Beach

One of our favorite summer activities is going to the beach at Bear Lake.  The kids love spending hours playing in the sand while I sit and relax, and I love that my kids think I'm a great mom for taking them. 

I have know idea what that look is but I thought it was pretty funny.

Fenton LOVES the water!  I have to watch him pretty close or he will go out pretty deep. One day when I was scanning the beach looking for him I found him talking to a guy with a jet ski trying to convince him to take him for a ride.

Griffin splashing

Anika and her friend Bailee hunting for shells.

One of the boys favorite things to do is build sand castles with motes around them and then they fill  the motes up with water.  One day while they were doing this I said that we should have a lesson about erosion.  When Ethan and his friend asked what erosion was Dalton went ahead and explained it to them.  What a smart kid.

Moss Family Reunion

This year the Moss family reunion was held near Yellowstone National Park.  We have visited Yellowstone several times in the last few years but we always manage to find new things we haven't seen before.  This trip I let the kids take a lot of the pictures because I felt like I had already taken all the pictures I could of boiling pots of mud.  It was interesting to see some of the things that they chose to take pictures of. 

 I don't know which of the kids took this pictures but I thought it was very good.

One of the kids must really like the green algae (or allergy as Ethan calls it) because their were several pictures of the algae.

I like how this one is framed by the fence.

 

We had planned to do some swimming but all of the places that you are allowed to swim at were closed because of high water.  We found this shallow spot just below a waterfall and let the kids wade around a little.

Buffalo

Elk

Coyote

Cousin Nathan's 4-wheeler train that the kids LOVED

Face Painting Anika is ALWAYS up for face painting

Baby Powder 6/25/12

I don't even think I need to explain this one the pictures are enough.

Fenton turns 5

Fenton turned 5 on June 26th.  It was a busy day for us so sadly we didn't do a lot but Grampa Moss was able to come over and eat dinner (hot dogs and pancakes) and have bubble gum ice cream cake.  Fenton was soooo excited to get new toys and his brothers had picked them out so that made it even better.  I thought I would share a few things about Fenton at age 5.  He WANTS everything.  He gets in trouble frequently because he wants everything.  I think it is really funny when he starts asking me for things like jet packs or cameleons that will turn into tanks and really weird and random stuff like that.  Fenton loves Hot Dogs and Pancakes.  Whenever you ask him what he wants to eat it is usually one of those two things.  Fenton thinks that he is a pretty big boy and will try just about any CRAZY thing that you ask him to. Fenton loves to make Griffin happy.  He is also a bit of a clown and will do anything over and over again if it will make people laugh (that includes hurting himself).  Fenton is a pretty fun boy to have around and we are glad that he is a part of our family.

Horses

Another one of the highlights from my family reunion was riding horses.  Most of my kids have never been on a horse before and those that have haven't been on one for 5 or 6 years.  In spite of all of that my kids LOVED it.  So much so that they keep asking Alex and I when we are going to get a horse. Thanks Ray and Kori for taking the time to bring your horses to the park for my kids to enjoy.

Griffin

Griffin was very excited this week when we put training wheels back on the little bike so that he could ride it.  He caught on to pedaling pretty quick and now we can't get him off of it. 

Swimming Lessons

This week my kids started swimming lessons.  We have been traveling to Garden City for them because the pool here in Montpelier isn't open.  It is a long day for all of us because we leave the house at 8:15 in the morning and don't get home until 1pm.  If you ask the kids they will tell you that they don't like swimming lessons but when they are in the water you would never guess that.  It is just that we are gone for so long and a lot of their time is spent waiting not swimming. Their swimming instructor is much harder on them than the teachers they have had in the past.  They don't enjoy that but I sure do.  They are really learning a lot and she is doing a lot of life saving things with them like what to do if they fall in the water or if someone else falls in the water.  They have all improved so much in just 1 week.  It will be fun to see how much more they improve over the next week. 

 Fenton has never had any fear of the water so it was great to get him in swimming lessons so that he could learn how to actually swim and not just think that he could.  He is kind of crazy in his class and they have to keep an eye on him or he will try swimming the length of the pool.

 Anika was scared to death of the water on Monday.  Her teacher made here put her face in the water which she didn't like doing.  But by Thursday she was having contests with Fenton to see who could hold their breath under the water the longest.  Now that she is over her fear of the water hopefully she will learn to really swim this week.

 Ethan started the week knowing how to swim but just enough to survive.  He has been learning how to have better breath control so that he doesn't come up out of the water gasping for air.  He has also been learning better swimming technique so that he isn't just doggy paddling.

Dalton is a pretty good swimmer and wasn't sure if he wanted to take swimming lessons.  He was afraid that they were just going to work on crazy diving and things that he would never use.  She has been working a lot with him on technique and getting faster with his swimming.  He comes away from swimming lessons exhausted but he is definitely improving.  On Thursday she even started showing them the butterfly stroke. 

Magic Tree House

This year at my family reunion Aunt Becky put together a great activity for all of the kids.  It was loosely based on some of the Magic Tree House books.  The kids got to ride horses in the wild west.  Be pirates and search for treasure.  Listen to family history in a tree house.  And go searching for bugs in the Amazon.  It was a lot of fun and we need to send out a big THANK YOU to Aunt Becky for putting it on.

 Riding horses

 

Reading the map to find the buried treasure

 The Treasure

 Aunt Carla telling stories

Jumping off the paddle boats in the Amazon

Meadow Hot Springs

For those of you who don't know there is a really neat Hot Springs near Meadow.  Alex has stopped to swim there before but we have never been able to make it as a family.  The weekend before the 4th of July while we were heading home from a family reunion at my Mom's house we were able to stop and go for a little swim.  There are 3 different hot pools and each of them is a little different.  The kids all had a great time swimming and playing in the water.

Dalton doing his cool light saber moves

Fenton just loved swimming

This is a happy face I promise

Anika still doesn't like to spend much time in the water.  She just hung on the edge.

I think he was doing a backflip

Ethan trying to land on the rope