Violet's Talent Show Performance

I just wanted to share Violet's (age 12) school talent show performance with you. She did such a great job today! This was her first solo performance in front of a large audience. When I flipped the video, it kind of squashed her, but you can still hopefully hear her ok. :)

This Totally Made My Day

Validation

If you haven't had a chance to see this yet, set aside 15 minutes of your day. You won't be sorry.

First Piano Recital

Violet has been taking piano lessons for about 9 months. She's doing very well, and recently had her first piano recital. I was so proud of her!

Yes, We Got A Lot Of Snow

Why do you ask? :)

Historia de un Letrero

Funniest Thing I've Seen In Ages

Wordless Wednesday

My work buddy.

And as an added bonus for today:

Playing With the Boys

Kayla has been moonlighting as a keeper on my brother Dusty's soccer team. The unusual thing about this is that this is an all-men's league, ages 18 and up.

It's made for some interesting times.

Here's something from their last game:



After the crash, she seemed like she was hurting a bit. When she came in for half-time, I asked her if she was ok. She said yes, no problem. "Are you sure?" I ask. "Yes! I do have two built-in-airbags, you know." And off she went to play more soccer. :)


UPDATE: I have just found out about a contest on YouTube. If you’re interested, visit SanDisk’s Life Moves contest page and enter your video clip for a chance to win prizes (I entered this one!). Then, head over to 5 Minutes for Mom and enter their contest for even more prizes!

Olympic Fever

Sorry for not updating my blog lately, but I'm using what little free time I have to be obsessed with the Olympics. So in honor of the Summer Olympics, I give you this:

African Children's Choir

I had to make a quick stop at Costco to pick up a prescription, but never made it in. Just inside the entry area, a children's choir from Africa was singing. They were wonderful! It was the best surprise of my day (well, of many days...).

The acoustics weren't super great, but at least I had my trusty camera with me and was able to film a few songs. (If you'd like to hear the others, please go to my YouTube channel.)

The group is a charity fundraiser for Kenyan children. You can learn more about them at: http://www.singingchildrenofafrica.org.uk.

Simon's Cat

And if you like this one, go to the Simon's Cat YouTube channel:

http://www.youtube.com/user/simonscat

As the owners of two kitties, we've been laughing our heads off over here. :)

Yellowstone, Day 6

We pulled our sorry bodies out of bed this morning at 6:00am. We were heading out to Lamar Valley, in the northeast part of the park, to see if we could spy any wolves. About 45 minutes later, we saw this:



And less than an hour later, we saw this guy. We were thrilled-- not many who come to Yellowstone get to see wolves... and we saw 8 of them, 3 of them fairly close up like this one.

After we got back, Ron cooked a wonderful dutch oven dinner of barbeque-apricot pork and buttery potatoes/carrots/sweet onions. Then out came the makings for s'mores again. :) When we were stuffed, we left to go try to catch the Great Fountain Geyser. It only goes off like twice a day, and we wanted to see it. And saw it, we did! This is the third (and highest) blast it came out with this eruption.

Afterwards, we did the 5.2 mile round-trip hike to Fairy Falls. Violet loved the falls, as you can see. :) My pedometer was being stupid, though-- it said the hike was just under 3 miles. So either the pedometer was lying, or the mileage signs on the trail were made to discourage too many people from hiking around. :)

I'm sorry that we have to leave tomorrow. It's been a fabulous vacation!

Yellowstone, Day 4

We headed off for the east part of Yellowstone today, and started out at Upper and Lower Falls. We went down Uncle Tom's Trail down to the waterfall overlook, which has approximately 4, 628 stairs. Okay, maybe it was only like 200 or so, but at 8,000 feet altitude, it was a difficult climb back up! The rainbow was as awesome as the falls themselves, I thought.



We saw herds of buffalo down through Hayden Valley, and Jak caught a frog in a marshy meadow. We ended up at Yellowstone Lake for a late lunch, where the girls and Ron paddled the kayaks around and I took a nap. :)

We ended our day at West Thumb Geyser Basin, which has some beautiful pools. It's right on Yellowstone Lake, which makes a beautiful backdrop for the thermal area.

Got back to camp late, but not so late that we didn't have time for s'mores! Yum!

Yellowstone, Day 2

Today was going to be our longest day. I figured we'd do this one first, while the girls were still totally hyped up with excess vacation energy. :)



We did the Norris Geyer Basin, and then headed down to Old Faithful. We did the long walk behind Old Faithful, and saw a LOT of geysers go off. Very cool! We got back late, but it was worth it. I think we saw at least 10 geysers go off today!

I logged 24,941 steps on my pedometer today. My feet and back hurt!