Little League Baseball

Jacob got walked for this up at bat. It looks like he is a little leery about stepping up to the plate.
Getting ready to go home!

Thinking about going.....

Finally! Home Safe!

Jacob really enjoys baseball. The Orioles coaches are great and so are all the older boys. When they win a game, the coach takes them to get ice cream. They have been getting a lot of ice cream lately.

BRRRR!

State track was COLD! Thursday was rather nice with sunshine and a light breeze. We could wear shorts and be comfortable. Susie jumped 5'0". I swear she made it over 5'2", she didn't know where she hit the bar when it fell down. I think that little breeze kicked up and the wind knocked it over but it was close. She got second place. Amanda ran the 2 mile and did a beautiful job. She is the new 2A state champion.

Friday was a great day to wear long pants. It was very nice to see Gwen there on Friday along with Margaret and Joyce. Robyn Savage brought Jacob to me on Friday too. Lots of stuff happened on Friday. We watched Susie and Amanda run the 800. Susie got second and Amanda got fourth.

Overall the girls took the State Championship by a huge margin. The boys took second. On Saturday, Mark ran well in his 4 X 400. He got the baton and ran like the wind to overtake one kid and really come on strong at the end to give Ben Long a good enough lead for third place.

Lucas and Shanae came up from Laramie on Saturday. I felt bad for them because they didn't know what the weather was like. NASTY! The wind was strong from the east at about 45 miles per hour with rain. We had the umbrellas to the side of us to protect us from the wind and the rain. It was good that we had the big levi blanket with us too. We had some extra coats for them and we fed them and got them hot chocolate so they could stay warm. It was really nice to visit with them. Joyce got some good pictures and like the silly person that I am I forgot my camera. I will put Mark's 4 X 400 video up on you tube and will post some of the track pictures as soon as I get them from Joyce. (Thanks, Joyce) I know she is busy right not because I just got pictures of Betsy's babies from the Powell Hospital.

Regional Track!

We had the best weekend! It was regional track in Lander and both the boys team and the girls team did really well. The girls smoked the competition by over 100 points and the boys came in a strong second. If only we had some sprinters and hurdlers we would have been the champions. This is a picture of Susie and Amanda on the awards stand. They had to run against each other in the 800. They both beat Maria Zeller's school record but Amanda gets her name on the board. Way to go girls.

The boys on the team are pretty proud of themselves! They all worked really hard and put up some pretty impressive jumps, throws and races!

The last event of the day! The 4 X 400 relay. Our boys took 6 seconds of their time. Mark ran a PR for his leg and probably all of them did. They were supposed to take fourth but they hung on and ran like the wind to take second.

Devil's Tower and Mount Rushmore!

I needed to post the pictures of our adventure that we had last summer. Jacob and I went with Gwen, Brad and Mary to Devil's Tower and Mount Rushmore and then on to Wind Cave. We had a lot of fun and saw many, many new things. I have lived in Wyoming almost my whole life and I had never seen Devil's Tower. I hope we can do another trip like this one again.
Jacob, Mary and Brad had lots of fun and exercise. We took the short trail around Devil's tower the first day and then on the way home we took the longer loop. The Clark's are better hikers that the Grants, that's for sure.

Jacob wasn't too sure of himself on this rock. Maybe a bit of a chicken. He wouldn't stand up on it when Brad and Mary did.

Mount Rushmore is a great place. We went to an evening program and it was refreshingly patriotic.
Gwen and I looking beautiful in front of the presidents.

Going down into the cave. Jacob was a little nervous and I was a lot nervous about going into the cave. Luckily I didn't have any panic attacks or claustrophobia. The cave was plenty big enough and I tried not to think about the tons of rock above our heads.


These formations were so interesting
Brad is feeding the wild burros. Apparently the story is this. The burros were originally used during the mining boom of the early 1900's. After is was over the miners simply freed the burros and they thrived. We had a lot of fun feeding them. Fruit snacks were their favorites but they also liked the cherries we fed them.
If you look closely you can see the fruit snacks on the wooden planks.

Reptile Gardens! The kids are being squished by the enormous anaconda! Look how scared they are!
These were real and I did not like them. Just big, fat, lazy, dangerous reptiles.

After a fun day at reptile gardens we went back for another look at Mount Rushmore. Pretty Amazing.

Jacob and I on our last day of our trip. Notice the reptile garden hat and shirt he is sporting:)