Amelia's Birthday Celebration

We held Amelia's 7th birthday on Wednesday, July 21 at the University Park pool. The pool is our public neighborhood pool and it is a great facility. There are two pools - a baby/toddler wadding pool and a large pool with a shallow end and two diving boards in the deep end. There is a spray ground for younger children and a huge curvy water slide too, so it is a pretty fun place for kids (and adults). Amelia co-hosted the birthday bash with a good friend of hers, William. William was born three days earlier than Amelia and they have always gotten a kick out of having birthdays so close together. Together the two families probably invited 50 children (I know!) and I would guess that we had about 30 show up for the party, plus a dozen siblings who tagged along. It was a lot of fun, but completely insane in terms of the chaos and energy level of the children that evening.



William's mom and I divided the party prep duties and one of the things I was responsible for were the favors. With Amelia's approval, we purchased a box of candy and a water gun for each child. Amelia and John actually had fun helping me select the prizes and they spent about an hour sorting them once we got home from the store. Of course it didn't take a full hour to sort the favors, but Amelia directed John to help her redo it several times - once by color, once by shape, once by type of candy, etc - until they got tired of this activity.



William's mom was in charge of the cake. I loved this cake - it was delicious!! - and the decorations were perfect.

Amelia and William are waiting for their friends to sing happy birthday below. I don't know why Amelia is making those gestures. Imagine the chaos of the dozens of kids around the table with the cake on it, just waiting for a slice. You can see John trying to make his way through the crowd at the very bottom right of the photo.

William's mom did a fabulous job organizing the cutting of the cake. I would have completely lost it if I had that many hands shoving plates in my face asking for this or that particular part of the cake.

After cake, the kids dispersed throughout the pool area and things calmed down . Below is an adorable shot of the birthday party kids, William and Amelia. Don't you love the birthday necklaces that William's mom brought back from a recent trip to New Orleans? The birthday cake glasses are great too. A week after the party and Amelia is still wearing them around the house.

After most of the children left for the evening we were lingering with a few of the remaining kids and their parents in the party area. There were a few very small pieces of the cake left on the tray, which were all covered in gobs of icing. William's mom and I were talking about how they selected the cake and she asked Amelia if she had liked the special cherry-flavored icing that William had selected for the cake (the pink around the border was sinfully delicious cherry icing!). Amelia said that her piece didn't have any so William's mom suggested she use her finger to take some from the platter. Now we know that Amelia LOVES her icing so it didn't take much to convince her to follow the adult's suggestion and actually stick her FINGERS in the cake. This was a bit hit with some of the other kids after they caught on, and they all seemed a bit astounded that the addults were encouraging them to enjoy the last remnants of cake (with their hands!). I even took a swipe of icing as I share the same fondness for it as Amelia.

After we arrived home at 9:00 p.m., exhausted and sweaty from being in the 100 degree late evening heat at the pool, and we all had cool showers, Amelia begged to open gifts. I think we made it through three that night before the fun overwhelmed us all and the kids were put to bed. We all enjoyed Amelia and William's party and agreed that this was a very fun and special way to celebrate the kiddos turning 7!

Jackson Hole - Sliding and Rafting

In Jackson we stayed in a condo on the property of the Snow King Resort in town. It was located at the base of a mountain and was centrally located to everything. The alpine slide was also on the property, but we never made it over to the slide until our last morning. Amelia and John loved the slide we went on last year in Steamboat so we knew they would be excited about another chance to ride.We took a chair lift up the mountain to the start of the track. This is the view of the Jackson Hole valley from the beginning of the track. The yellow seats towards the bottom of the photo are those on the chair lift as it ascends up the mountain. What a beautiful view on a gorgeous day!
A view of the track taken from the chair lift on our way up.

John and Amelia are getting ready to ride! These were taken on the chair lift going up the mountain.Amelia has our slide and is ready to go. Even though she was old enough to ride on her own, Amelia opted to ride with me this time. We agreed that this will be the last year for this as she is getting old enough to steer her own cart down the mountain.

I don't have any good photos of John and Scott going down the slide because of their accident, which is a whole other story altogether. It has been nearly two weeks since the fall and Scott's arm is just now beginning to look more normal, poor guy. He and my dad can someday trade war stories about their respective wipe outs on alpine slides.

After the slide, it was time for river rafting! the weather was just perfect for our two-hour float trip through the valley. Below our guide is getting the raft set up for launch. John and Scott appear to be supervising this process.

