A day at West Yellowstone

We visited the museum in West Yellowstone. The blizzard outside forced people in to escape the crazy June weather.







We took last Saturday and spent the afternoon there. We also took the kids to the Playmill Theatre. We has some time to kill before the play started so we went to the IMAX and watched a movie on bears. Nate and Kacie made a friend with this one.



Zach thought he could take on the ferocious grizzly--you wanna a piece o' me?

We are just waiting to go into the theatre here. A moose tried to jump on us! :)

We had a nice overall day there. It is nice to be close to some of these fun places. I remember thinking our camping trip to Yellowstone National Park when I was little was a huge deal. Now its practically in our backyard. What a treat to have such a beautiful place a couple hours away!

Happy Birthday Kacie!

Kacie turned 3 on Monday. She wasn't quite sure what that meant until she saw her cake and presents--then it was all about her.

We told Kacie to hold up 3 fingers for this picture. This was the best she could do. Guess we'll work on that.

We took the kids to the circus that night to celebrate. Nate and Kacie got to ride on an elephant. When they got off Nate said--that was awesome!

Kacie was more excited about these 88 cent rubber toys than anything. She was kind enough to share her cake with the bunny.

The best chocolate frosting

I found this recipe awhile ago and have used it all the time since. I have always been "frosting challenged" and could never quite make a good one. This one is great and can't be messed up! Enjoy!

Sour Cream Chocolate Frosting

1 cup semi-sweet chips (may also use semi-sweet baking squares)
1/4 cup butter (real butter)
1/2 cup sour cream
1 tsp. vanilla
1/4 tsp. salt
2 1/2 -2 3/4 cups powdered sugar

Melt chips and butter in microwave for 45 seconds. Blend in sour cream, vanilla and salt. Gradually beat in powdered sugar until desired spreading consistency.

Random thoughts

We got a new addition to the family a couple of weeks ago. Haley has been asking for bunnies for about 2 years now. We finally broke down and got a couple--Rosie and Thumper. They have been fun for all the kids and Haley has taken great care of them. (we'll see how long that lasts)

Haley and Rosie


Today is the first day of summer vacation. At 8am this morning I was already getting complaints of being bored--this is going to be a long summer! I think they are going to miss the old neighborhood friends and grass to play on. Some days they actually come up with some fun things to do. Like the other day they took turns pedalling the bike while the other two got pulled on their Heeleys.
They had a lot of fun with this game. We finally got our drive-way paved this morning so they will have even more room to Heeley around.

Fun in the Sun

Today was the hottest day of the year and since we don't have grass, this little pool on the patio was about all we could do right now. I picked it up this morning and thought that Nate and Kacie might at least have some fun with it. I guess the older kids aren't too big for it, either. I thought it was really funny how they all crowded into the wading pool. They all stood there because first of all, no room to sit down and secondly because the water was sooo cold--you know how it is. I brought pitchers of hot water from the house to try to take the edge off.

Make room for Kacie!

Brayden and Kacie--bathing beauties!

Haley finally gets brave enough to sit down in the ice cold water.

After a while I think they all managed to sit in the water. The fun was kind of spoiled when Tess jumped in, thinking it was an open invitation, and got the water all muddy!

5 th Grade Play

Zach's 5th grade put on a play last night--"California Here We Come". I took a couple of pictures of him in action.

First of all, this is Haley who wanted to sit in the front row and so she just made herself comfortable between two strangers. I thought it was funny that she would do that. She also did that at stake conference because she couldn't see.
This is Zach as Kuskov--a Russian explorer. You can't see but he wore my black knee high boots for this costume.
Here he is playing an astronaut--didn't quite catch how an astronaut tied in with western expansion into California--oh well. I found this white coverall at the paint store and he added the detail.

It was a really cute play and it didn't last too long--which was great!:)

The Robinson Recital

The kids played in the music festival this past weekend. They all did fantastic. I thought I would share just part of the songs they played for festival. They all worked really hard and are so glad to have it over with! I think they are looking forward to a little vacation from practicing during the summer :)