What a fun week it has been!

This last week we have had just loads of fun the Cannon's came on Thursday and then the Bassett's came on  the next Thursday!

We have been doing lots of very fun activities. On Friday we went to the Minnetonka Cave and I can't believe I have lived here for 10 years and have never gone! It was so fun and because we went during the day, Mr. Jones did not come with us, so I am definitely taking him back to see it. He would love it.

I wondered if the Cannon boys would like it because it is quite the cave and there are a lot of steps to get to the end.

They only take 30 people in at a time so we had to wait about 40 minutes to have our turn. This is us patiently waiting.

And here they are patiently waiting again.

It is 444 steps meaning up and down steps to get into the cave and 444 steps to get back out. It was a cool 40 degrees so we were not hot! I had to find sweatshirts for all of them because they did not bring any jackets.

We saw stalactites and stalagmites, and we did get a little chilly if we stopped because the tour lasts 90 minutes!

They thought it was pretty cool, (not literally, but awesome!)

McKenly loved it too, she especially liked how cool it was,(temperature) because she was able to sleep most of the hike.

Yes, Bryce liked it too.

Evan felt like he was Indiana Jones!

We are almost to the end!

What a great cave!

This was the only rock they were allowed to touch in the cave, it was smooth and slippery from all of the people touching it. As Evan said, the oil on your skin is not good for the rocks, but if you didn't have oil on your skin your face would crack right off.

This is the trail to get back. If you look through the slats it is kind of scary so as Evan said," Grandma just look straight ahead then it won't be so scary."

When we got to the end I thought I better take a picture of the opening. When it was first discovered the opening was very small so they have since made it larger.

The 4th of July!

I know  that it is a little later in the month but I thought that I should post these pictures, I know, I know the 4th is past and gone but at least it is still July and I've been busy! ON the 4th Ryan was up at 3 am to bale hay and then woke up early to finish it and we were going to go down to Nate and Rachel's to take some chickens down for the chicken chase at their 4th of July celebration. When Ryan realized I wanted to go too, he decided to finish bailing and I ran down to take the chickens. He was going to come later but when I called he was soooo ready for a nap, that I decided to stay down and celebrate with the Nate Jones family!

When I got to the park the parade was about to start so I got a picture of "Tydon the Spider Man" and "Kace, the Gunman", I am not sure how Kace came up with the idea but he did have a lot of GUNS! I love small town celebrations, the parade is pretty laid back and whoever wants to be in the parade can do so! They even had an announcer and when they were announced this is what they looked like.

Now this parade is not very long so you get to go around in the circle several times if you wish.

Then it was onto the games! Tydon thought this one looked pretty fun, especially because Kace wanted to be the recipient of the wet sponge! Tydon thought it was hilarious when he hit Kace in the face.

They then had this booth that said, "Hair Salon" you could get your hair painted any color. Tydon came over and had an orange USA painted on the top of his head. Well, USA is patriotic but I don't know how the orange fits it.

Kace got his hair painted too, he had blue stripes with a blue "Y" in the back,(okay the blue stripes are patriotic but Maybe the "Y" is also, who knows? Any way, go Cougars!

Rachel and I were talking when Tydon came over a little later with his hair looking like this!

One of the boys thought it would be pretty funny to paint his hair bright pink! I don't think you can make Tydon look to girlish though even with pink hair.

The chicken chase was next and guess what? Kace won his age group! Nate was happy because he caught a nice looking hen. Tydon thought it was pretty great too. He didn't try writing green marker on this one though. If you missed that story go here.

I thought this was an ingenious invention, instead of the dunk tank, it was the toilet flush. When you hit the bull's eye, the person underneath gets flushed! Oh, I'm sorry but this has redneck painted all over it! I told you I loved small town celebrations

Yes, Kace was flushed!

Kace had to try to get to the top of the pole, there was no money involved, except a quarter later on, but what the heck, if you make it to the top you get a whole QUARTER! So what 7 year old wouldn't want a quarter? And at this celebration the canned pop was only a quarter so why not try to get to the top!

Yep, he made it to the top!

Here's your quarter Kace!

We then decided to go down to the Liberty celebration and we were able to get there for the last of the afternoon fun but what the Jones boys wanted to do was go an fish at Grandpa Shaw's fish pond. Nate wanted to catch them with a pole so the challenge was on. After 2 lines and a reel breaking he finally caught one! The fish are getting huge, and Kace and Tydon were so proud of their catches.

What fish wouldn't want to take a bite from a pink headed fisherman, ( the fish probably thought Ty's head was a big bright pink fish egg!)

Here are the fishermen with their catches of the day! It was a fun day, thanks Nate and Rach for letting me tag along. and Thanks Dad for letting us catch these scrumptious fish!

Hope all of you had a great holiday as well!

Girl's Camp

Last week I spent my time at Girl's Camp. I have already posted about some of the crafty things that we did at camp and if you haven't read about that you can go HERE.

It was so beautiful up at Willow Flats that I had to show some more pictures of the beautiful scenery.

After we set up our tents and camp we went on our 5 mile hike. We decided that it was maybe best to get the long hike over early in the camp and then enjoy the rest when we had finished the hike. The last part of our hike was going to the top of Cub River where the start of the river just comes out of the side of the mountain. This picture below is of the mossy rocks just at the top.

I love moss as many of you know and these mossy rocks were so great! I wish I had some of these in my back yard!

This picture is a little blurry so I might have to drive back up and hike the trail to get a better picture.