We all enjoyed our ride down the Snake River! Look at the beautiful scenery behind Scott. I love the contrast of the bright blue and green colors. You can see Scott's bandaged arm from the slide incident quite clearly.

We were lucky to have the whole boat to ourselves for our float trip. Normally this size of raft can accommodate 10 to 12 passengers, so it was quite spacious to have it all for us. Our guide, Morgan, was fantastic in his knowledge of the river, the valley, and he was great with the children. Given that we were the only ones on the boat we had Morgan's attention the entire ride, which was very satisfying to John as he could ask Morgan a million questions all afternoon long. Morgan even let the kids practice rowing the raft, which they thought was so much fun. Below Morgan is instructing John. At one point that afternoon, John asked Morgan, "Morgan, do you want me to come back and row so that you can take a break?"

Next it was Amelia's turn with the oars.

We saw five bald eagles as well as many other types of birds during our float trip. I opted to take my older, less powerful camera on the boat because I didn't want to get my good camera wet, so the zoom was not great for capturing the wildlife. This is my best shot of a bald eagle. The bird is sitting on a horizontal branch on the left side of the photo about half-way down, with a dark-colored body and white head.The big smiles in the photos below are descriptive of our feelings about the float trip as well as the trip to Jackson as a whole. The float trip was the perfect way to cap off a great vacation!

Jackson Hole - Fun with Family

One of the best parts about our trip to Jackson was the opportunity to visit with mom and dad and to see the environment they have been living in since May. Mom and dad worked four of the days we were in town, but we got a chance to see them nearly every day during our trip. On our second day in JH we all got together for dinner one night at the Snake River Brewery. Scott and I went to Snake River when we were in JH 12 years ago and we enjoyed it, and it is one of mom and dad's favorite places to hang out in town. Snake River obviously brews their own beer (9 different kinds during this time of year, according the sampling tray Scott ordered our first night there) and serves very good bar-type food as well. This was a great place for both the adults and kiddos alike to enjoy a nice, casual evening.

Mom and dad had the day off from work on Sunday and they offered to spend the afternoon with the children so that Scott and I could engage in a less kid-friendly activity. We chose to go on a long hike in Grand Teton Park (more on that in a minute). The following photos were taken by my mom that day. One stop they made was to mom and dad's P.O. Box at the Moose post office. I love the moose butt on the wall - where else but out west? I wish our post offices in Dallas had that much character.

Mom and dad took Amelia and John on a carriage ride in town. The kids had been asking to go on a ride since we saw the horse-drawn carriage on our first day in JH, so this was a great activity that they really enjoyed. Below, waiting for the carriage. John is wearing his much beloved Star Wars-esque Grant Teton souvenir t-shirt that mom and dad let him select from the Jenny Lake store gift shop.

Here it comes!

View of the interior of the cabin. As dad noted on his blog, check out the leather on the ceiling of the carriage.

While Amelia and John were having a great time with their grandparents, Scott and I went on a six-mile hike in Grand Teton Park to the summit of Signal Mountain. The hike traversed through different types of terrain, mostly grassy hill areas, with ponds, creeks, and many wildflowers mixed in. The last mile or so had the most gain in elevation as we went up the mountain, but it was a gradual increase and not too tough on the body. The views from the summit were spectacular and a wonderful ending to the hike up. The mountains behind us are the Grand Tetons. What a gorgeous day too!

At the end of the day, mom and dad invited us back to the RV campsite for a coook-out. Dad grilled hot dogs (from the Jenny Lake store!) and hamburgers on the outdoor pit grill , and we all enjoyed a nice picnic outdoors.

After dinner we enjoyed smores, and I think this was Amelia and John's first time to roast the marshmallows outdoors in a real campfire environment. Scott and dad supervised the process, I was the photographer, and mom was busy preparing the graham crackers and chocolate pieces for the warm marshmallows. Amelia and John loved this, and they wanted to roast more marshmallows than they cared to eat as they thought it was just plain fun to do so.

Jackson Hole - Yellowstone

We saw plenty of wildlife during our week in Wyoming, most of them within the boundaries of Yellowstone National Park. However, we also saw quite a few animals around Jackson, including this moose that we saw on our first full day there. We were driving through the southern portion of Grand Teton Park after riding the tram and came upon a traffic jam - that is, about ten cars pulled over to the side of the road with passengers disembarking, all with cameras in hand. We quickly learned that this is a sign that someone has spotted wildlife nearby and of course we followed suit and got out to see what all the action was about. It turned out to be this moose (female, you can tell by the absence of the rack on her head), quietly eating grass in the pond.

