More photos of what we have been doing!

I like to tell stories through pictures (If you haven't already noticed).  Jeff is much better at the writing part but I will sure try.

We have been pretty busy this month.  The good news is we have found some time to have fun too.  With the beginning of the school year coming I decided to invite my nieces over for a tea party.  My brother is a teacher too so I knew he was going to need a few moments to get ready for the school year as much as I needed it for my classroom. That is why I decided to have then over for the day.   I brought the girls to my house and we made tea hats, played croquet, ate some food and I drank some herb tea (the girls had lemonade and hot chocolate, I had them on hand because I had a feeling they wouldn't like the herb tea).  It was so much fun to just have a few hours to spend with them one on two.  They are really funny and I hope we try to do it again sometime.

Here we are sporting our hats that we made.  We called them fascinators.

The girls brought some of their stuffed animals to join our party.

What has taken almost all of my other time?  Well, I have been putting together my classroom.  I have made it through the first three days of school so far, but that means I have a long way to go.

My classroom book boxes.  It is a place for my kids to keep their books so they don't get lost or destroyed.

My classroom library

I was still filling their tote trays with school supplies and putting on name tags when I took this picture.

We have also been trying to get back to our normal eating routines.  After being away from home for so much of the summer it feels good to be back in my kitchen and being in charge of what I eat again.  We actually did pretty well with maintaing our weight but now we have to get back to the losing game.

Yummy brochette grilled on the BBQ to perfection!

Our last adventure was a hike up to Silver Lake.  Last time we tried this hike we found out that it was buried in a couple of feet of snow.  This time we actually made it to the lake and we were able to enjoy the beauty of nature.  

A view as we hiked up the mountain.

A view of the lake.

We have also been doing normal things like laundry, dishes, and mowing the lawn but we are happy being home and doing the things that we love.  I wonder what our next adventures will be?

Yellowstone 2014

This past weekend we had the opportunity to head up to West Yellowstone, Montana.

The primary purpose of this trip was to visit my little brother, Justin.  He is in the cast at the Playmill theater there.  The theater has 3 different productions that they are doing this year.  They are doing Les Miserables, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, and Beauty and the Beast.  There were very few weekends where we could go and see all 3 shows on 3 consecutive nights, but last week was one of the weeks where that would work out.  So we headed up on Thursday, and saw his shows Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

Of course, the secondary purpose of the trip was to see some beautiful nature in Yellowstone National Park.  We spent some good time exploring nature while we were there.  Here are a few of the things we experienced while there.

You can't go to Yellowstone without seeing Old Faithful.  It was both old and faithful.

Mom was standing next to the sign and said, "They should have a sign that says when it will erupt next."  We may have mocked her at that point.  Here Justin is showing us the sign that they should have.

Justin doesn't have a spouse, so he is cuddling with the sign.  But aren't we all so precious?

It's important to smoke the geyser.

In Yellowstone, the women's bathroom is primarily for robots who have one wheel instead of legs.

Justin likes to photobomb precious river selfies.

We found some waterfalls.

The shady side of this rock was nice and cool, so it was important to cuddle with it.

Quake lake is a lake created when an earthquake broke the dam.  It is filled with creepy dead trees.

Clearly I needed a selfie at quake lake.

"Selfies with wolves" sounds like a good movie title.

I even played patty cake with a bear.

Don't worry, we didn't forget to see Justin perform.  Look how precious he is!

They don't allow pictures during the show, but he was singing while people were coming in to be seated, and no one told me I couldn't get a picture of that.

During intermission he was selling concessions.  He even gave me free popcorn.

Of course, we didn't spend the whole time playing in nature and watching great drama.  Mom made sure to put us to work.  Since the cast of the Playmill is super busy running the theater, Mom thought it would be really neat to feed them all lunch on Saturday, in between shows.  It was a super neat idea, but it was also very ambitious.  She made five lasagnas, a giant salad, and a billion cookies.

She put us to work frosting all the homemade oreo cookies.

The finished product was a mighty pile of cookies.

At the theater, we all formed an assembly line to put together plates and plates and plates of food, for over 30 people.

Since we were there serving and feeding everyone, we got the chance to explore some of the backstage.  That was kind of a fun experience as well.

All in all, it was a fantastic trip.  Justin's performances were great, and mother nature's performances were just as awesome.  It was also great to spend time with family staying in a condo together.  The trip was a smashing success, but it was sure nice to sleep in my own bed last night.