So I am falling way behind on this blogging project. I was even reminded by my Mom that I neglected to document our family outing up to Island Park and Yellowstone. I am once again trying to play catch up.
Our family did have great trip up to the company cabin in Island Park this year. We had the whole Ashby clan show up minus Brandon & Katelyn. It as a lot of fun. We saw Yellowstone and a couple of cool sites around the Island Park area. Family gatherings make me realize truely how much we miss out on not living closer to family. We do miss the frequent interaction with family. The cabin worked out great because we all fit in with room to spare and we didn't all need to pack tons of camping gear. It was a really fun trip and great to see everyone. It's always an adventure to figure out what we are going to do from year to year.
This year we took the Varsity Scouts to Featherville, Idaho for their super activity. One of our youngmen's families have property and offered to let us stay there. We hung out at the hot pots, went hiking, saw a ghost town, did some fishing, and had a great time. At the last minute the other leader and I decided to take our trailer so we didn't have to sleep on the ground. It was a nice upgrade to the usual campouts. The boys were a bit jealous that they still had to sleep out on the ground.
As usual our anual trip to Ibapah ended up being the same weekend that I got home from scout camp. This year it was a great deal easier than last year because I wasn't returning from a 50 mile hike, but we didn't get as much sleep as we probably should have. We had a great time anyway as did the people in Ibapah. This picture was taken around 4am. These people really know how to party.
The following weekend the band came up and had the annual party in our backyard for our ward. The weather was remarkable good this year and we had a great turn out. There was good fun, great intertainment, and lots of friends. A new one for this year is that we decided to head directly down to Thousand Lake after the dance got over at 10pm. We only made to to Tremonton before we were exhausted, but it spilt the ride up a bit.
Our Thousand Lake trip came and went quicker than ever this year. It seems like we look forward to it all year long and then the week comes and goes so quickly. The trailer was a nice change this year. When we stopped on the way down we were able to jump in the back and sleep for a couple hours with the beds already set up. It also made it a lot easier to set things up when we got down there and pack up to come home.We had a great week of camping with family. It was fun to have Gary & Annette's family come down and stay this year. We rode on some great trails this year and got a raft fixed up.
On the way home from Thousand Lake we had a chance to stop in and see Grandma Ashby. We don't tend to get down this way too often and it was fun to see her.
After our crazy month of July and not being home any of the weekends we decided to tear the kids bedroom apart and attempt to get it most of the way wrapped up before they started school. We didn't get it all done before school started, but we are getting pretty close. We will have to post some pics of where we are now.
This month the Varsity Scouts decided that they wanted to go canoeing down the snake river and then campout on the the lawn of one of our old ward members at the bank of the river. He had a fun slide and swing that go out into the river. We had a fun and hope to make this a tradition. There are really a lot of fun things that we can do quite close to home.
Last but not least I forgot to write that Natalie finally got her wish and found another puppy. Her name is Nessa and is an angel. She is fun to watch and gets along well with Cody and the kids. She is still trying to adjust to everyone going back to school and work.We always seem to find something to keep ourselves busy with. I have already noticed that I have misplaced some pictures from a family reunion that we went to. It is just so hard to keep track of every which way we have been going lately. Life is good though and we are blessed to have great family and friends.
