The Shuldberg Zoo: Washington for Family and a High School Reunion

This post is going to have A LOT of pictures in it. We took a week long trip to Montana and Washington to see family and go to Roy's 10 year High School Reunion. I took pictures of everything possible...except for the reunion. It was kind of lame - there was a total of maybe 15 people there and Roy didn't really know any of them. It was really cold and we were at a park (hence the poor turn out) and everyone was drinking or smoking. The food was pretty good and everybody thought Brayden was adorable. However, we didn't stay long because I didn't want to be out in the cold, let alone keep Brayden out there.
First comes our drive up to Idaho where we dropped off the dogs with Uncle Doug. It was a bit crowded.

Brayden, Tank, and I all in the back seat.

Roy and Abigail up front. (We have this arrangement because the dogs get a little excited sometimes and I wanted to be sure I was between them and the baby.)

We spent the night at Granny's house in Montana. She had a great box of new toys to play that was just Brayden's size.
Remember this picture from Christmas?

What is it with this kid and boxes? Actually, I think it has more to do with his father and boxes...

"Mark of the Devil"

We found a couple of adorable hats at the $50,000 Silver Dollar Store. It has become a tradition for us to stop here and look around whenever we pass through. It is a neat place.

Brayden's cousins were so excited to us. Although I think everyone was more excited to see Brayden than Roy or me.

Brayden and his cousin Alexis.

Fun times in the bouncer.

We visited his other cousins, Spencer and Ashleigh, as well.

The first thing Brayden tries to do: snatch that bow off of Ashleigh's head.

PLASTIC!!!!!

Spencer is kind of shy but he really loved playing with my camera. I got several shots of his hand because he thought it was hilarious to see his hand on the camera screen.

I want some of these! Aren't they the cutest thing you've ever seen?!

The perfect picture before we left.

How he really felt....this is proof that if you take a million pictures you might get lucky.

We saw two elk wandering through a pasture on our home one night. It was the first time I had ever seen one and these guys even had small antlers.

We decided Brayden was a little small for this so we used the Moby for our hike.

Now, I have never been to Seattle or even the eastern desert side of Washington. One of these is usually the image people get when they think of Washington state. However, marrying Roy let me in on a little known secret:
This is the Washington I know.

This moose track was as big as my foot.

Spot the frog!

The view from the Kemp's back porch. Can you image waking up to this every morning?

He loves it when Daddy tries to eat him.

His new friend Katie.

Two long-time friends. Now, two proud fathers.

I love Father's Day. It is a great opportunity to show the men in our lives how much we love and appreciate them. This first project is my gift to my dad. It is a simple plaque with linen tacked to it. I tried using this tutorial to transfer the writing onto the linen. It didn't work so I ended up tracing it by hand. It still turned out really nice.

This was Roy's gift this morning. He's been building me a table and I worry about him sawing without goggles or earplugs so I bought him some. I saw the candy bar bouquet at Smith's and new I could copy it. I used this tutorial to create the card.

We picked our first crop of strawberries when we got home from Washington and I made jam! I had a PB&J sandwich yesterday and it was great! This is the recipe I used.

I left him sitting on the floor. When I came back: He was actually staring at the fan but he looked and smiled as soon as he heard the camera turn on.

Remember these pictures from last year?

This is the huge cinder block planter on the west side of our house. The cinder blocks were crumbling, the plants weren't very pretty, and it had no real appeal to it. So this year, we did something about it.

We now have two beautiful planters with plants that I chose in the design I chose. They are not completely done (the bushes in the middle should be coming up soon and I need to buy roses) but they still look great. We are planting grass in the dirt areas where the planter used to be. This was a lot of hard work, especially on Roy's part. The previous owner's made everything in this house as permanent as possible...it's tough trying to change. We do the best we can and so far, I'm happy with it.
PS Do you see the beautiful ranch rail vinyl we put in last year? It is so much nicer than the chain link!

And last of all: This is a wedding gift to a good family friend. I found the idea here. It was really easy. It came together in about 1 hour and turned out great. Congratulations Lindsey!