A Few of Yellowstone

I think I'll put the majority of pics on a slideshow, but here are some fun ones! In no particular order...

Grandpa and Grandma got the kids these hats with matching T-shirts!

At the Fountain Paint Pots

Jake and the kids at the Red Spouter at the Paint Pots

There was this Discovery Center in West Yellowstone and we got to see a Birds of Prey demonstration. The birds were so cool! This owl was fed people food at a zoo and became acclimated to humans. All of the birds we saw in the show were physically incapable of surviving in the wild. This owl however, had a mental problem! He thought he was a human.

At the Discovery Center the kids got to feed the bears! Ok not quite, they did the Keeper Kids program. Once the bears were in their dens (holding cages in a seperate section) the kids got to go in with buckets of fruit, veggies and what looked like dog food, and hide it for the bears. They hid it under rocks and wood and when the bears came out they were turning over rocks and looking for that food! This is one of the bears and Jake got this amazing shot!

What would my scrapbooks be without this picture?!

Ahh, the whole family! This was in Lamar Valley in Yellowstone where the buffalo where. Believe it or not, I really though they were extinct. Somehow I had it in my blonde brain that the cowboys and indians killed them all... *sigh* Yes, I am waaayyyy blonde! Can't beat that good old Idaho education! The kids, and well everyone, got immense enjoyment from teasing me about this the whole trip. Once we found the herd Brady told me, "See Mom, they're not extinctable!"

Brady and Gwynie did all the activities to get their Junior Ranger Patches! When the Ranger was presenting them their badges he made an announcement to the whole visitors center! He let everyone know the kids got their patches and were official Jr. Rangers and the whole center clapped for them! Brady jumped up and down and clapped, too!

My cute little kids, just being cute little kids!

There was a museum in West Yellowstone so naturally I had to see it! They had these Duster Coats set out so you could try them on. They would rent these for people to wear over their travelling clothes while riding in the stage coaches.

So those are some of my favorites, but there are still soooo many other cute ones! I'll start working on a slide show for them all!

Animal Planet Expo

Well, we are back from Yellowstone, but I never posted the rest of the Animal Planet Expo pics. Here are those pictures, and if I feel adventurous tonight I'll upload some of the 314 pics I took on our vacation!

The kids outside the entrance to the Expo. I love this picture of Gwynie, she looks so grown up!

Me and the kids! (obviously...)

They handed out these Meerkat fans, it was so hot!

Meerkat Momma

Meerkat Daddy

They had a lot of cool attractions there for the kids. The kids played on this giant crocodile slide for a long time!!

There were a few of these exhibits just full of butterflies.

Gwynie got her face painted like a ladybug.

Side view!

Brady wanted a blue spider. After we got done everyone kept saying, "Look at that cool kid, look at the spider on his face." I'm sure the other kids in line decided to get a spider after they saw his face!

Both the face painted kids!

Meerkat Kids

and one more!

I took so many pictures this day, when will I learn?!

Safari Snaps Photos

Here are the ones we got at the Expo, I'll put the ones I took later tonight.














Hehehe....Brady was so tired...he was done!

Family Fun

First, I have to share this joint effort picture the kids did. Brady colored the car (of course it's blue) and Gwynie added the raccoons being run over. Jake HATES raccoons so the kids tease him about it all time and whenever they get a chance to.


Gwynie wrote "Smush Racoon" and Brady even added blood on the tires...

Then on Saturday we had a family birthday party for Jake's Grandpa Fackrell (his Mom's Dad). It's hard to believe he is 86! He still takes care of his horses each day and yodels for all the little grandkids.

Grandpa Fackrell and the kids

Cutest kids at the party!The kids and my neices (L-R: Abby, Bailey and Hannah)

Gwynie, Bailey and Hannah - This swing actually broke because all the kids (about 8-12) of them were on it! I totally missed out taking pics of it...oh well!

My youngest neice Abby is just a ham and grabbed Jake and made him play catch with her. I got a few funny shots of her, she was just camera happy. She is so unlike her sisters, she's bossy, spunky and demanding...reminds me of myself as a kid (ok and now too!). That must be why I love her so much, lol!

Making Jake play catch, she really had to twist his arm ;)

She was taking this plastic golf club apart and this was her Ta-da! face

Her and Brady almost brawled over the blue piece of cake but luckily split it.

Today, we went to the Animal Planet Expo! We had a blast but it was really hot! They had these screens that would super impose you into a set, so we got some pics of us with animals and some guys on Animal Planet. Those become available to download tomorrow so I will post those along with the rest of the pics we took tomorrow night. But, here's a peek....

