August

I told Dustin yesterday that not much happened in August and September, so I would be able to get caught up easily. I was wrong. I forgot how chuck full of activities those months were! So here is August!  

  

We had lived here 2 years and never and went and checked out our very own "Oasis" mini golf course.  It is certainly nothing amazing, but it is pretty cute and the boys love it!!  Here some of our pics mini golfing as a family!  

Dustin went to Canada in August with the basketball team to a tournament, so I headed to Utah and spent some time with my fam! I missed out on our family party at the cabin because that is when we were in Kansas, but I got to go up and spend some time at the cabin at Bear Lake too!

Here are the boys enjoying Grandma and Grandpa's big back yard, going for a walk along the river and  throwing rocks in, celebrating my Dad's birthday, and doing sweet tricks on the swing set! :)  

Zander diving in the pool in the back yard.  The boys had SO much fun!  

Then in the middle of the week we went up to just spend the day at Bear Lake with my dad!  Here are some fun highlights!  The boys showing off the new furniture.

Playing on the beach!  

Snacking and resting!  

Playing at the park on the beach!   

 Zander was cracking me up how he dipped his head in the water!

  And my dad treated us to some DELICIOUS La Beau's after! Mmmmm raspberry shakes, fry sauce, corn dogs, and fries! :)

 I was also able to do some fun things with just me and the boys while we were in Logan!
We went mini golfing!

 

Then we went and ran through a splash pad in our clothes!  Then we went and go snow cones!  Yes I am soaked and my boys are eating their snow cones without pants or completely without clothes in Zander's case! :)  Such a fun day with my boys! :)  

After a few fun days hanging out in Logan, we headed back up to Bear Lake for fun at the cabin! This time, mom, Lisa, Stacy, and Riley and Conner came with us!   

Isn't this beautiful? This is a picture I took off the deck of the cabin one morning!  

 1) Hanging out on the cabin deck  2) watching the Lorax before bed 3) Ride with Lily and Conner 4) Z playing 5) Z lounging 6) My mommy braiding my hair for old times sake! :)

Playing at the beach and burying Ruggles!

Playing at the pool!  Zander was a crazy man jumping into the kiddie pool! Check out his dive, er....belly flop! :)

We had such a fun week in Utah and at the cabin with family!  We were excited to get back home to see Daddy!  He had been gone for a week to Canada!  He brought the boys T-shirts and cute stuffed animals in Canada hoodies, and he brought me a cute Canada olympic team hoodie!

We spend the rest of August spending time together before school started again!  

I took the boys to the Splash Park, the swimming pool, and other parks lots!   Yes Zander was so wiped out he fell asleep in my arms at the pool!  The picture of Jack with a girl is his favorite girl, Milan!      

Pre-season football scrimmage with Daddy!  

A date night for me and Dustin! Woohoo! These don't happen nearly enough!  

We had some fun new friends move here from Florida - the Hottmans!   We are glad they are here! What a fun family!  Here is Dustin with his boys and Jason with his boys when we went hiking out at Vedauwoo!     

 More fun at Vedauwoo!  Hiking and making hot dogs!

 And one last thing - We celebrated Dustin's 31st birthday!  

Some of our friend's kids - my kid's best friends!  Olsen, Brady, Emma, Tanner, and Jack!  

And there is August! What a fun month!   

July - What a crazy month!

So Dustin and I arrived to Kansas!  The boys had been having a great time at Grandma and Grandpa's house all week!  I don't even know if they were that excited to see us!  I missed them though!  

One day we decided to take the boys over to Hays and see the Sternberg Museum.  

Here we are posing as a family at the museum!  

Love Z's smile in this one!  

 Me and the boys with some giant dinosaur leg bones!

Feeding our sons to the giant dinosaur! :)  

 More highlights of the museum:  the boys saying hi to a giant tortoise that looked like it wanted to eat them, Daddy and his scared boys by the giant T-rex that actually moves and roars when you walk past,  me sticking my head in a dino's mouth, and the boys digging for fossils.