A few days later we spied a group of three on the road leading to grandma and grandpop's campsite. We had great views of this moose, though he (male, as evidenced by the rack) wouldn't turn around so my best shots are of moose butt. The children could see these moose well and we were excited to have experienced another moose sighting. When we arrived at the campground all excited about the moose, grandma seemed accustomed to this (and not quite bored by it, but close), saying "oh, you mean the group that is often sighted in the marsh on the road to the campground?". Yes, that must have been the one. I guess living in Wyoming for several months will have you thinking that wild animal sightings are the norm and not something to get too excited about!

Midway through the duration of our trip we journeyed up to Yellowstone. It took about two hours to travel the hundred or so miles into the heart of the park, where we spent most of the day driving around Yellowstone with several stops out of the car to see the sights and to view wildlife. We spotted a large herd of bison on our drive north, the first bison sighting of the trip. Little did we know that we would end up seeing dozens of bison throughout our day in Yellowstone at a closer distance, but we were so excited by this first sighting that we stopped to take a look. Amelia and John enjoyed playing with grandpop's binoculars to get a better view.

Lovely view of the Grand Tetons in the background.You can't see the bison because they are too far in the distance for this angle, though you could see them in person.Our first stop within Yellowstone was Old Faithful. Ironically, Amelia had heard of the geyser (perhaps from an episode of Pink Panther, but I am wishfully thinking that maybe she read about it in a book or heard about it in school instead!) so she was more excited about this than I thought she would be. Scott and I had visited Old Faithful when we were in Yellowstone 12 years ago and though I appreciate the science of it all, this is not my favorite part of Yellowstone.
However, one thing that made this more enjoyable this time around was the fact that we only had to wait about two minutes for the geyser to erupt. The estimated time between eruptions is 90 minutes, and with the visitor's center closed for remodeling I was wondering what we would do to entertain the children if we had to wait over an hour for the eruption to occur. However, much to our delight we did not have to wait long at all and we were quickly treated to this glorious display of firing gasses, which Amelia and John said was impressive.

After Old Faithful, we made our way to an opposite section of the park to view the waterfalls. Two waterfalls, the Upper and Lower Falls, are situated close to each other near the grand Yellowstone canyon. I fondly remembered this scenery from our first visit so many years ago and seeing it again was a highlight for me.The falls thunder down into a river that runs through Yellowstone canyon. Notice the small tree growing out of the rock on the canyon's edge.I think the patterns in the rock lining the canyon are spectacular.View of the river running through the canyon. Though this looks peaceful, the rushing sound of the water from the falls is quite loud in person.Family goofing off (except my sweet Amelia!) while mom tries to capture a good shot. We saw dozens of bison throughout Yellowstone, but this was one of the closest views we got. I took this shot from the passenger seat in the car, to give you an idea of how close the animal was to us. My mom was right - they are ugly animals. But I appreciate their large number throughout the park as Amelia and John had fun playing "Who can spot a bison first?" from the backseat of the car.
We also came across two large elk, the one in the shot below is a male. Scott got frustrated with me because at the time I was scrambling so quickly that I thought I saw a moose, however I completely agree that this is indeed an elk.
It was a fun day and a necessary component of our trip, but we were glad when we had made the return trip back to Jackson. It was certainly a long day with lots of driving, and after the novelty of the animal-sightings wore off I spent a good deal of time as the referee for the children's fighting match in the backseat. We had rented a relatively small four-door car, so unfortunately the kids were in each other's space WAY TOO MUCH. And add John's spunk and unwillingness to leave his sister alone, and you can imagine where this left us. I felt like such a nag saying for the hundredth time, "Keep your hands off of your sister !" (and occasionally brother). Many bribes for good behavior were issued and forfeited by both children at one time or another. Now I completely understand why Scott opted for captain's chairs in the backseat of the vehicle that wee use for long driving trips at home!

Jackson Hole - Fun in Town

The elk horn arches are a signature sight in the Jackson town square. We spent a few hours exploring the town on our first full day in Jackson prior to our tram ride up the mountain. I am grateful for this nice family shot, which was kindly taken by another tourist in the square.

