Henry's Lake!

Over Memorial day weekend the Jones' had a family reunion. Everyone was there except for Jon and Mel's family and they just moved to Nebraska, so I think they were a little tired of being in the car and traveling. Next year, maybe all of us can be there! We drove to Henry's Lake and rented a lodge that had 11 beds in it! It had 4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms and plenty of space for all of us to sleep in a bed and stretch out. I think even some of the beds were empty, ( that's amazing!) It was a cold rainy weekend but we didn't let that spoil our fun.

Here is McKenly and Caitlin having some fun! There are a lot of pictures so get ready for the show!

There was a hot tub right out side the door so the boys thought that was pretty fun

We celebrated Rainee's birthday and she made this great Cold Stone concoction. It was German Chocolate cake and she mixed brownie, pecans, coconut, and Carmel into chocolate ice cream and it was "To die for".

On Saturday the fishing season opened and these die hard fishermen were up at the crack of dawn to get a jump on those biting fish. I think it was 36 degrees outside but this didn't slow them down. Don't you love Nate's "stretchy pants!"  We just wished we looked that good in them!

Here is the crew ready to go! Kace is still in his pajama's, he just wanted to get in  the picture.

Yes, it was freezing!

Later on in the day it warmed up so we went outside exploring, here are the 6 ban dido's doing what they do best, posing and climbing!

The fishing was good even though it was so cold they had a difficult time holding on to their poles!

Here is Rainee and McKenly, I have a hard time getting a good picture of McKenly because she loves to pull these funny faces and when she looks at the camera she starts to go cross eyed and her eyes get really big trying to focus on what I am doing!

On Saturday afternoon the fishermen were froze so we decided to go into Yellowstone Park. At Old Faithful it was snowing until right before the geyser was to erupt. Evan wouldn't look at the camera because he was afraid he would miss the geyser going off. He stared at it for ten minutes watching very intently and kept asking if it had gone off yet.  Then right before it erupted he said"Grandma I need to go potty!"  We convinced him to hold it because he would miss the whole show! Doug then quickly ran him to the bathroom.

Kace and Carson striking a funny pose. We had to have our traditional ice cream in the lodge, even though it was cold, the ice cream is delicious, Thanks, Grandpa. A funny story about the ice cream. The boys all had their cones and went out by the large rock fireplace in the lodge to finish eating their ice cream. I looked over to see Tydon on his hands and knees licking the floor. ( I wish I would have had a picture!) I guess he dropped some of his ice cream on the floor and didn't want to miss any of the goodness. Rachel then yelled at him to stop! and then Kace who was standing next to him said, "It's okay he learned it from my Dad!' Then Nate said, "No, I just do it on the counter, not on the floor!" It was pretty funny to see the old people's faces sitting in the chairs by them. Mary and Isaac were sitting in the chairs by all of the boys and the people around them commented on how many boys they had. ( They thought all of them were theirs!)

Here we are in our familiar picture taking place!

Here is a cute headband that Jessica gave McKenly.

Grandpa and McKenly.

After church on Sunday, Oh, by the way, in the Island Park ward on a holiday Sunday there was about 3500 people there! We saw the Taggert's from Liberty and they were all there with their family as well. It was good to see them, their family all grew Up! On Sunday afternoon we had a game marathon playing Bang! and the Great Dalmuti! Sorry, Mary for shooting you in the game, Bang but I was pretty sure you were the Renegade and the Sheriff can't take his chances with those type of people.

Isaac played a great "Pecan" in the game the Great Dalmuti. Pecan was the word Kace used for "Peon". I decided if Isaac was the "Pecan" I might as well be the coconut!

This out side the Lodge where we stayed and the gazebo thing to the left is the hot tub.

The sun came out and we decided to take a walk.

The lake is beautiful and there are tons of pelicans.

The boys loved looking at the fish, there were many that you could see from the bank that were spawning.

Here is Bryce checking out the "Dead Tish Head". I think he is going to grow up to be a plumber!

Mac and Jessica jumping with the boys, there is that plumber Bryce again.

