Tuesday, March 14, 2017

Visit to Saratoga Hot Springs, Wyoming

I haven't updated our blog in so long that I won't even try to play catch up. Josh and I had a fun weekend away in Wyoming and thought we would share some of the sights with everyone. The people were nice and friendly, the teenagers were very polite, which impressed me, the food at the little Mom and Pop joints we tried was wonderful, and we enjoyed sitting in the natural hot springs a few times over the weekend. One of the things we will never forget is being in a place where we had to explain so many times that we don't drink alcohol. With many of the sites being closed down for the winter we figure people must be so bored there that drinking is all that they do. Maybe that's why everyone was so nice. It was the perfect temperature for the hot springs however so that was great! 


                                        
Driving through Corbett tunnel, Wyoming


Corbett tunnel, Wyoming



Saratoga Hot Springs Resort


Saratoga Hot Springs Resort


Art and decorations inside of the hotel


Art and decorations inside of the hotel


Art and decorations inside of the hotel


Game room inside of the hotel


A fun pointillism painting inside of the hotel restaurant. It was an original and very impressive!



North Platte River



View from the hotel to the hot spring pools


One of the four personal hot spring pools. This one was the coolest and the one we liked the most, hovering between 98-101 degrees.


The pool to the right was slightly hotter, between 100-102 degrees.


These other two pools were the hottest, the one on the right was between 103-105 degrees and the one on the left hovered near 110. We tried the pool on the right when it was at 104 and lasted only a few of minutes before it was too much. 


One of the few sights was the Wyoming Frontier Prison. Unfortunately it was closed for the weekend but I read a lot about it online and was able to find a couple of You Tube videos of people touring it. That will have to do for now since it was nearly a 5 1/2 hour drive and we probably won't go back just for that. If you want to read some of the stories this is the website: http://www.wyomingfrontierprison.org/


The water tower in the yard of the prison.


On our drive in we noticed a marker so we came back to it later to read what it said. "This marker on the Overland Trail Platte River crossing nine miles west 1861-1868". We noticed the ruts from the wheels in the ground which we hadn't noticed before. We wondered if this was a Mormon Pioneer trail so once we arrived back at home I looked it up and found that 20-25% who used this trail were Mormon Pioneers. Here is the link to the article I found if anyone is interested in reading it. There was some fun information that I didn't know about before.  https://www.lds.org/ensign/1984/06/another-route-to-zion-rediscovering-the-overland-trail?lang=eng


They loved their taxidermy in Wyoming, at the grocery store we rounded the corner and this guy was staring at me.


There was also a giant bear!


We found a few trinkets for the kids but this one was for Josh, it's a Cribbage board carved as a moose!

We brought some colored rocks home for the boys as well but this is our favorite. They were selling cow seeds! We brought some home and the two youngest boys are anxious to plant them and get our herd of cows going for the spring! 


The second night we were there the hotel had a benefit for the local firemen and they brought this old fire truck to the hotel, we thought it was pretty cool!



Wednesday, July 23, 2014

Our new Bear scout!

We're very proud of Elijah! He has worked really hard and finally earned that Wolf patch today, on to Bears now! Let's see if I can remember everything else he received....his Conservation award, one gold and three silver arrow heads, two belt loops, one for archery and the other for BB shooting (I had no clue they had that one until today), he also earned 3 yellow beads for advancing and a small trophy for winning a boat race. Hopefully I remembered it all. We're very proud of him and glad he loves scouts!

The boat race

Here is a boat race that Elijah won, they let the siblings of the scouts race too, lots of fun!



The cub scouts also wanted to welcome Josh as the new Cubmaster so he got to walk the bridge too!



Eljah crossing over the bridge

The transition from Wolf to Bear!



Elijah Advancing To Bears!

Lots of fun today! Boat races and lots of awards! Elijah is now a Bear!




The siblings were able to make boats to race too, here is Enoch's boat!
Elijah receiving his awards!
Here is Elijah's boat!
...and Ephraim's boat!
Elijah giving his Mom her pin.

Friday, February 01, 2013

Ezekiel's Baby Blessing

Josh blessed Ezekiel on January 27th with help from his father Andy, his brother Curtis, my father George, and my brothers Jerry and Bruce. Thank you all for participating! It's always wonderful to have family around for these events. Here is Ezekiel in Josh's baby blessing outfit, so handsome.

6 weeks old now!

Their Grandma bought the boys new jammies, very cute.
Ezekiel is 6 weeks old now! He's starting to smile and talk to us a little!
This has how my changing table has been looking lately, they seem to be on the same pooping schedule, haha.