about the fourth, finally

so you probably have read a lot of long posts about everyone's 4th of July celebrations, so here is another, but I'll try to be brief. We had a great time staying in a cabin near Yellowstone park. Michael's parents and a few aunts and uncles rented a large cabin together at Mack's Inn about 20 miles west of West Yellowstone. Staying at Mack's is significant because both Michael and I had great-grandparents that owned cabins at Mack's Inn back in the day. Did our grandparents or great-grandparents know eachother spending most of their summers up at the cabins? Maybe. Here is the old Scalleywag cabin that used to belong to Michael's great-grandparents. (it is the cabin across the river--Henry's Fork of the Snake river to be exact.)
This is not our first trip like this. We've done this with Mike's family about every 2-3 years. Here are the parts that are tradition:

Floating down Henry's fork of the Snake river (it's always freezing, so we stay in the raft or canoe)here's the whole gang on the way up to the drop off spot

Then we always go to the Playmill Theater in West Yellowstone and see all 3 productions on 3 different nights and we love it! (Does anyone remember John Peter Lewis from American Idol a few seasons back? before that we saw him as a performer at the Playmill).

Riley was especially excited to go to the 'silly show' every night.

Emma loved the singing and dancing especially at the beginning but never quite made it through an entire play. What did I expect for an 8 month old who was completely off her sleep schedule? I remember going to the Playmill when my family went to Yellowstone when I was a kid. Crazy...

Of course we did the usual Yellowstone Park thing:
the stink pots,
Old Faithful,
the animals we saw: a wolf, tons of elk, a few deer, a bald eagle, and a lot of bison/buffalo (or 'Puffalow' as Riley says)
watch out for the rogue bison! can you see this one about to ram the camper? that fuzzy brown spot is a grizzly bear (sorry the photo isn't more clear, but we are smart enough to keep our distance), but we were so excited to actually see a bear with our own eyes.

As we left the park we were sad to say we never saw a moose, but on the drive home near Kellog, ID we saw a moose running near the freeway along a frontage road.

We went out to eat
a lot
We even did some boating on a reservoir
Lots of hanging out with the cousins,

and the aunts and uncles & everyone

and most of all the grandparents who made the trip possible -thanks a ton!!!!

Oh yeah! The 4th. After a full day of fun, we saw a play and then had a picnic in the park and watched the fireworks. Loads of fun!

On top of everything we even did awesome white water rafting (see other post).
So a few of the less than fun things about our trip:
- getting eaten alive by mosquitoes
- Riley's first time on a teeter totter and she fell funny getting pretty good bruises on each cheek
- in trying to do Riley's hair for church Sunday morning she accidentally got a major burn on her wrist from my flat iron (luckily she recovered quickly and without complication)
AND
- leaving my wallet and cute shirts I bought the girls in Yellowstone (luckily the wallet was returned with amazing luck and little inconvenience).
All in all a wonderful trip! I still can't believe we saw a grizzly bear.

That was brief, you ask? Did I have to include every halfway decent photo? my answer: apparently.
(No, actually there are a ton more photos, but I didn't even take one, so all the credits for the photos goes to Mike's family.)

careful what you wish for...

