads of Colorado...

right after taking the photo of my kids under the Colorado sign, I headed back to the car...when I realized Russell wasn't coming, I turned around to find this...that kid climbs everything!!!

One day, we had to have a picnic for lunch because there weren't any towns big enough to find a family friendly place to eat...

we took the kids on the Royal Gorge Railroad. It was a two hour ride along the Arkansas river in the bottom of the famous Royal Gorge...

after the train ride, we went to the top of Royal Gorge, where you can find the world's largest suspension bridge.

 

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Lily was not a fan. She is afraid of heights. This is what you looked down on...you can see the railroad below that we took our train ride on earlier in the day...

Russ and Grace weren't afraid...they even did tricks for me...

David, Russ and Grace were brave souls and went on the sky coaster that hurls it's occupants over the open canyon...makes me sick just thinking about it. Russell was so brave and wanted to go...and then he closed his eyes the whole time and clung to his dad like glue...

we eventually made our way to southwestern Colorado. We went to Mesa Verde National Park to see the Cliff Dwellings...