Bear Visitor

We had another bear go through our back yard a few nights ago.  He got caught on the trail camera.  All he did was knock the salt block off the stump.  Thankfully, he left our garden alone.  A couple years ago, another bear had fun eating our watermelon.   

Kora's sunflower

Kora got a sunflower from Early Childhood Family Education (ECFE) in the spring that she started from a seed in a cup at the preschool.  We later transplanted it to the garden.  It grew amazingly tall.  It finally has a flower on it, so the kids took their picture in front of it.  You can see how tall it is, as it towers over the corn. 

 

Big Bog Camping Trip

We went camping at the Big Bog State Recreational Area on the Upper Red Lake this past weekend.  When we got there on Saturday, it was really hot so we spent the majority of the afternoon in the lake.  On Sunday morning, everyone wanted to climb the fire tower.  It was very windy that morning, which made the last few flights of stairs more interesting to climb.  Jesse and Jason counted the steps, 139 of them.  Kora walked all of them up and down without being carried. 

Megan and Jason thought it was so fun that when we

got back to the bottom, they went back up again

so we could get a picture of them from the ground.

 

 

Then we went fishing at a little pond in the north unit

of the recreational area.  The kids caught lots of little

blue gill, pumpkin seeds, and large mouth bass. 

 

Kora enjoyed her cheerios and running up and

down the dock after she got tired of fishing.

 

We also walked the boardwalk that leads out into the bog.  Megan and Jason

 enjoyed seeing the Pitcher plants the most.  These are plants that eat insects.

 

 



 

On Monday morning, we went canoeing on the Tamarack River.  Kora also had to take a turn in the front seat so she could have a turn using the oar.  Before we left for home, we had to climb to the top of the fire tower one last time.  Kora again walked the entire way up and down.

Happy Birthday! 10 Years Old!

 

It's hard to believe that it's been 10 years already since Megan and Jason were born.

 

 

We had a birthday party at our house for them last weekend. 

Jason requested that he have his own cake instead of having to

share one with Megan.

Jason with his "Halo" cake.

Megan had a Garfield cake.

 

Today, on their actual birthday we went swimming at a pool.

 

Shooting water out of the noodles.

They still have great smiles and enjoy being together

like when they were infants, (most of the time).

Kora also enjoyed the pool.

July Fun

Here are pictures from the month of July.

 



With Cousin Jakob and Jordin at the July 4th Parade. 

Kora was working hard on getting the candy out of the box.

 



Sparklers for the 4th of July. 

 

Jason loves to light fireworks.  Megan was finally brave enough to start lighting some herself this year.  Kora and Jordin went in the house to go to bed once the sparklers were done and we started with the loud ones.  Megan still wore her ear muffs.  Couldn't talk her out of those.

 

 

July 11th was the last Saturday of soccer for Jason for the season.  



 

 

We went to the county fair and Kora got to ride some of the carnival rides

for the first time this year.  She was just tall enough to go on the rides. 

 

This was her first ride.  She wasn't sure if she liked it yet or not,

so no smile for the camera.  But she did decide later that she

liked them and wanted to go on more.

 

The carousel with Megan was her favorite ride.



Final Day in Yellowstone

On Thursday, June 18, we packed up our camp and started to head out of Yellowstone. On the way, we stopped at Mammoth Hot Springs. There was a boardwalk that took you all the way to the top of the hill.  It included a lot of steps.  Kora wanted to walk all the way to the top, too.  She did make it on her own, she only wanted to be carried on the way back down on the last few sets of steps.

Lower Terrace of Mammoth Hot Springs

We then started to head to the Northeast Entrance, but stopped at Tower Falls along the way.

Tower Falls

We saw pronghorn antelope, a grizzly bear, and thousands of bison in the Lamar Valley along our drive to the northeast entrance.

 

We drove through the Beartooth Pass on our way back up to interstate.  I'm glad Jesse was driving with all the switch backs and deep drop-offs on the side of the road.   It was nerve racking just being the passenger.  Jesse and Jason enjoyed having a snow ball fight at the summit.  Kora and Megan weren't very excited about it. 

 

Yellowstone Day 3

On Wednesday, June 17, we hiked around our campground in the morning.  We went on a longer trail this time. Everybody was worried about seeing a bear, but we didn't see one.

 It wouldn't be a family camping trip if Jason didn't cut or scrape himself in some way. This time he was standing on a log when it rolled and he fell and cut his hand on a sharp stick on the log.

This was as close as we got to climbing up the side of a mountain.

A bison was laying down near the road to our

campground when we walked back to camp.

 

 

In the afternoon, Jesse, Jason, and Megan went white water rafting on the Yellowstone River. Jason was very excited to go rafting. They all had fun. Jason almost got tipped out of the raft when it hit a class 2 rapid, but he was strong enough to pull himself back in. A man from Texas was not so lucky; he got wet.