Yes....Jake and I had lots fun!

Haircut and a Popsicle....

Well out kitty had her kittens last week. She had 4 of them and the kids are so excited for baby kitties in the house. Me not so much... I let the kids hold one kitten for just a minute. They can't wait until they are bigger and then can play.

Brady was pretty excited!

Gwynie's new haircut! She had been begging me to get it cut, so yesterday we went. She loves it and can still put it in a ponytail. She started tumbling last week and is loving it! Good thing she can still pull her hair back!

Here is Brady demonstrating what happens when you stick your tongue to a popsicle. It was stuck for little bit until he worked it off. He laughed about it though!

A Few Pics and Funny Stories

Grandma and Grandpa Merritt are camp hosts at West Yellowstone this summer. They sent the kids these shirts and before Gwyn and Brady went to bed Friday night I had to take pictures of them! The kids are so excited since we will be going up there for vacation the 23th-27th of this month. Brady is looking forward to seeing the bears and Gwynie wants to make smores.

Now for some funny stories. Brady always amazes me with the funny things he thinks of, or the funny things he says. So here are two funny stories!

First Story:

At work, Jake has been getting everything ready for reps to move down to the bottom floor of their building. This has meant several nights of imaging and setting up computers, running cables, setting up IP and DSN addresses (yeah like I know what all that meant, ok I do cause he explained it all!), setting up the phones and phone lines and just various other IT related things. Last week we went to his work so he could show us the first floor and everything he's been working on. As he's showing us around there is this room that he said they would be turning into a Training Room, but since it had dividers they might do half Training, half Break Room. We're still in that room talking about other things in it when Brady pipes up, "So this is the Choo-Choo Room?" I was completely befuddled, but Jake realized what he meant - Brady thought the "TRAINing" Room was where they would set up all the Thomas trains! LOL! The kid loves his trains and I'm sure he was imagining track and trains all over the floor in that large room!

Second story:

Friday at daycare a transformer blew so my daycare lady was telling the kids, its ok, the power shouldn't be out too long, etc. They had just finished their lunch and were getting ready to go outside anyways so it wasn't a big deal. Brady though, hearing that a transformer blew asked, "Was it Optimus Prime?" Hehe, Brady loves Transformers too and thought one of them was actually there.

I'm So Excited!

I have a horrible habit of deleting pictures off my camera and memory card before I have them saved to the computer or to a disc. I actually did that last summer, wiped out Gwynie's first day of school and a lot of other stuff. Luckily Jake had some things saved on the computer, but I did lose a lot. I even have a Christmas where we only have about 10 pictures...it's really sad and I have been lamenting the loss of other pictures too...Brady's first haircut for one.

So why does my title of this post suggest that I'm excited? Well, when we were at Jake's Mom and Dad's I asked if I could look at the pics they have saved on their computer to see if there were any they had taken that I wanted to snag for their scrapbooks. Lo and behold! There were pics from 2004 that I thought I had deleted and lost forever! Here are some of the little gems I was able to recover! I have tons now that I can scrapbook the forgotten memories! Yay!

Gwynie's VERY FIRST Mini-Cheer at Cyprus High. This cheerleader loved her and always carried her wherever they went.

Jake and Brady at Mini-Cheer wearing their matching Tar Heels Hats. Go NC!

This is when Gwynie was in Kindergarten and they had crazy hair day. I turned Gwynie's hair into a beehive - literally!

A close up. I used yarn and then I made all those bees out of pipe cleaners and stuck the bees and flowers into her hair with bobby pins. Yeah, it was a lot of work, but it was so worth it!

Awww!!! Look how cute and teeny she is!!! They did crazy hair day on Halloween because that year they weren't letting them wear their costumes to school. Gwynie and Brady wore their shirts my Mom got them for Halloween! And I put a bee on her shirt and one on her shoulder with safety pins.

And I did Brady's hair crazy too! All gelled out and spiky looking!

Brady's First Haircut!

Look how long his hair was! I knew once we cut it that baby part of him would be gone forever so I procrastinated it as long as I could. But he was looking too shaggy so it had to be cut.

Jake held him, but he hated it sooooo bad! He screamed and cried the whole time. We gave the lady that cut his hair a really good tip because he was so difficult. It's so fun to look back on these because Brady just loves to get his hair cut now! He chats and flirts with the girls when they cut it and is always so proud of how cute he looks afterwards.

HOLY COW!!! Aww we look so cute!!! We were at a Jazz game. I miss my highlighted hair (oh and the fact I was about 20 pounds lighter)! Jake looks about the same though. Now I want to get my hair done again, but it just costs so much for something that has to be done every three months!