Wyoming Adventure Week, Day 3

Last Wednesday we went to nearby Green River to Expedition Island, the launching point of the John Wesley Powell Expedition. That group was the first known to float the Green River all the way to the Colorado River and the Grand Canyon. (I should have been more clear and told the kids that the island was tiny and in the middle of the river. After all, they are still Washingtonians at heart, and this island was not that impressive after being in the San Juans!) It was fun to play at the river and the park.

This picture cracks me up every time I look at it. Guess who was mad at his sister?

Wyoming Adventure Week, Day 2

On Tuesday, we went to Western Wyoming Community College to see the dinosaur exhibit. School was in, and the kids and I had a great discussion about college. After answering a million questions, I asked them what they wanted to major in in college. This is what they decided: Grace - Marine Biology, Liam - football, Sam - discovering things, Declan - undecided.

Touching a real dinosaur bone.

A cool pendulum in the student center.

We had fun posing with the Easter Island head. (AKA "Dumdum, give me gum-gum.")

We also discovered a creepy room full of taxidermy. I guess there's a couple in Rock Springs who are avid, world-traveling hunters who donated their collection to the college. Sam and Liam loved it here (and wanted pictures with nearly every animal), Grace and I were sad about the animals, and Declan was just plain creeped out.

For me, it brought back this:

Have you read it? Same author as "Life of Pi," very strange, very intense, very thought-provoking. One of those books you think about long after you finish reading it.

Wyoming Adventure Week, Day 1

To celebrate our "turning over a new leaf" (see post below) and the last week of summer vacation, the kids and I designated this week "Wyoming Adventure Week." We spent the week doing what we like best - going on field trips to interesting local places.

On Monday we went to the Reliance Coal Tipple, a hundred-year-old building where coal was sorted and loaded on rail cars. It was a creepy place anyway, but made creepier by a very windy and overcast day. The noises coming from that place freaked us out a little!

The kids were most interested in all the coal lumps and coal dust around on the ground. (They even set up this cute picture and asked me to take it!)

On the way back into town, we stopped again at the BLM mustang corrals. Maybe it was the weather, but those horses were sure talking to each other a lot. Lots of whinnying.

Here's one thing I adore about my kids: their sheer curiosity. Even with all the beautiful wild horses behind us, they were more interested in studying ant hills, crumbling up crackers, and watching the ants carry them away. If it hadn't started raining, they would have stayed there for hours.

Bear Lake

On our way home from Preston, the kids and I decided to stop at Bear Lake for fresh raspberry shakes and a little beach time.

No pictures of Grace and Liam, who were way out swimming.

I have to admit that I feel a little hypocritical posting these pictures that make it look like we had such a lovely day. Because it wasn't. It was a bad mom day for me. Things had been building up all week (okay, all summer) and I pretty much lost it on the way home.

This summer has been killer, and not killer in a good way. The kids and I have had a very hard time adjusting to this move. I thought waiting until summer to move was a good idea, letting the kids finish up one school year and start a new one in a new place. But now I think it might have been smart to just move in April when Garreth got the job. That way we could have gotten right into a routine, the kids would have made friends at school, etc. Because we are really driving each other crazy this summer. None of us has any friends, the house is a disaster, it is hot and dusty, and there are just not that many things to do here. The fighting (and my patience!) has never been worse.

We have had lots of fun traveling over to see our families, which has saved the summer from being a complete wash, but all that traveling also means that we haven't been at church every week. So we still don't know a lot of people there, plus Garreth and I just got put into nursery, so there goes any chance we had of getting to know anyone who doesn't have a one to three-year-old!

Are you thinking "Waaaa Waaaa" like I am right now after reading what I just wrote?! Maybe pulling out your tiny violins? So, yeah, that was a little pity party I just threw for myself, but it's my blog, right? And here's the good news: Things are really looking up! And by really looking up, I mean School is Starting!! And we are excited! We need routine. We need friends. We need to not be together 24-7. We need to have our own things going on. We need to have focus and purpose. We need to start turning this house into our home, because it really is a beautiful one. We need to start focusing on all the great things that have happened and that will happen to our family because of this move.

So that is the last whining you will hear from me for a while.

Because my life is really pretty sweet.

Fossil Butte National Monument

Last week Garreth was out of town for some work training in Vancouver, and there was no possible way for me to stay in Rock Springs while he was in my favorite place in the world. So the kids and I went to my other favorite place in the world (Preston, of course!) to stay with Nana and Papa. On the way, we decided to stop somewhere we'd passed by many times and always been curious about: Fossil Butte National Monument.

Millions of years ago, this area was a huge lake with a tropical climate and now it is one of the richest fossil beds in the world. We started off at the Visitors Center and saw hundreds of very cool fossils.

The lady at the desk told us about a two-mile hike that we decided to do. It was an interesting place and at the top we saw the site where the scientists dig for fossils. We had fun looking for fossils on the trail, but had no luck.

Hiking in Wyoming is nothing like hiking in Washington, but it was a fun afternoon!