Memorial Day Visitors

We bought tennis racquets for the boys and have gone to play tennis a few times now.  Emmett was actually a little better than we were expecting, but it is pretty challenging for Ezra.  

Jim's parents came out for a visit over Memorial Day weekend.  Jim accomplished lots of projects around the house with their help and we had some fun day trips as well.  On Friday we went up to the Market Lake Wildlife Management Area and saw tons of birds.  The highlight was the owls, we saw 3 different types.

The first owls we saw were flying over a field

We saw tons of these odd looking birds with iridescent blue/green wings

a very shy turtle

walking a short trail to see some owls

the second type of owl, there were young ones and adults

the third type of owl

 On Saturday we drove a loop up through Montana.  We tried to time it so Elliott would nap in the car, and although he was plenty tired, he didn't want to sleep.  Our first stop was in Dillon at the Patagonia Outlet and then lunch.  Jim and I have had great success getting deals at the outlet, but during their Memorial Weekend Sale it was crowded and the prices weren't great.  Lunch was good and we continued on our way toward Virginia City.

 We stopped at a place on the side of the road to look for garnets.  Jim and I had done this loop in the early spring 7-8 years earlier and stopped at this very place.  We bought a bucket of dirt and found lots of pretty rocks including lots of garnets.

 We stopped in Nevada city which is all pretty much a museum that you pay to go in.  We walked around a bit but decided not to do the museum and the stopped at another place where they do gold panning.  We bought more dirt from them to pan at home and continued on to Virginia City.

 Virginia City began in around 1863 when gold was found in Alder Gulch.  It has been well preserved and many of the old buildings are set up as they originally were (barber shop, newspaper, dressmaker, cobbler, etc.).  We walked down the main street looking into the museum like parts and going into the gift shops and candy shop.  We got ice cream and pizza.

 We left after eating dinner and drove through Island Park.  It is a more scenic drive and Elliott did better which was nice.

 On Sunday our church just had one service and a potluck because of the holiday weekend.  In the afternoon we rode bikes to the park.  Monday Jim and his dad worked outside some and then we went to our new Cabelas store that just opened.  Afterwards we went and had a picnic lunch at a park that had 1000 flags set up. Elliott started clapping (he's been clapping with closed fists for a while but this was the first time with open hands and a clapping sound) and also scooting backwards.

Elliott usually likes to eat whatever I will give him from my food.

 Monday night I got to open some presents since my birthday was the next day and Jim's parents were headed out early that morning.  All three boys wanted to try Grandma's glasses on.

Emmett with his "smart pose"

Elliott crinkles up his nose a lot but it was hilarious with glasses on

It was nice to have visitors and Jim was really glad to get some projects checked off his list.  Tuesday was my birthday and was a pretty normal day at home for me.  I got Emmett off to school and Elliott and Ezra and I hang out getting things cleaned up and playing.  We got Emmett from the bus and spent a good portion of the afternoon playing with Legos.  we are currently re-building most of Emmett's sets that have all been dismantled.  We have 6 bins of legos and they aren't really separated into any sort of order, so finding the pieces that we need is time consuming.  When Jim got home we went out to dinner and I picked Mexican food since we hadn't done that in quite a while.  It was a good time and when we got home I opened presents.  It was a really nice birthday.