We had to have a silly group photo, those are the ones that we do best!

I didn't realize how much like Father, like Son, these two really are. They even sleep the same!

Layne caught a fish!

This is the before picture!!

This is the after picture! Caitlin had a hard time getting out of the boat and she got dumped in the lake. Sorry, Caitlin! Now it is funny but it scared her pretty good.

Grandpa and Tydon.

The Fishermen.

Evan is determined he is not going to look at Grandma's camera!

Tydon was so cute with McKenly, here he is rocking her to sleep.

WE had a great  time and it was so fun to vacation all together!

Happy Birthday Rainee!

Today is Rainee's birthday! She is the oldest of my three daughters and is the wife to Doug and the mother to 4 boys and now a girl! She lives in Reno Nevada and we wish she was closer but she makes every effort to come and be with us, which we are very happy for.

She is a great Mom and her house is always full of lots of activity (you can imagine with 4 boys.)

She is always busy with taking her boys to all of their sporting events and many of her days are full of repetition. I think all Mom's at sometime or another feel like they are in the movie "Ground hog Day".

This last picture is a picture of 4 generations of first born daughters. We are so happy that she got a first born daughter! We love Rainee and hope that her day is full of happiness and birthday surprises and if she doesn't get to celebrate her birthday we will help her celebrate this weekend!
Have a great day Rainee!

Happy Birthday Dad!!

Today is my Dad's birthday and we all want to wish him a very HAPPY DAY!

If you know my Dad you already know what a great man he is. He has always been a man I look up to, I guess literally because he has always been taller than me. I wish I could have known him when he was younger because seeing old pictures of him he was a real heart breaker. He is still the most handsome grandpa, great grandpa, and Dad out there. We all love his stories that he tells, especially those about the 3 toe grizzly and the grand kids all have memories of helping him with the sheep. He is a great athlete and still can outwork anyone his age. I learned my work ethics from him and I will always be grateful for that.

He now spends time with his great grandchildren and they love him as much as his grandchildren do. He has a great heritage and it just keeps growing and we will always be so grateful for him and the great example he has been to all of us!

So, Happy Birthday DAD! Hope you have many more birthdays with us!!

Ellis Island

After we finished at the statue of Liberty we took the ferry over to Ellis Island. That was quite fascinating to see how the immigrants who came to America in the early history of our nation were treated.

It is quite a grand building and I wish I would have known if any of my relatives came to America through this island because I would have loved to look them up on the computers they had there.

Does it look like Caitlin is holding up the world! The statistics and displays in the museum there were quite interesting and I really liked the one below where the pictures of people from all over the world are then changed to a picture of the American flag depending on where you are standing in the room.

See, here is the flag view.

The brick work and tile in this building is amazing, I don't know if you can see the tile on this arched ceiling but someone had to probably stand on there head to put each of those little tiles on the ceiling and make sure they stayed where they were supposed to stay!

Here is a view of the Island on the ferry.

And here is another view of that grand hall, I am supposing all of those immigrants were herded into. I am glad that I was born in America and didn't have to go through this process. I guess I am glad this isn't how

we still do it.

More of New York

We visited the Statue of Liberty and I think that was one of my favorite parts of New York. It could have been that it was a beautiful day and I was feeling very patriotic, but there is just something about seeing that grand lady in the water greeting every one who comes into the harbor.  She is quite majestic and the ferry ride to her was something else too.

I thought these statue want to Be's were quite interesting and when we went to take a picture of them they wanted $5 so I didn't get a picture with them but I had already snapped this top picture so I guess you get to see all three of them. The ferry ride was fun but Caitlin was afraid she would get sick. The water was pretty choppy but we got up on the top deck and breathing all of that fresh salty air made it okay.

We kind of look like statues, don't you think? I should have put my torch up high!

On our way to Lady Liberty we went by Ground Zero and  that is quite the sobering sight as well and it is quite mind boggling to think what destruction took place at this sight. It is still under construction and there is a small museum with a replica of what will be built in this massive hole.

