Tackett Family

If we thought July was busy we had no idea....August was just as crazy!

We started August with the boys going to visit my sister's house for a few days. An as nice as we are we sent Garrett with pink eye. Poor kid and poor Aimee. They had a great time though. To get them back home we made a little detour down to Lagoon in northern Utah. Garrett still wasn't feeling the best but he sure was a trooper.

The first ride of the day was the Tidal Wave! Then we went on the Mouse and that was it for Kyle. He was so sick after one ride he didn't go on anymore the rest of the day. I actually love roller coasters. Can't get on airplanes, elevators, or chairlifts but I love going fast and turning corners, go figure?

Mary loves them too!

The kids even managed to get Grandma O. on the old roller coaster, there were not any pictures of it though. I should have got a picture after, her hands were shaking for a while. My mom does NOT do roller coasters. And they got Grandpa O. on a couple rides too! Can you see them towards the middle, green shirt and Mary has a pink shirt with her arms in the air?

If you look closely at this one they are all smiles. :)

This was one of my favorite rides.

But holy cow we got wet!

Good thing it was really hot!

The old fashion log ride was as fun as I remembered it being as a kid. We didn't get very wet on this one!

We relaxed a bit and rode the little train around the small zoo animals. It was nice to sit and relax.

Then everyone (except Grandma O. and I) rode the chairlift across the park.

Aimee is waving here but we were laughing so hard when we saw her halfway across. She had a death grip on the bar. She said it was higher than she remembered it, ha ha!

And then we may have over done it by going to the water park too! It was packed! The kids had a lot of fun but it was just a little too much chaos.

We ate dinner and continued to ride a ton more rides. Probably the other way around though... We finished the night with another train ride and a couple of games.

We gave Lagoon a serious run for it's money. We were there from open to close. Garrett was such a trooper - all day, not feeling well, and he still had fun!

And also crashed as soon as he hit the pillow.

The boys did football camp again this year, actually this was Garrett's first year I think.

The college players are so good to the kids! The smoke actually cleared out for a bit too. It was so smoky in August!

The weekend after Lagoon we packed up the camper and headed for Red Fish Lake in Idaho. We went here last year and fell in love. I think it will be an annual trip from now on. There is a special kind of magic here.

Cheeseball.

The boys were so happy to be in the water looking for minnows. Sawyer practically ran out of the truck.

And we got to sit and have a beer and listen to music. Having older kids is kind of fun!

That's Sawyer out there on that dock getting ready to jump off. FYI the water was cold. It was not super warm when we were there.

We found the dog beach for Haddie and she had fun swimming too!

So silly.

We had to take Haddie this year because she was having some stomach issues and we didn't want to leave her with anyone. It actually worked out pretty well because it forced us to go hiking in the morning to let her run around. This hike was to Bridal Veil Falls, it started out really flat.

We didn't make it to the Falls. There must have been a side trail we couldn't find. We did find the smaller falls, but it was over this crazy cliff that made it hard to see. It also made me very nervous.

It wasn't very hot while we were there except coming back across the flats on this trail. It felt like we were on a death march. We ended up hiking probably six miles, may have been a little too far for little legs. See that mountain in the background? That's where the we were!

It's weird at Red Fish Lake, the boys get along... And they touch each other like they like each other.

Of course it doesn't last long

And then we came home and it was back to school! Sawyer started 2nd grade. Seems crazy he is in 2nd grade already.

Garrett had a week before he started so we spent some time at the skate park riding his bike. As with everything else he does he goes hard. This is what it looks like when you crash your bike, nope he isn't hurt- he broke is bike horn...

July was wonderful. We were so busy but it was so much fun! We did a few fireworks but not many. It was so dry out that most fireworks got banned in the state.

I had a craft show over the 4th in Whitefish, MT. We had never been there before so we were pretty excited. We have some old neighbors that moved up there to manage a horse ranch and they happened to have a cabin on the property we got to stay at. Talk about spoiled rotten! Their cabin was just on the other side of the road from Whitefish Lake on the far north end of the lake. It was so beautiful. We had to play in the lake as soon as we got there!

They had a little dock that Sawyer got to stick his toes in the water from. Such a bummer to have a cast in the summer.