Same photo, just cropped to get the four of us.

Later that same day, after our adventures on the tram we went back to the town square to watch the infamous gun fight. A local theater company performs a free 15-minute gun duel show every evening at 6:00 right on the town square. Amelia and John said they were excited about seeing the show, though I was surprised at how scared John got upon hearing the loud gun pops.

The cowboys (see below) walked around the area before the show began saying hello to the children and getting the crowd in the mood for the show. One of the entertainers told the kids seated around the edge that during the show they would be invited up on stage to join in a "friendship dance". She said that she hoped they all would get up and dance or else she would cme back and shoot them. She stated this with a serious face. So when the time came for the dance John said he didn't want to go up, but then he started trembling and asking if he was going to get shot. I reassured him that he would be just fine and that the cowgirl had been joking, but it took a lot to convince him that the guns were not going to get him.

Actors down and gunsmoke during the grand finale.John had seen toy gun sets in the shop windows earlier in the day and after the show he begged for us to buy him a set. And when I say begged, I mean that every two minutes (literally) he asked us to please take him to the store to buy some cowboy guns. Over and over again he pleaded for the guns. I am sure he asked oh, about 100 times, in the span of a few hours. I didn't understand the appeal, but Scott relented and John got his set of guns.

Check out my little cowboy below. You have no idea how much John has enjoyed playing with his guns. There were gunfights all over the condo in Jackson and they have continued to delight him here at home.

Jackson Hole - Jenny Lake

Jenny Lake is one of several lakes nestled at the base of the mountains within Grand Teton National Park. My parents are spending the summer working in the Jenny Lake store at the south end of the lake. The store is part convenience store, part gift shop, and part hiking supply store, designed to meet the needs of tourists and more serious campers alike. Near the store are several trail heads, a small visitor's center, as well as a campground and a marina.

Scott and I visited Jenny Lake when we were in JH twelve years ago. At that time, we hiked the perimeter of the lake on a half-day hike. We recall the distance of the trail to be about six miles. So this time around with the children we needed a less strenuous way to enjoy the lake. So at mom and dad's suggestion, we took a boat ride across the lake and then hiked a shorter distance to see the waterfall and beautiful mountain views. This turned out to be a great family adventure and the perfect way to introduce the kids to hiking and enjoying moutain scenery.

Boarding the boat for the ten minute journey across the lake. What a gorgeous day!

More photos of the gorgeous views from the boat ride.
Amelia and John did great during our short hike. After the boat ride to the other side of the lake, we climbed steps and walked on an upward-sloping trail to the base of a waterfall, Hidden Falls. The distance up to the falls was marked at about a half mile. We were nervous that they wouldn't make it or would complain the whole way, but by the time we reached the waterfall they wanted to continue on to the observation point. Scott and I were thrilled!

I have about eight photos of the children acting goofy like this, sitting on a log next to the raging river below the falls.

Loving brother and sister - finally a good shot!
We stopped on the way up for water and a snack. The children had fun climbing on the rocks and watching all of the hikers walk by.
The photo doesn't do the waterfall justice, but here is my best shot. Seeing the thundering waterfall, and getting the chance to explain to the kids a little bit about the science of the contributing snowmelt on the mountain made for a fun morning.

We continued up the mountain about another quarter mile or so to the second of several observation points. The children did well on this portion of the trail even though it was getting markedly more steep, and at the top we were rewarded with this gorgeous view. The mountains are behind us as we are looking down on the lake.

Mom and dad were working in the store during the day we took the boat ride, so we got to visit a little bit afterwards and watch them in action as they worked. I know Amelia and John thought it was really cool that their grandparents were the cashiers in the store. This is a view of the front of the store. The first time mom and dad posted photos of the store (in May) there were deep piles of snow all over the grounds.

We had packed a picnic lunch so we ate that on the porch and afterwards the kids got to select a treat from inside. Grandpop served as their cashier, as he is stationed in the convenience section and grandma primarily works in the gift shop section. Look at grandpop working hard below.

Amelia and John both selected chocolate coated vanilla ice cream bars as their treat. Grandpop says that on warmer days like this one (the temperature was in the 70's with full sunshine) the ice cream is very popular, so much so that they have trouble keeping the cooler cool with so many customers opening and closing the freezer doors to select their ice cream. What interesting things you learn after hearing mom and dad's stories about working in the store!

This is the gift shop section of the store.