Summer fun!

After a hot day of picking raspberries with my Mom and little Russ we headed back to my Mom's to have some fun with water balloons. It all started innocent enough but then one of the adults had a goofy idea. The pictures explain themselves.

Yes, somewhat inappropriate but funny non-the-less. :)

3 months old!

Colton Michael at 3 months old!

Sporting is bulldozer onsie off of http://www.etsy.com/ and his striped Babylegs.

4th of July!

We made it back to Washington in time for the 4th of July. As we have done the last few years we ended up staying home and inviting any family that didn't have anything going on which actually turns out to be quite a few. We always have a low key, relaxing day. It was nice to stay at home especially with the baby, we could stay inside and just hang out. The weather held out and stayed dry which is always nice.

Here are the kids fresh out of the bath.

Happy 4th of July!!

Silverwood here we come!

After a couple days in Yellowstone we decided to head out and start to make our way to Silverwood, which is an amusement park in Idaho.
Our last stop on the way out of the park was at a creek to let everyone stretch their legs and cool off.

Tony trying to help the kids cross the creek. Trying is the key word. :)

Colton and Hayden stretching their legs.

The Creswell Rugrats.

In the car and goofing off with my sunglasses.

A day later and at Silverwood on the carousel.

The weather was a little bit overcast so there wasn't too many people there and we were there in the middle of the week. Absolutely no lines and the kids had a blast. Tony took Hayden on a roller coaster that went 50mph and he said he loved it but didn't want to do it again. We had to talk Carsyn into to going on the log ride and one that is like you are river rafting but once she did it she wanted to go on it over and over again. We all got drenched-except baby. :)

Junior Rangers!

Right when we reached West Yellowstone Tony took the kids in to the Visitor Information Center, where Tony purchased them a Junior Ranger Booklet. Throughout our drive through Yellowstone the kids had activities to do and tasks to complete. 1-Complete four activities in the hand book for example, National Park Bingo-Visit all of the sights in any one row, Visit a Hot Spring and show how many colors you see in the water, Circle the animals that you see throughout the park, 2-Go to one program by a Ranger, 3-Hike one Yellowstone Trail, 4-Follow all of Yellowstone's for example, do not feed the animals, stay on boardwalks and trails and do not pick flowers, 5-Explain why they want to be a Junior Ranger. Carsyn wrote that she wanted to learn about animals, Hayden wrote that he loves Junior Ranger and that he wants a badge, 6-Read the Junior pledge to an adult and understand it-As a Junior Ranger, I promise to learn all I can about Yellowstone and to teach others to love and respect its beauty, its plants, and its animals. 7-Find your state on the map and put a star there. Then draw a line from tour home to Yellowstone. 8-On a map of Yellowstone trace the roads that you traveled and mark the places you stopped.

Once they completed all 8 activities they headed to a Ranger Station to turn in their work book and get their patch.

The kids showing their work books.

The Ranger presenting them with their badges in front of everyone. Carsyn got a little embarrassed.

Showing off their badges.

Way to go kiddos!!

Paint Pots, Hot Springs and Geysers!

The paint pots were by far my favorite thing in Yellowstone. During one of the Ranger presentations they had said that Yellowstone has like 70 or 80% of the earths geothermal activity just in the park, which is so amazing. Everywhere you would look there was steam coming out of the ground or boiling hot water and mud-so cool!!

I think this was Fountain Paint Pot.

Look at the steaming teal blue water.

Bubbling mud.

So happy to get their photos taken.

Colton enjoying the sights from the stroller.

These might have been taken at Grand Prismatic Springs or the Midway Geyser Basin.

Next we headed to see Old Faithful. Old Faithfuls eruption intervals have varied from 40 to 126 minutes. We luckily just walked up and a couple minutes later it erupted. Hayden was in one of his moods so I don't think we would have lasted 126 minutes.

The family walking the trail to the Artists Paintpots.

The kids and I hiked up while Tony and Colton stayed below.

Look at that crystal clear water-beautiful!

Mammoth Hot Springs.

Minerva Terrace.

The family. Unfortunately, Colton was snoozing in his stroller out of camera shot. I wish we would of at least rolled him into the the photo.