The Shelley Family

  Take a good look at this gross little bug. No it is not a watermelon seed which is what I thought it was and attempted to pull it out. This is a nasty, fat, little tick that was sucking Cyana's blood. My mom found it in her hair on Wed. night and we tried all the rememdies. Vasaline, no go. Hot needle, no go. We did actually kill the thing, but I didn't want to risk it. Since we were right by the docotr, I called and they had us come in and they pulled it out. YUCK! I felt creepy crawles all over me the rest of the week. Where did she get it, who knows. Do I ever bath my kids the night before and I had brushed through her hair. The doc told us that they are pretty tough and hang on hard, as I saw when they had to yank it out of her head. Notes for the future: 1. Always use bug spray. I went and bought some just for this case. 2. Never try the vasaline or hot needle, old remedies 3. To remove a tick, grab it as close to the skin where it is attatched and gently, but firmly pu...

Well, not that I am old, but it kind of hit me the other morning that my body doesn't exactly do what I wish it would like it use to. I have been feeling better and better over the past few months and I have enjoyed the energy that I have, especially with my kids. So Ayslind has been trying for the whole year of kindergarten to do a cartwheel. Remember those? Front hand springs, hand stands, walk overs, etc. Well maybe it is just because I get to play with a bunch of kids all day long, or the fact that I spend a lot of time with 10-11 year old girls, I felt inspired to show Ayslind how to do a cartwheel. I think that the older we get the more gravity pushes on us, because it was REALLY difficult to get off the ground! It took me about 5 minutes to figure out even how to stand and do it. Eventually I did do a cartwheel for Ayslind. I also did a handstand and a walk over. No wonder that gymnists retire when they turn 25! New goal, be able to teach my grandchildren how to do a cartw...

Yes it is true, the last post, though these are all for my sake, not yours so stop reading if you are annoyed! Anyways being in Yellowstone for a short amount of time means that you look for animals mainly because you are driving alot! We were not disappointed. We turned the corner from our camp and headed to Old Faithful and saw a guy sprint toward his car. A big papa Grizzly up on hind legs growling and swatting the air. We got there in time to drive between the bear and the guy if needed. It was not. As soon as the bear saw our car he backed down. He did go up on his hind legs a couple more times, but we couldn't click the camera fast enough. Heart pounding, that was fun. We had bison across the river from our tent, and lots of elk. Springtime meant lots of babies and they were fun. Already mentioned the ground squirrels, more bison, more elk. Driving away from Mammoth, I felt satisfied with our animal spotting though a little dissappointed we were going into bear country and th...

Well next we went to Mammoth Hot Springs. Brent and I have never been there in the Spring and it was definetly more impressive. The water ways were full and overflowing like in the pictures. They even had professional photographers there taking pictures, probably for next years map. Ayslind was the main photographer for our family, thus the cut off heads. Bowyn was asleep when we got there so I dropped Brent and the girls at the top and met them at the bottom. Bowyn woke up just in time to walk up and meet them at the main overflow. We then went down and ate our lunch with the bison and elk in the area. Then it was time to head on home.

Well it just isn't Yellowstone without Old Faithful. We went and made it just in time to watch and go back to the car. Then we drove back up to Mid-geyser basin and walked around the "colorful water" as the kids put it. Very pretty and the girls were being cute walking on the boardwalk. Cyana had to make a pit stop and we walked past some bison dung and she could not figure out why in the world it had to go on the way where the people walk.

Okay, I had to divide up the last day because we crammed so much into it. We made it Yellowstone and camped in Madison campground. We had bison and elk as neighbors that night. During the night it froze a hard freeze so we got to really try out our camping equiptment. Ayslind was the only one who complained, but she was fine after sleeping between two warm adults. We got up and had a big breakfast. We started to break camp and the kids started to explore. Cyana and Bowyn started to chase the ground squirrels. They got pretty entertaining so we videoed them chasing them. Bowyn was hillarious when he tried to mimic the sounds they made. Cyana just said that she wanted to capture one. They could have played there all day, but we had to move on.

So as soon as we woke up, we broke camp and headed to church. I was glad we had driven past the temple the day before because there was a church right next to it. After church as we were driving our last time across the bridge, we stopped and videoed the jumpers. They are insane, though Ayslind said that she didn't think it would be that big of a deal as long as she had a parachute. Ah youth and their innocence, right? Well then we headed on our drive to Craters of the Moon National park. It really did feel like a different planet, or rather moon. It is crazy to think that a volcanoe is so close to home, I know there are some in Utah, but this one was HUGE. We explored some of the caves and walked a few of the trails. Cyana didn't like being in the cave so much, to be hones neither did I. It might be attributed to the fact we were walking in pitch black with 6 inches to a foot of solid ice beneath our feet and jagged sharp volcanic rock all around. I was nervous about falling. ...

Well after a good night sleep, not to chilly, we jumped into the day. I started off by running with some cows that were our neighbors. Then we drank our hot chocolate and headed to Shoshone Falls just up the road. On the way we drove past the new Twin Falls temple. The Shoshone falls are 50 feet higher than the Niagra Falls in New York, so it was something to see. We drove past the site where Evil Canevile trided to jump the falls, but failed. We drove over the casim of the Snake river and watched the jumpers. We took lots of fun pictures from the overlook. The falls were awesome. We didn't have time to do any hikes, so we headed right for the cemetary to meet the rest of the family. We visited my mom's family graves then took a road tour down memory lane. We drove to through the area my mom grew up and past my grandpa's old house. It happens to be for sale and it was unlocked. We took the liberty to walk through. The funny thing was that a lot of the stuff was the same ...

So we were so excited that we were getting away from Utah. Last year we did not get vacation in at all because we were constantly waiting for our house and saving money. So this year when the opportunity to leave the state came up, I jumped, then I asked if my family wanted to go. Luckily they were all okay with it. We left for Idaho on Friday. We made a stop in Logan to get our Gosner fix, then continued on to Twin Falls KOA to camp. We couldn't see Ayslind because she was burried in the back. Cyana slept in whatever position she could find. Bowyn, oh what a boy, was happy the whole trip and nope he did not sleep a wink the entire ride there. Yes he did sleep wonderful that night in the tent with no trouble at all. VERY impressive traveler I would say.

  So a couple of months ago we went to a "Fancy Nancy" tea party with my sister and her girls. We got to dress up with all of our accessories and attire and go learn how to eat with manners, treat ourselves to a manicure, and eat fancy food. The girls had a rough start, but in the end I think they had a lot of fun. I love Fancy Nancy books. Highly reccommended for anyone with little girls!