We had to try some real New York pizza and I must admit it is some of the best tasting pizza's I have ever eaten. Maybe I was really hungry, but I think it tastes sooo good because it is made from such fresh ingredients. The one with the fresh mozzarella, fresh basil, and fresh tomato was my favorite, it was delicious!

Here is a shot of Times Square, I have more pictures but the uploading is very slow tonight so I will have to try and upload some more tomorrow. I have a lot of pictures and I know I will never get them all on here so I have had to pick and choose which ones are my favorites. I am thinking I need to make a New York book to include them all. 

New York, New York!!!

We were in New York this last week (doesn't that just SOUND fun). We actually are still here, but now we are just 3 hours south so we are in Pennsylvania. I will have to post the rest of the pictures another day because it is getting late and there is just so much to tell you about. We flew into New York on Thursday and when we checked into our hotel this is what we saw looking out our window, these pictures were taken through the window. It just looks like NEW YORK!

We had to figure out the subway system and it was only a half a block from the hotel and when we got on it was 12 minutes to Times Square! Getting on and getting there was easy, it was getting back that was the problem. ( we had a little trouble figuring it out on our way home that night.) We were on the subway at midnight but we finally figured it out and made our way back to our beds for the night. Don't worry the 2 of us felt safe at all times and we decided that if we could survive the subways at midnight we should be able to survive whatever there was in New York for the next few days.

I kind of was fascinated by the architecture of the buildings and all of the cool fire escapes. I think I could make a picture book of just fire escapes!

We made the tours through all of the recognizable names and buildings. You know it is just sooo cool to be able to see the buildings and places that you see on TV and in the movies.

We made the trip up to the top of Empire State building and even though it was a little breezy and rain was drizzling it was great because it scared everyone away and we pretty much had the place to ourselves,(that is a hard thing to do in New York City!) The view was fantastic! We looked for the little boys back pack that he left on the top, but I think they already had come back for it.(Sleepless in Seattle,)

We had to try all of the different modes of transportation, cabs, subways, bus, walking, and of course the top of a two Decker tour bus. It is amazing that 6 million people work in New York and they still can get to work on time. The traffic is something else! 

It was fun to walk the streets and see how the people and tourists interact. We decided the as tourists that we were definitely the minority as American tourists. Whenever we sat down and then would listen to the people sitting next to us it seemed that they were always speaking another language. You know it is funny, people are all the same wherever they come from and it is very difficult to tell where people are from until they open their mouths. Oh, do you like our sunglasses in the above picture, we were feeling pretty proud of our $5 dollar Gucci shades!

You can't come to New York and not see Central Park, and until you see it you do not have any idea how big it actually is (866 acres is a lot of space!)

We had to go shopping and check out Bloomingdale's but we decided our $5 dollar sunglasses were a great deal when you see the duplicates in Bloomingdale's and they are $500!!! I've got more to show you but I am going to bed! We have been tripping it for 3 days and I am tired. See you later!

Happy Birthday Caitlin!!

Today my baby turns 21! Wow, does that ever make me feel old! She can't beleive that she is 21 either! I had to post some of these pictures to show what a tiny little baby she was. The one below was taken when she was 3 months old and I put her next to a doll so you could really see how tiny she was. She stayed a baby for a long time because she stayed so small. When she was 9 months old she  was still fitting into her newborn clothes she actually wore out the knees in some of her newborn sleepers because she was crawling every where.

This next picture is when she was 6 weeks old and is of her in her blessing dress. She pretty much got lost in the dress.This last year she has had some struggles with some medical problems and I think we have, or the Dr.'s have finally figured out what she needs to do to keep her healthy. It has been a hard year for her and as her Mom I have felt her pain, but because of this she has become a very close friend and I love her very much. So, have a great day Caitlin!! We are actually celebrating her birthday tomorrow but we are wishing you the best for both days!!If you know Caitlin you know how much she loves babies and animals. so I had to include these pictures of 2 of her most favorite things.

We are all wishing you the best and hope this next year you will find each day to be the best days of the rest of your life. We love you!!