This is on the horse trail bridge, where the trail will take you over to Bloomington Lake if you kept hiking.

This is the second time we hiked up to the top of the waterfall. Bev Cole and I and 5 of the girls decided we wanted to hike it again and get some more photo's!!

Isn't this cute of these beautiful Young Women!

This picture is when we were on the first part of our hike.

This picture is focusing more on the blades of grass in the foreground and there we are watching in the back ground. These girls were troupers! on the hike and I didn't hear one complaint.

This was a tree that we saw on the hike and because it had a built in bench we had to stop and take the photo moment!

There were fields of yellow sunflowers and I decided to focus on the yellow. It kind of makes a unique photo don't you think!

We ate our lunch at the top of the Cub River. Here is the roaring river and me with my sweaty hair!

These roots of the trees for some reason reminds me of Harry Potter. On the way up the trail you would 

see many that would look like this.

After the hike we had pedicure's! I am pretty sure you wouldn't see this at any scout camp, I guess that is why we call it GIRL'S CAMP!

I decided I wanted this wall in my back yard as well. I think that God's landscaping skills are simply perfection at the highest level!

Here is my sweaty hair again.

One last focus on the yellow picture. Even though this is a dandelion it pretty much is perfect as well! We had a great time at camp and like I told the girls I have been going to Girl's Camp probably longer than most of them are old! I still enjoy it and wouldn't have it any other way.

SWAGGER WAGON

Watch this, it is great! To all of you who have a swagger wagon out there, you're great too!!!Turn my sound down at the bottom of the page.

Just a bad memory...

    I have postponed writing this, but someday like all of my disasters it will be funny and I will be able to laugh about the happenings of my DISASTERS! I don't want people to think that I have a perfect life, and for my posterity, I am going to write this because someday they will talk about Grandma's disasters and maybe think some of their disasters aren't quite so bad. A couple of weeks ago, we went to Henry's Lake, (check out the previous post.) I guess I am getting ahead of myself, because I must first tell you about a previous disaster. This one happened about 20 years ago and we had been on a trip to the Uintah's and had been gone for about 4 days. We had a great time fishing and camping and when we returned home, we came into the house and found that someone had forgotten to close the back door tightly when we left. We had about 20 to 25 chickens and they roamed freely about the back yard and by the river. We let them roam freely because it was summertime and they kept all of the bugs down around our house. Because some one had forgotten to close and lock the door the wind must have come up and blown the door open. When we walked into the house we found that the chickens had been roosting in the house at night. There was chicken poop everywhere in my house and they especially liked my dropped counter top and stair railing to spend the night sleeping and pooping. I spent months trying to get rid of the green stains in my carpet. I can laugh now, because we live in another house and we have new carpeting and it is just a bad memory.

     Well, fast forward to Monday evening, when we returned home from Henry's Lake. I did notice that the dogs did not come out to greet us. Caitlin had left her 2 dogs and we have 2 dogs and 5 puppies in the garage. I worried a little about not seeing the dogs, but didn't think much about it until I opened the back door and Maggie came running down the stairs. Now, she is the mother of the 5 puppies in the garage and I am sure she was frantic being inside and them being outside. I walked up the stairs thinking Oh, no, the dogs have been in the house the whole time we have been gone! I walked around the hallway and into the doorway of my bedroom and was met with a horrifying sight. Okay, I was hoping to see the sight below, because this is how I had left it.

No such luck, what I saw was this!!!

     The four dogs had been in the house for the 4 days that we were gone. Then the smell hit me and I saw all of the dog poop. Yes, I know dogs need to eat and drink to stay healthy so they had pretty much found whatever they could find to eat, which was mainly oats, pearl barley, wheat pasta, chocolate protein powder, and a box of Snicker candy bars in the bottom of Ryan's closet. Now if you give a dog this diet they are going to be sick and they had, it wasn't just runny dog poop, but vomit as well. Of course, I started screaming and literally was viewing "My Hell!" I really think this is what hell would be like. As Ryan came around the doorway he thought that someone had broken in and ransacked our house.

     The only reason I took pictures is because it was a disaster and I was sure that the insurance was going to have to cover the damage to all of the carpeting in my home. I'm sorry Caitlin, I am blogging about it only because it is pretty unbelievable. Caitlin was feeling pretty bad and responsible, because her dogs were here too. We  started cleaning and I didn't take pictures of every room, I now wish I would have, because it was unbelievable around every turn. We picked up about 3 big garbage bags full of things that had to be discarded and then set about cleaning the mess. Caitlin would not let me touch the carpets, because she was determined that it was her fault and she didn't want me to have to touch the poop. I will be eternally grateful for her and all of the hard work she did that night. She worked her little tail off.(no pun intended) Ryan ran over to the store and got special pet cleaning and deodorizer. He cleaned all night as well. We didn't find Lola (Caitlin's bulldog) until later when, we found her locked in the pantry.  You can imagine what the pantry looked like.

I was glad that it had rained while we were gone because the little puppies at least had some rain that had drizzled through the garage door and they were able to lick it up.

This is what the master bathroom looked like if you notice there is no toilet paper left on the roll and I think every magazine I had in the house was dragged into the bathroom.

 Again, I can't thank Caitlin and Ryan enough for all of the hard work that they did that night. Caitlin vacuumed and cleaned every carpet in my house! There were some stains that I thought she would never be able to get out, but after she was finished my carpets looked better than they did before. So, thanks Caitlin, I love you for all of the hard, stinky, work you did that night.

Now, isn't that better!!!!!