What a beautiful place! 

We took our annual Island park trip and had loads of fun!

Thursday morning we wandered into West Yellowstone and did some sight seeing

Our first stop was the Fountain Paint Pots

then we drove the Firehole Lake loop and saw this peerrty waterfall

 later that day we went and waded in the Buffalo and did some fishing

the kids caught minnows and skipped some rocks.. 

and Syd caught her first fish

way to go Sydney!

dad caught a bird! sad :(

The Next day. 

 ::Friday::

We went and floated the Big Springs river

The boys LOVE to paddle

we had fun doing some kayaking this year

we pulled over for a quick lunch break and the kids played in the shallow water

Trying to get a nice family photo, Reese being herself, she's going through this awesome phase of throwing fits and screaming... happened too regularly on this trip

and her 30 seconds later... just as fine as could be... crazy girl!

The boys skipping rocks

camp fire at night

::Saturday::

We drove into West Yellowstone again, we were going to spend some more time on the river but it was raining, so plan B worked out great too!!

First Stop

Gibbon Falls

Then Artist Paintpots

Thanks Uncle Matt ;)

The whole clan, minus pregnant Kara who happily volunteered to take the picture

cutest cousins

Reese - Woodrow - Avery

The drive to Mammoth Hot Springs

Parker being cute with Reesey... 

She was uuhm a little difficult I guess you could say, about 40-50% of the time, the sleepless nights and no naps were not doing her any favors... 

she has good brothers and luckily  is loved by all cause the screaming and the tears were not cool or fun..... at all

This "Dangerous Ground" sign is everywhere, warning you not to step off the path, or else you'll end up like this boy in the picture, you can't see the part of the picture of the boys mother pointing and screaming too, we thought the picture a bit harsh, but I guess it could be a harsh reality if you step into the boiling water! I told the kids to copy the face of the poor boiling boy~

we had a grand ol' time in Island Park

and Yellowstone!

Did lots of fun stuff...

and saw a MOOSE! Deer, Elk, Bison, Bald Eagles, and other cool stuff!

My favorite month of year!! 

As tradition goes, We went to the firework show at Eaglewood Golf Course, with all the wild fires there has been this year, we weren't sure if the show would go on, but yay it did...

a slight hiccup, Reese barfed all over the blanket,  

Nasty, with a capital N...

{sorry Kalpal} your blanket :/

there was one good thing that came out of it... no pun intended, I learned she actually is eating food, (She is a terrible eater, I feel like she NEVER eats) but she did INdeed barf up FOOD!

Bron had been sick and apparently Reese got the bug from her brother... 

this picture was actually just her playing around, she acted fine before & after she threw up... luckily shes got a good daddy who was willing to take her home so we could all stay and watch the show!

football on the golf course

morning of the 4th...  

we had to split up the days activities since Reese was sick, it was a total bummer but worked out ok... Brad took the boys in the morning and afternoon... he went to breakfast with Wade's at Brighton {ski resort} and then they went swimming at Solitude! They had soooo much fun!! Came home worn out..

luckily they got a second wind, we went to Bevan's for a delicious BBQ, yard games and a neighborhood firework show, {mostly provided by Bruce}

The whole clan... minus a few, but don't we look cute in our  

RED * 

WHITE *

  & 

BLUE

 

**look happy**

This last picture sums it up! Too much fun, they were worn right out, snuggled on grammy and papas bed!!

Hershey Track Meet

Parker participated in the Hershey Track Meet. I was looking at the Sandy City website for things to do this summer and ran across this, I HAD to sign him up, I ran track as a youth and LOVED it and Parker is a fast little bugger so I knew we had to give it a go... This first pic is him at the local track meet that was held at Juan Diego High School

He ran the 50m and the 100m dash and did the standing long jump

I think he was pretty nervous, I was too,... the unknown of how he will measure up against the other kids...

turned out he did pretty good! He took first in both events!!!

It was very exciting and he was on cloud 9!!!

Because he got first, he qualified for the District Meet at Murray High School

There he took took First in the 50m

He actually tied for 2nd in the 100m and had to have a 'run off'... he took 2nd in the run off which was 3rd overall

 Woo Hoo! Way to go Park!! 

Only the 1st and 2nd place Winners go on to the next meet

1st place at the District Level qualified him to go onto State in the 50m

The State Meet was June 30th it was supposed to be at Herriman High School but there was a fire out in Herriman so they moved it to West Jordan... 

Sitting in the Bull Pin waiting for the race to start...

He ended up taking 5th place...

His time for this race was 8:10, compared to his previous time 7:55, the kid who took first at this race had a time of 7:80... as a mother, I pay attention to these things...  anyways I found the 'times',, "interesting....".. just sayen...

 I felt bad for the kids it wasn't a good start to the race... the gun didn't go off 3 or 4 times to begin with and it was super hot because the race was pushed back and hour cause the change of location...

 In the End....

We're very proud of him, he did such an awesome job, and he had fun!! He said he wants to do it again next year, so I'm sure we will. 

Way to go Parker!!! You are awesome!!!!