Hike to the Wind Caves...

Sunday afternoon we decided to get out of the house and head up the canyon to hike up to the Wind Caves. Lars had been up there before, but the rest of hadn't.

Checking out the map, getting ready to head up...

  Cute little hikers...

It ended up being almost 4 miles round trip! We were so proud of the boys...Ashton hiked the whole trail, and Gunnar hiked about half the way up and about 3/4 of the way down. The rest of it Lars packed him on his back...

 They took lots of little water breaks on the way...those backpacks are so handy!

It was worth the hike to get to the top. It is so beautiful up there!

 It did make me a bit nervous at the top though and we hung onto them in the caves...it would be easy to slip and fall. FAR.

Going down was much faster and I just kept thinking how awesome the boys did.

 I'm really starting to love hiking and can't wait to get some better shoes and start going more!
It also made me think of how far Lars has come with his injury in the past year...what a blessing for him to be able to hike again.

Demolition Derby!

We recently met some new friends from church and last weekend they invited us to go to dinner and then to the Demolition Derby. It was such a fun night out and great that they happen to have 2 cute little boys just about the same age as ours.

The Derby was awesome!

The boys had never been to one and I actually don't think I really had either. And really what is better to little boys than cool looking cars intentionally smashing into eachother?? They loved it! Ashton especially loved that one of the cars had his name on it...haha :)

 I have to add this one picture, because for as long as I can remember Gunnar points to everything with his middle finger...haha :)
We laugh every time he points to something and I just think it's so cute. I finally got a picture of it!

And just a couple more cute ones...

 I think this will definitely become a yearly tradition!

Good times :)

Ashton's last baseball game...

Ashton had his last baseball game last Monday, and Grandma came down to watch him play with us.

He did so well!!! It was such a fun game to watch...he got hits all 3 times he was up to bat. He really improved throughout the short season and we're hoping he'll take interest in playing again next year.

Good job Ashton!

And thanks for coming to watch Grandma :)

 (poor Gunnar had been running a fever that day, but we didn't want to miss the game so we just laid the blanket in the shade so that he could lay down.)

He had finally perked up here and was loving counting down the minutes till the game was over on Grandma's phone :)

"B" is for Bear Lake...

We always look forward to our first Bear Lake trip of the year, and now we can check off "B"!

Lars decided to take off early on Friday since most of his office was already gone for the weekend. So we got stuff ready and decided to head over to Bear Lake for the afternoon. We got over there after 3:00 and played on the beach till about 6:30. We drove over to the North shore again since it is about the only place with a lot of beach since the water is still so high.

 It was pretty packed, but started to clear out about 5:00.

After we packed up all of our stuff we headed over to Merlin's drive-in to eat dinner at about 7:00 and surprisingly it wasn't busy at all.

 We love their burgers there and it's become kind of a traditon to stop there on our way home. It's fun because there is a little park for the boys to play on while we wait for our food.

Can't wait to go back!

The 4th....

A few days before the 4th (after Lars had already purchased a bunch of fireworks), we found out that Providence City had banned all fireworks in city limits. There had been a fire in the town next to ours (Millville) a few days before as well as lots of other fires throughout Utah and Colorado, so understandably they wanted to lower the risk of having any more.

Sooooo, Nate and Brianne invited us out to their house to have a barbecue and set off fireworks that night. Their street was not part of the ban on fireworks in Smithfield and they'd already bought a whole bunch of Wyoming fireworks too.

During the day we didn't do too much...it was another really hot day, so we went and got Snowie's in the afternoon, but that was about it.

 Oh and I made this...

We've done it a few times with strawberries, but this was the first time we did the flag version. So yummy!

Lars also made some yummy crock-pot cheesy bacon potatoes to take over.

We went out to their house about 6:30 and stayed till about 10:30. It was another fun night. Ashton and Gunnar look forward to Independence day like they do Christmas!

Fireworks and "I" is for Ice Cream for Dinner...

This year the 4th fell on Wednesday, so as usual in Logan the city fireworks were held on the 3rd...Tuesday. That was the day we went to the pool, and Ashton also had a baseball game that night at 6:00, so after that we decided to do "I" on our ABC Summer list and had "Ice Cream for Dinner."

We went up to Aggie Ice Cream and met the Hansons. We got our ice cream, then laid our blanket out on the lawn in front of the ice cream shop.

It turned out to be the perfect spot! Hardly any people and super easy to get out of and get home before we got stuck in traffic. Luckily we had stopped off at Macey's on the way and picked up our traditional glow bracelets for all of the boys to play with...they were entertained playing and pretending with those up until the fireworks finally started at dark.

 Such a fun night spent with friends...We love fireworks!