August Tennis and Swimming Videos

 

August Videos-Nathan birthday

 

 

First Day of School

Today is the first day of school! Nathan headed off to 4th grade and Elizabeth headed off to 2nd grade. It's a hot day! It's supposed to be 100 by the time school is out. 

Charlotte and Elizabeth have the same sandals! 

Nathan and Miley are finally in the same class!! It only took 5 years! 

Tennis Lessons

The kids did a tennis program this summer. Elizabeth loved it. Nathan did not. Elizabeth was in the beginner class and Nathan was in the intermediate class and I think that's why he didn't like it. He said it was too hard and they didn't get to play fun games like the beginner class did. Elizabeth says she wants to take lessons again in the future, but Nathan says he doesn't. 

Elizabeth's group practicing swinging their rackets. 

Elizabeth hitting toward her coach. 

Elizabeth and a couple of the other girls. 

It was really hard to take pictures of Nathan. He was on the other side of the court and taking pictures through the netting was not good. In this picture, he's in the green shirt near the net. 

Boating

Our neighbors have a really nice boat and invited us to come spend the day boating with them here on the Columbia! It was so nice of them to do so. 

The kids and Jeremy zoomed around in this little thing. 

Jeremy slowed them down so the kids wanted him out. 

They got on this other ride and zoomed around on that awhile. 

They went in the water some and said it was really cool and refreshing. 

Our neighbor pulled them like 7 miles down the river! They got to ride all the way from North Richland to the blue bridge. 

Here's where they were zooming under the highway bridge. They wanted to go even further than the 7 miles!

We went all the way to the blue bridge and then turned around. 

Heading back home. This was the only time they were actually IN the boat! 

Fair and Rodeo

The weekend before school starts is always the fair and rodeo. 

Nathan loves the rodeo. He loves all the events and he laughs his head off at the rodeo clown and all his antics. 

Elizabeth doesn't enjoy the rodeo as much as Nathan so she spends most of the time watching the clown. If he weren't there, I don't know what we'd do! Of course, she also got a snow cone and kettle corn. 

Nathan enjoying the action. 

Family shot before the rodeo started. 

Before the rodeo, we explored the fair. 

Sheep

Pigs. This kid let Nathan pet his pig. 

Oh how Elizabeth LOVES the bunnies. She's allergic to bunnies so we can't have one, but I think it's her favorite part of the fair. 

More bunnies. 

She wanted me to take pictures of all her favorite bunnies. 

Dust Devils Game

We went to a Dust Devils game with Papa Norm and Gram this week. The Dust Devils played the Spokane Indians. 

Gram got her exercise getting up and down to fill the kids up with snacks. It kept Elizabeth busy as she wasn't much interested in the game. The first inning, they ate kettle corn.  The second and third inning, they ate these snow cones.  The fourth inning, they had licorice. It was amusing to watch poor Gram keep heading out with Elizabeth to buy more to eat. It was nice they found so many snacks Nathan could have! 

Here the kids met with the mascot Dusty before the game. 

Kettle corn snacking. 

We had someone stop by!! Elizabeth and Gram were out buying snacks when Elizabeth saw a police car pull up and park by the snack area. She said, "Hey, it's like Dad's car." And what do you know, Dad stepped out! Jeremy stayed for a few minutes, and then patrolled the stadium, and then left to do other work. 

Hugs. 

Hugs

The kids did the "dash across the field chasing Dusty" thing in the 6th inning. They thought that was great fun. I didn't take a picture as you wouldn't have been able to see them anyway. 

Just a picture I took of the game. The Dust Devils ended up winning. We left after the 7th inning as it was getting late and the kids were really tired. 

New Middle School

Our town has been growing by leaps and bounds! We desperately needed a new middle school (and a new high school). They did just finish building a new middle school and it will open next week! Nathan will go there in 2 years. It will be about a 2 minute bike ride for him so that will be really nice! 

They put in a new paved path between the school and some of the houses. He won't use this trail, but it's always fun to discover a fun new place to ride bikes that's away from the roads. We like to take bike rides in the evenings during nice weather. 

Elizabeth in front of the new school and ready to ride the new path. 

The field next to the middle school had freshly cut hay. It sure smelled good! 

Biking...

The end of the trail is in a neighborhood. You have to go up a steep hill. The kids have a blast going back down although I watched Nathan nearly crash...

Nathan heading home. 

Day 11 Vacation-Museum of the Rockies

We stopped in Bozeman, Montana to visit the Museum of the Rockies. I had heard it had a great dinosaur exhibit and they sure did!! I was quite amazed at this museum and the fact it had dinosaurs bones and fossils from millions and millions of years ago. 

Nathan standing next to some dinosaur leg bones. 

A skull complete with teeth. 

A whole little dinosaur they found all curled up. 

Part of a crocodile. There were crocodiles in Montana millions of years ago!! How cool is that? They said it was kind of a tropical, warm climate back then. 

Pretty much all of these dinosaurs were found in Montana and Wyoming.  Montana and Wyoming had great kinds of dinosaurs! Lots of T-Rexes. 

This was a cache of eggs that was fossilized!! 

Some dinosaur feet! The brown color is the actual bone. The white is some kind of plaster to fill it in to make it whole. 

I was amazed when we turned a corner and walked into a room with a full size T-Rex skeleton! It was a mixture of real bone and some of the plaster, but it was just awesome to see because it was way  more real bone than plaster. 

Here were the triceratops and baby. Most of the baby seemed to be real bone. 

 T Rex again. T-Rex lived somewhere between 65 and 70 million years ago and here it was standing in the museum! It's hard to capture how big it was with the camera. Even the skeleton was kind of terrifying! It's a good thing humans never had to live among these guys. Yikes! 

A whole collection of T-Rex skulls. It makes you wonder how many dinosaurs were actually in the area if they are able to find so many nearly perfectly preserved fossils!! 

T-Rex tail. That tail was huge!!! 

They had a huge collection of triceratops skulls from baby size up to adult that had all been found in Montana and Wyoming. 

Nathan wanted to stand in the mouth of the t-rex skull. 

Elizabeth also wanted to stand in the mouth of the t-rex skull. 

The museum also had a Yellowstone Exhibit, an alligator exhibit (with real alligator), a Native 

American exhibit, and an exhibit about Montana history. We had already seen Yellowstone and Reptile gardens so we didn't spend much time looking at those parts of the museum.