~Grays River~

This past weekend we went camping with some of our good friends, the Fullmers, up to the Grays River. The kids had a blast floating down the river on tubes, watching a movie outside on the projector, riding 4 wheelers and dirt bikes, playing Bingo, fishing, and just being in the great outdoors.The whole group minus Randee.

This year Tayleur brought her boyfriend Andrew, Marc brought his girlfriend Randee, so Mckell thought she'd bring her boyfriend Dr. Smith, lol.

One day the Fullmers went up to Jackson Hole to run the Snake River. Since Mckell and Lexi couldn't do that, we decided to spend the day at camp riding 4 wheelers and playing around camp and then we met Fullmers in Jackson Hole for some shopping and dinner.

The kids spent every minute they could playing in the river.

So if you remember our camping trip at the first of the summer when Dave burnt his leg really bad on the dirt bike, well he promised me this time when he rode his bike he would wear pants. I saw him get on his bike for a ride several times (in shorts). I reminded him put on pants, but he told me he would be careful, ya right. Well, he and Kevin went for a ride and Dave came back all bloody. I guess they were on a really steep mountain and Dave put one of his bike pegs through his leg. I was not the most supportive wife because all I said was that I didn't feel bad for him at all. He should have listened to me and put pants on. (Later on that night I felt bad because I should have been more caring) It was funny though, to see Kevin try and clean up Dave's leg. I teased him when he got out the rubber gloves that Dave didn't have a disease. :)

Dr. Kevin with his rubber gloves. They figured that Dave may need stitches so he headed down to Alpine to see if he could find a clinic open. While he was gone, the rest of us went on a tubing trip down the river.

Mckell is Dave's little fishing buddy. She LOVES to fish.

So this trip ended with a bang, literally. I guess it was the lack of communication between Dave and I. As we were backing up the camper, we were placing these little blocks under the camper. They were placed and I thought Dave knew just to go back a little bit, but he was watching for me to tell him when to stop. Well, he ended up busting through our fence. Oops!

~Yost~

Today our family went on a little 4 wheeling ride out to Yost. Dave has gone out there since he was little, so it was fun to take our kids up there (we even took Marley). The kids had fun riding four wheelers, playing with sticks and rocks, seeing deer and cows and rabbits, and Lexi especially had fun playing in the dirt.

It really is a small world, because you almost never see any people up here (except for during the hunts) and as we were starting up the trail we passed 2 people on dirt bikes. One of those people ended up being one of Dave's mission companions, Kevin Murdock. What are the chances, we are out in the middle of nowhere and run into an old mission companion. I guess his family was up there camping for the weekend. It was fun for Dave to catch up with him.

As Dave and Kevin were shooting the bowl, Hunter and Mckell started climbing the mountain. Hunter stepped on something that made a loud squeak. He thought it was a rat and came running over to us, then out hopped a baby rabbit. Hunter had stepped on its back and broken it's two back legs :( Poor thing. The kids thought he was so cute and Mckell insisted that she could fix his legs if we took him home with us. She was soo upset that we wouldn't let her.

Marley ran along the four wheelers the whole time and by the end was so exhausted that he laid right in the middle of a mud puddle:)

Marley had some scary moments with the cows. He chased a baby cow and then had adult cows chasing him and mooing at him, it made me really nervous. He and Hunter also had fun chasing after a deer (we saw 6 or 7), but they weren't even close to catching it :)

~Lost and Found~

Today we lost Marley, our dog. Thursdays are our normal swim day up at Grandma Darinda's, Hunter fed Marley before we left but didn't keep him in his kennel. You see Marley has gotten wise that whenever the door to the kennel opens he's out of there :) And the funny thing is is that we can't get him to go back in for the life of us. Food doesn't even work anymore, which is shocking because Marley eats everything and anything :) Well, Hunter decided just to leave him out in our backyard, not realizing that the gate to our backyard was left unlocked. So the kids and I went and spent the day swimming and having fun, not realizing that our dog was gone. Even when we got home we didn't know that he was missing. It wasn't until later that night, when Hunter went out to play on the swing set that he came in and said, "Mom, Marley is not in his kennel" So I went out and called for Marley- nothing. So I asked Hunter if he didn't leave Marley in his kennel when he fed him that morning. He told me that he left Marley in the kennel, but after thinking about it for a minute he said, "Wait he wouldn't go back in his kennel this morning so I left him out" So we looked under the deck (Marley sometimes shimmies under there for shade), and looked everywhere in our backyard that I could think of. Then I walked over to the gate and noticed that if you just pushed on it it opened right up. I immediately knew that Marley was gone. The kids got all of their friends and went out looking for our dog. We looked everywhere! I drove all over, no sign of Marley. He was gone. Now, I would have thought that I'd have been kind of relieved not to have to worry about Marley anymore. After all I'm the one who feeds him, I'm the one who cleans up his kennel. He has dug up all my flowers in the backyard, eaten the tree I got for mother's day, eaten the swing set, ripped siding off of our house, eaten off the tops of a bunch of sprinklers, etc. so you'd have thought I would have been kind of glad, but I wasn't. I was really upset which shocked me. I never thought I'd feel that way. That night I couldn't sleep, I just kept wondering where Marley could be, where was he sleeping, did he have any food or water? I hoped that someone was taking care of him. That next morning Dave called the pound and they said they'd check to see if he'd been picked up that night. To our relief they called back saying they had him. Hallelujah!!!! Marley had been found!!!

So this experience taught our family a lot of things. Hunter learned that he needed to check the gate if Marley was going to be left out, we all learned that Marley needs more attention, we learned how important it was to make sure Marley's collar was on him(he wasn't wearing one), and I learned that I really do love this dog :)

~Hawaii - Day 8~

Today was checkout day from the hotel. Our flight home wasn't leaving until 9:00 that night, so we decided to make it a day away from the beach since we didn't have a room to go back to. The first thing we did was go to Pearl Harbor. We went on the USS Bowfin (a submarine) which was really cool. I don't think that I could ever live on a sub, I was getting kind of chlosterphobic just being on the sub. We also went out on the Arizona Memorial which was sobering. It really made me appreciate all the men and women who have and who are now serving our country.

After our visit to the Arizona Memorial, we headed up to the Dole Plantation. The main reason I wanted to go there was to get some pineapples, but when I saw how much they would cost I had second thoughts :) So we came home from Hawaii without pineapples. We did have fun taking pictures around the grounds though. And we enjoyed a yummy pineapple dessert.

Coming home was bitter sweet for the both of us. We couldn't wait to see our kids (we missed them so much), but at the same time we didn't want to leave Hawaii. We had so much fun together, and now have to get back to reality. But all I can say is that we had a very memorable 10th anniversay. I love you Dave!!!!