Island Park & Yellostone Park June 24, 25th, 2011

We ran away for the weekend to Island Park. We stayed at the Madison Arm Resort by Hebgen Lake. It was a great RV Park, just about 15 minutes out of West Yellowstone. Here is our lovely campsite.
On Saturday we spent the day in Yellowstone Park. We saw some amazing sights. I will show you just a few. Clinton is standing in front of a bubbling hot springs at Artists Paintpot.
I am at the viewpoint at the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone. It was an amazing sight!
Old Faithful is always a favorite.
These Bison were right by the road. Very Cool!
We saw this lone elk right by the road also. After seeing these impressive animals, I told Clinton I would love to see a bear. He said he saw and fed them from his car all the time when he was a child. I have never seen one in Yellowstone Park. The amazing thing is, just up the road from this elk, we saw a bunch of cars pulled over so we stopped to see what the excitement was. We got such a surprise when we saw the black bear just across the river. A very nice lady let me look through her binoculars for a close up view. I was so excited to finally see a bear in Yellowstone Park. I didn't get a picture because he was too far away. It was awesome!
Saturday night, we went to the Playmill Theater. We saw the play "High School Musical". It was such a cute show. The fun thing was, Sarah Parkinson, one of Chelsi's good friends, was in the show. Afterward we got a picture with her. We had a great weekend!

New Window and Door 6-24-11

Today is an exciting day! Our new living room window and sliding glass door are now installed! It has already made a big difference in keeping the house cooler. Let me show you the process.The living room window before the change. It was a sun magnet! The living room was so hot in the afternoon and evening, nobody wanted to go into the oven.
During the change, so weird to see the window coming out.
This window was so heavy.
Oh, look! Here comes the new window.
I love the look of the new window! The breeze that now comes in is so refreshing!
The window in the kitchen/dining room. They took just the sheet rock off at first so we could find the electrical wire. Tyson came over and rerouted it so they could cut through the wall.
I was in the bathroom doing my hair and when I walked out there was this huge hole in my wall! It was so weird to see this.
The worker is installing the sliding glass door.
It looks awesome and different! It gives the kitchen a whole new look. We can't wait for the deck and many BBQ's to come! The response we have gotten has been "Why didn't Mom & Dad do this a long time ago?"

Father's Day 6-19-11

Clinton is an awesome Dad. It is nice to have a day to celebrate him. I am so pleased that my boys are awesome Dad's too. They do take after their Father. So, this is how we spent Father's Day this year. We went to Tyson and Courtnie's and had biscuits and gravy for breakfast. Yummy!
Emma, cheesing it up.
Chelsi and Kaden with their yummy food. Then we went to our Stake Conference. This is on Father's Day every year.
After Conference, we all went to Jamie and Darla's for lunch. Here are the young Dad's; Tyson, Cory and Trenton (soon to be a Dad in September).
Here are the seasoned Dad's; Jamie and Clinton.
I surprised Clinton with a mountain bike for Father's Day. Now he and I can go on casual bike rides together.
After dinner, Clinton got the luxury of taking a nap. Then we played some barnyard rummy with Tyson and Courtnie.
We had the maiden voyage of Clinton's new bike. It held it's own against mine. This was a nice way to end a very nice day.
These are Clinton's treasures. Chelsi got him a signed copy of President Monson's Biography, I got him this cool Joey Flashlight and Cole, Brock and Tyson and families gave him the awesome hitch. Looks like he was well taken care of this day. We love you!

Shelves in the garage 6-18-11

Clinton was very busy today. He built some shelves in the garage. It used to be a little room where the potatoes were kept. But now the shelves hold all of his camping stuff, gas cans and his dutch ovens. He has a dutch oven fetish. I can live with that because I have a salt & pepper fetish. Clinton building the shelves.
It looks so great and organized!
Then we went to Ole's, this little burger and shake place in Sugar City. The milkshakes are awesome! Clinton had huckleberry and I had chocolate. Great way to celebrate the new shelves. By the way, I can now park the car in the garage!

My first time painting!

First of all I must say, "I am awesome!" I spent one afternoon taking wallpaper off the wall. Then one afternoon painting my middle bathroom. I even had a steady enough hand to do the cutting in work. My sister-in-law, Paula, came over and helped me finish painting today. It looks awesome!This is the before picture of the wallpaper border that I took down and the white paint color.
It is all laying in the tub.
This is the difference in paint colors during the painting.
Just a little mishap during the painting. When I got the paint on the wall it showed that I didn't get all the adhesive from the wallpaper taken off. So I used the remover and luckily it all came off and didn't mess up the paint.
Here is the finished project.
I love the new color. It looks like a brand new room! Just what I wanted.

More books I have been reading

I have been reading again. Here are my latest books that I have enjoyed. This book about Mother Eve was very fascinating. I will look at the things I learn in the Temple in a different way now. I enjoyed this book. This was a Mother's Day gift from Brock and Carrie.
This was our Book Club read for the month of May. It is a retelling of the Beauty and the Beast story. I liked how the author described things and I always like a story with a happy ending.

Garden update 6-9-11

It has been 2 1/2 weeks since we planted the garden. With all the rain and the sun last weekend, it has really shot up. Now the fun begins with the weeding. I can't wait!My nieces and nephews said they will help me weed. This will be more fun than weeding alone.

First Camping Trip - June 6 & 7, 2011

Finally, a nice weekend to go outside and do something. So we went camping up to the Moody Meadows area. The weather was great! It was so nice to just relax.Here is Clinton, he and Melvin gathered wood for the fire.
Mandy was lucky enough to hang out with us old fogies.
We camped with our friends, the Rudd's. Here is Melvin.
Clinton, just relaxing.
Gailiene and I are such camping beauties!
Clinton is bringing out his inner child with this little motorbike.
Max, the Rudd's dog, he is our body guard.
Still alot of snow up in the mountains. On Friday night it really got cold when the sun went down. You could see our breath.
A very unusual, artistic fire. Interesting to look at with all the branches sticking out.
And of course we had s'mores. This is just a staple for camping. We came out Sunday morning so we could go to our ward in Sugar City.

Owie!! June 6, 2001

Just call me "Grace"! I couldn't believe it. I went walking on Friday and the sidewalk tripped me up. Next thing I knew I was on the ground and my hand and knees were stinging. I felt like I was back in grade school on the playground. I guess Grandma's can get skinned knees too!

Picnic at Moody Meadows 6-1-11

Today was a great day! The temperature was close to 70. We decided to go on a picnic and scope out a place to camp for this weekend. We drove up towards Moody Meadows. The closer we got, the more snow was on the road until we had to stop. We did find a lovely place to camp. We stopped to have our picnic, in the pickup. The water you see behind us is the run-off from the snow melt. What a wonderful way to end the day.as