yeah. I've been secretly wishing for a little more time to read books and catch up blogging(writing mine and reading others'). Well wish granted...in the form of a back injury that forces me to rest an entire day, maybe more, and not lift anything heavier than a book for at least 5 days. Does anyone know how fidgety and busy I can get? (we know where Riley gets her wiggles from) I sure hope I wake up tomorrow and feel better, but I still shouldn't push it. Hopefully I'll be able to walk, sit, stand up & down without major pain. It should all be over in a week, but now I'm forced to rest and dwell on it or try not to. Sometimes I wish I could be strong and quiet and not complain to the whole world (my whole blog-o-sphere and anyone who makes the mistake of calling and talking to me, or happens to be an unlucky friend/family that I called) and just not burden everyone I know with my minor problems, but its just not my style. I'm working on it, but I do totally realize that life does not revolve around ME! Luckily Michael was home when it happened and was able to rescue me from the bathroom floor while I was in pain and take me to the doctor. It was all brought on by lifting Riley up onto the toilet while we were hurrying through the get dressed and ready for the day routine. Lifting the girls around are normal activities of our daily life, but I guess I should've been lifting with my knees not my back. She's only 34-35lbs. no big deal, but something definitely went 'pop!' followed by labor-like intense PAIN and it didn't go away. The Dr. thinks that no permanent damage was done but that now I'm in an "acute phase" of major lower back muscle spasms. So I'll lie down, rely on Michael and my amazing sisters to help me with the day to day lifting moving essentials parts of motherhood. So glad he was able to miss school to take such wonderful care of me. Anyways, whining over. More books and blogs to read...at least I have both of my legs and can still move them, and I could go on and on counting my many blessings, but for now, I can be glad about that.
Riley is so darling. After Michael picked them up from the friend that was watching them for us, she was a little concerned about me and kept asking "does your back still hurt, mommy?" followed by giving me lots of stuff.
"here's a pillow to help your back feel better, mommy." before I know it, I'm surrounded by every throw pillow we own (which is a lot).

"here's some toys to help your back feel better, mommy." and on and on. What a sweetheart! She cheers me up tremendously. It's hard to feel sorry for yourself when your family takes such good care of you. Look, I can still even color with Riley!

two cool things we did on our trip

Here are our cute girls with all of Mike's cousins that joined us on the trip. Aren't they adorable!all these boys adore our girls and it is soo sweet!

We went white water rafting in Montana for the first time on a trip to Yellowstone and it was fabulous!! I wasn't even scared because the river was running really high and so it was fast and fun, but scary rocks were all buried deep in the water. Such a blast!
I know I'm making a very unattractive face in this picture, but I kept yelling out of excitement, not fear--that's how fun it was!!

NINE

Emma is 9 months today, hooray!

At her doctors appointment, she not only got a clean bill of health, but she weighed in at 19lbs. 12oz. and is now 27 inches tall. It puts her in between the 50-75th percentile for everything. My baby is growing up soo fast!! She looks like she might start walking soon.
She thinks she's as big as her big sister. Emma and Riley love each other and make either smile and laugh so much.

She loves to self-feed

(yes, that is asparagus).

Emma also loves to crawl really fast, be outside, pull up to standing, clap, laugh, and even dance a little bit. She even dances to the hymns at church---super cute--I can't believe she already knows how to shake it a little bit.

Last week we gave her a sippy cup for the first time and here's how she did:

pretty good, I'd say. We love you, Emma! Don't grow up too fast.

back in the saddle

I've been out of the loop and out of the habit of blogging. I was out of town and without internet for a while and I thought the first thing I would do on my return home and to my beloved internet, but I've been busy. And then the blogger's block set in. So much to catch up on over too much time, where to begin? So here's the short version. We celebrated Riley's birthday early June, then again mid-June along with Father's day at our parents' homes. Then the last Sunday in July I spoke in church and later that evening, I packed up the girls and Iand drove to our hometown and stayed with my folks for a day until I left with Mike's parents to Yellowstone Park for a week (well, we stayed a a cabin at Mack's Inn). We had a wonderful time with his parents, sister and her husband, aunts, uncles & cousins. Mike couldn't miss much class so he flew out to meet us there later. Then we all drove/rode home with his parents. Once back in our own place, Mike was pretty scarce and super busy studying for his dental national board exam (its a really big deal, a written test covering way too much information), but now that is over--THANKGOODNESS--and I'm sure he passed, although we won't really have the results for a while. So I have a husband and my kids see their dad again and it's wonderful!
I'm proud of him. Now he's back in class, but he schedule feels so much better without all the extra studying. Now that life has calmed down for now hopefully I'll get around to catching up on some of the fun we've had over the past month or so, but at least back in the saddle of regular blogging, I hope.