Penn State Chics Dig Nerds

We've been doing a lot of swimming.  Swim team, swimming lessons, swimming pools.  Lots of swimming. Here's a video to show what Amie suddenly learned yesterday: Brady has become a lot stronger swimmer this summer.  He thinks his times have been improving because he got new swim jammers (tight swim shorts).  That might be some of it, but he's been practicing so much, too!  He is loving swim team.  Brady showed me a trick that is still making me chuckle when I think about it: At last weeks swim meet, we celebrated Natalee's birthday.  We decorated her chair with balloons and decorations. After swimming, we waited until Jesse got off of work so we could visit Indian Caverns.  This is the last year for Indian Caverns to be open, so we thought we should see it.  (A nature conservancy has bought it for the bats) And she chose to eat hot dogs, watermelon, chips, and angel food cake. Another big development is that Amie is...

I know you have been waiting to see Glacier National Park pictures.  It was worth the wait! We were here four years ago .  It was wonderful to be there again for a few days.  I wish we had stayed longer! Are you singing, "The hills are alive with the Sound of Music?" Of course, This is just a taste of the pictures from Glacier.  I have way too many pictures to post here, so I put them in a web album. Glacier National Park Click on the following link and then hit the slideshow button. Glacier National Park Web Album

Every year we are out here we seem to miss a wedding or a reunion by one weekend.  This year we were unable to fit the late August reunion into our schedule.  It had been 10 years since we had visited Kamiah.  For those of you who do not know, Kamiah is where Jesse graduated from high school.  Several aunts, uncles, cousins, and friends still live nearby.  It was time for us to visit again. Friday, we drove to Kamiah to visit our friends, the Pucketts and Giblers.  Between all three families present, there were 14 children.  Everyone had somebody to play with.  Needless to say, all of our children had a great time.  It was hard to peel them away Saturday morning when we needed to go visit family members! Last summer our prayers and thoughts were with this area a lot.  While it did not garner national attention, the wildfire that spread through here was fierce.  At the time, I read updates and was brought to tears several times....

We were deciding should we visit a gold mine and go panning for gems?  Or should we go to a real creek and sluice for garnets?  We convinced the kids to go "near St. Maries" for the garnets. The internet wasn't working when we left the house, so we didn't know the exact directions other than "near" St. Maries.  But, we did know there is a chamber of commerce and a museum in St. Maries.  The museum didn't open until noon.  So, we walked the the chamber of commerce.  The chamber office person was temporarily out of the office until 9 (except that it was 10:30 at the time!).  I randomly found a brochure outside a shop that gave us a very vague map to the Emerald Creek Garnet Area.  At the garnet area, they give you sluice boxes and shovels and let you dig for garnets in the creek. We weren't prepared for "near" St. Maries to be 25 miles away from the town.  We had to stop at a small town to fill up with gas.  The kids ...

After a travel detour to Rapid City and a delayed departure, we spent an extra day traveling to Idaho. We stayed the night in Butte, which was about 5 hours from our Coeur d'Alene destination. Since we were taking an extra day on our journey to Idaho, we made a stop at Grant-Kohrs Ranch National Historic Site in Deer Lodge, Montana.  In the past, we've always passed this ranch too late in the day to stop.  And, I'm glad we did stop this time.  It was interesting and fun for everyone! The children played a game.  They looked all around the ranch for cards with animals on it.  When they found a card, it was like they had trapped an animal.  Each animal that trapped gave them various amounts to spend in the trading post.  The ranger had a trading post set up where they counted all of their furs and they could buy some trinkets or toys.  I wished they had this game for adults!  It made the kids excited.  They explored ev...

After a delayed start from Rapid City, we finally reached Devils Tower at noon.  The busiest time of the day, of course. Two years ago, we stopped at Devils Tower briefly.  We had no idea that everyone was going to love the boulders so much.  So, we came back!  Everyone was excited to start climbing the boulders! I have some things to learn with my new camera piece, hence the weird photo corners.  But, look at Brady mid jump!  We climbed all over the rocks until we were too hot.  Unfortunately the camera was on the wrong settings for pictures of the kids and I.  So, we are missing a few pictures :/ We made our lunch and continued our journey.  Next, we made the long drive across eastern Montana.  We had hoped to arrive in Idaho on this day.  But, with our late start, that wasn't going to happen. HOURS later, we drove into Butte. On our decent into Butte, the sky looked like it was on fir...

Natalee was really looking forward to stopping in De Smet, SD, at the Ingalls Homestead.  It was really unfortunate that she was feeling miserable from the bee sting (or infection, we don't know which it was).  Plus, the benedryl was making her sleepy. Can you hear the Little House on the Prairie music? The homestead shanty We took a covered wagon ride out to the old school house.  The school house was similar to one that Laura had taught in nearby.  It had been moved to the homestead from somewhere else in South Dakota. None of our children would try driving the horses. In the school, the children were dressed for school as if we were in 1880. Brady was in first grade and was called to the front to recite to ten.  Natalee pretended to be Carrie Ingalls.  Eduardo, who was from Brazil, forgot his chore of filling the water bucket for the day.  So, he had to put his head on the chalkboard X as punishment.  This part of the tour ...