Beach Day Photos

Zoo

Friday found us at the zoo with my friend Marcia & her family. She has 5 kids--3 girls and 2 boys (the younger one is just 6 weeks old!)

It was a great day for the zoo...and we finally went to see the dinosaur exhibit--the boys were thrilled (no surprise there.)

Thanks Marcia & family for the fun day!!! We love you guys!

Benno, or the boy with the wheelbarrow.

Seriously, this is his favorite toy of late and I'm not exaggerating when I say he spends hours pushing it around.

And now it's time for bed.

Frisbee

We're really going to miss Stelios when he's gone.

Makin' a splash

This is catch up...

We sure are being spoiled having Uncle Stelios around...the pool won't be half so fun after he leaves.

(That's Anthony jumping in and Aaron being thrown.)

Beach Fun

Some necessary business before I go on about my family's life here for a moment:

HAPPY 30TH BIRTHDAY DAVID!!!! 

(Sorry, I know it's a day late, but I'm currently running about a day late with everything so it's nothing personal.) As a member of the 30s club for a year and a half now, I can say it's not bad being 30. Welcome to the club!

So we celebrated your birthday yesterday David by going to the beach. Ok, so maybe it was our "Ward Day at the Beach" but really we were thinking of you while we were there. By the time we finally got out the door and on our way, we arrived there at the beach at 1:30pm, which apparently was a wise move on our part as the weather was improving by then.

As usual, George brought his wetsuit & boogie board to spend some time out in the waves.

As a happy coincidence, Marcia, one of my very dearest friends who was a roommate of mine at BYU, was here this weekend with her family and had planned to spend a day at Cape Lookout, which conveniently is the same location as the annual Ward Day at the Beach.

Another happy coincidence of the day (or week) is that Stelios is still here visiting... The boys had a blast with him and he willingly let them bury him in sand.

Benno finally decided the beach was pretty fun about 4 hours into it.

No trip to Cape Lookout is complete without a stop at the Tillamook Cheese Factory, where we ALWAYS check out the factory, get our cheese samples, eat dinner (cheeseburgers & grilled cheese sandwiches) followed by a scoop or two of some of the world's best ice cream....YUM!

Stelios, the strong...my boys may be tiny but they're made of solid muscle so really, this is quite impressive.

As I mentioned above, I'm running about a day late with everything and I have some catching up to do...we spent a fun-filled day at the zoo with my friend Marcia & family on Friday and a great afternoon at a local pool with Stelios on Thursday...dazzlingly fun photos to come soon....there are lots more where these beach photos came from as well....aaaah! 

Home together at last!

***I had fallen behind in my posts--I apologize for bombarding you with posts today. There are 3 to catch up on...so be sure to scroll all the way down through those.***

George & the boys arrived home late Sunday night with our beautifully restored minivan. The van really looks as good as new. There's still just the faintest smell of the deer lingering...but I'm sure anyone but us wouldn't notice it at all and with time it should fade completely.

Sunday evening, George's brother Stelios also flew into town to spend the week with us. His visit has come quite in handy as we needed to remove all the pebbles & bricks from our walkway in preparation for a concrete walk (which is being put in today)

Benno tried my glove.

Anthony lifts bricks from the path.

Dumping the pebbles from the path into the garden walk.

Overnight we had a little stinky visitor checking things out...

And today the men are here setting up the forms to pour the new walk.

George & Stelios at work clearing dusty debris.

And here comes the clean-up crew.

Benno LOVES this wheelbarrow and has spent hours just wheeling it all around the yard while the rest of us work.

The fun never ends around here.

Glacier National Park

After picking up the minivan from the body shop in Butte on Friday, George and the boys headed north to Glacier National Park where they spent that night and all of the following day before returning home on Sunday.

So that first afternoon, they did a boat tour of Saint Mary Lake and the guide let the 2 boys each get a turn at steering, which of course they loved!

Beautiful scenery. Glacier National Park is right at the Canadian border in Montana and part of the park actually extends into Canada. The continental divide runs right through the park.

On Saturday, George and the boys hiked 15 miles (yes, you read that correctly. It's not a typo--FIFTEEN MILES!) I asked if the boys complained at all and George replied, "Oh only for the last 3 miles or so..."

Here are the boys at Iceberg Lake. Afterward they went to the Ptarmigan Tunnel.

Here they are on the return trip--you can see the sun is on its way down so they were bookin' it back.

On Sunday, as they were driving out of the park, they stopped at a couple of places. They saw lots of mountain goats and some bighorn sheep (one of which was approaching them threateningly so they slid down the snowy hillside on their jackets. See below.)

All 3 of my "boys" with one of the glacier lakes. They had a lot of fun!

Of course they had TONS more photos. I'll create an album soon and post it at carolandgeorge.com