Fun back in LaCrosse:  Getting a fork lift ride from Grandpa down at the Lumberyard.  

 And a riding lawn mower ride!

Picking yummy stuff our of Great Grandpa's amazing garden!  

And then the 4th of July!  Kansas, especially the Enslingers really know how to celebrate the 4th! We had another wonderful BBQ and of course, the FIREWORKS!

Smoke bombs and roman candles! Looks safe, right!? :)

Me having fun doing snakes with all the kids!

 Our fam watching the fireworks!

A few weeks before we headed out to Kansas, Dustin's Grandpa suffered a stroke.  He was having a hard time with talking, moving, and was having horrible swelling.  Thankfully we were able to go visit him at the hospital while we were out there.

Jack and Zander with their Great Grandpa Enslinger 

 What a neat picture we were able to capture:  4 generations of Enslinger men!  

 Dustin with his Grandpa

While we were home for a bit in July, we got to do some fun things as a family:

We went swimming

 And went to Jubilee Days and rode on the Carnival rides. Z was so excited to be big enough to go on rides this year!   Yes we rode so hard Jack puked and I had to lay down cuz I was so sick! Good times! :)

After we went home, Grandpa's condition quickly deteriorated and he passed away just a few weeks after we came back to Wyoming.  We are so thankful that we were able to see him, visit with him, and get some last photographs with him before he died.  Grandpa is truly an amazing man!  So we headed back to Kansas to attend his funeral.  He was such a loved and respected man.  His funeral was beautiful and it was neat to see the outpouring of love from everyone that knew him.  He accomplished some amazing things in his life and was such an amazing example of hard work and love of family.  What a wonderful opportunity it was to celebrate his life!  

Here are some other fun pics from our second visit to Kansas!  

A couple of days after we got home from Kansas, it was off to Evanston for the Belnap Familiy Reunion!   We had so much fun hanging out at camp, eating dinner in the rain, playing games, doing Zumba, eating delicious meals, paddle boating in the lake, fishing for crawdads, and camping out!  

Good times!   

Yes Lisa and I are goofballs and made complete fools of ourselves! :)  
Me and my beautiful sisters, and my family with my seriously amazing and wonderful Grandparents!


Phew! What a busy and crazy July we had!  

St.Louis!!

So Dustin and I drove from Shawn and Melissa's house to St. Louis. Unfortunately, for the entire drive my contact solution was leaking on our camera. I totally ruined our camera! I was so sad, so all of these pictures are from Dustin's phone!  

Here we are very excited for a night out on the town without kiddos! :)  

We didn't have tons of time together with Dustin in classes and meeting and such, but when we had time we went and saw the main thing I wanted to see in St. Louis, The ARCH!  It is pretty amazing!  

And of course we had to do something that Dustin wanted to do really bad - Go to a Cardinals game! :)  

Oh and did I mention that they were giving out free Carlos Beltran jerseys for the game so Dustin and I waited in 100+ degree temps for WAY too long! :)  

Another night out at a Don Joy party!  Dustin mostly socialized, chatted with people he needed to, hung out with his buddy Junior, and I sat in the lobby and read my book! :)   

 A few other pics from our adventures in St. Louis. It was fun to walk around the streets, see the sights, he art work, the fountains, parks, and neat restaurants.

After Dustin's conference was over, I did not feel like I had seen enough of St. Louis, so instead of getting on the road to Kansas, I made Dustin take me to see some sights!  We ate at a delicious and very popular smokehouse called Pappy's. It was SO delicious, but the wait was like 2 hours!

 We went and saw the Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis. This places was so beautiful! I have never seen anything like it!  So beautiful!

 Our last stop was the Missouri Botanical  Gardens!  This place was also amazing! So beautiful! They were having a Chinese lantern display inside when we were there and had all kind of amazing lanterns!  It would have been neat to see them all lit up at night! There was also these amazing dragons stretching across 3 ponds that were made only of glass tea cups, plates, silverware, etc! So neat!  

Then we are on the road back to reality, out kids and the 4th of July, Kansas style!