Here is my booth at the show. It was SO HOT. Everyone walking around looked like they were going to melt.

The boys had to share a bed and I couldn't help but take a pic of them snuggling. Sawyer blames Garrett for touching him when they sleep, looks the other way around here :)

This was the view from our cabin window, can you believe it?? I have about 50 pictures of the same view on my camera.

While I was at my show the boys drove around and went on lots of fun adventures. They went to the parade in Kalispel, which Kyle loved (he hates parades).

They swam in the lake, well at least Garrett and Kyle did. They tried wrapping the cast but it didn't work so well.

You can however catch frogs with one arm. Luckily he was getting a new cast when we got home because this one was getting a bit funky after this trip.

They even went up by Glacier and watched the kayakers in the river. It was such a fun trip. Wish I could have explored the area more with them but I had a great time at the show!

When we got back our garden exploded! I planted a new area to squash and holy cow it all grew!!

Sawyer got his cast off. They said they don't normally let people wash their arms between new casts but his arm was so bad they let him rinse it, THANK YOU!

Green Bay Packers cast + clean arm= happy kid. And his arm healed so much he got the cast off a week early, woot woot.

The boys and I ran down to Pocatello for a quick visit.

Haddie was a turd. She always has to have something in her mouth and grandma has lots of random pillows.

I went to my happy place.

We braved the heat and went and played mini golf. Imagine that, we were the only ones there....

Look at that trick shot!

When we got back we went camping at one of our favorite camp grounds. And we ended up getting my favorite spot too. There is the prettiest meadow right behind the camp ground. I've yet to see any animals here but you sure can hear them at night!

Garrett hates marshmellows but he eats everything else all.day.long. while we are camping.

He is also a bit of a pyro. He loves to tend the fire and we are always yelling at him to keep the burnt end in the fire. Last thing we need is to burn the whole forest down.

I got Kyle a book on hike to do in our area so we thought we would start checking them off the list starting with the easy ones for the kids this year. This one was to Dingley Lake.
The boys had fun jumping from one rock to the next up the trail, and surprisingly we made it our with all our teeth. I just knew Garrett would miss a rock and land on his face but somehow he didn't!

We hiked and hiked and finally got to the top where there was a big wet meadow, hmmmm. No Dingley Lake. We weren't the only ones following the book that couldn't find the lake. It has terrible directions on how to get there, guess that's part of the adventure??

We hiked so far up the boys were done on the way down.

But we passed some people from Dillon on the way down that looked like they knew where they were going. They had fishing poles so we figured they were going to a lake - not a wet meadow. They said we passed the cut off to the lake a ways back. So we hiked back up with them and found the cut off. Not that obvious if you didn't know what to look for! We found the lake!!

This was on the drive back down to our campground, I love this area so much.

Sawyer and Haddie are starting to really become pals.

The next day camping we finally made it to where we buried Molly dog. It was hard. Both boys and I were blubbering fools. Last time we tried a huge moose was blocking the way so I was happy we made it this time. Her leash is still in the tree.

And Haddie had the best time swimming in Molly's favorite spot. It's so fun to watch her launch herself off the bank.

I took the boys to a talk about amphibians. They got to hold snakes afterwards, ewe.

Another hike in the book was to Lake Agnes. We have done this one before when Sawyer was little and we carried him up in the backpack. So much easier to not have to carry a kid! It's a pretty steep hike, luckily its also pretty short and has an amazing sandy beach.

I was in the lead, this doesn't happen very often.

We stopped and took lots of breaks along the way. The boys carry their own packs with water. Sawyer also had a little journal, he surprised me and actually used it! He was writing what kind of animals he saw along the way.

You can sort of see how steep this is, it's a little scary going down and a major butt burner going up!

The views are stunning!

We found a good spot to sit at the lake, there was a big group at the beach so we made do on the side.

Garrett and I were hot so we got rid of some clothes and cooled off in the lake, sorry no pictures of me!!!

Here is the beach, it's as close to beach as we are going to get for a while.

Garrett riding on his horse. They tried to float him out on it but it didn't work.

Taking a break on the way down, a perfect seat!

Our garden did pretty well this year, there were tons of peas. I couldn't figure out where all the peas on one side were going until I busted Haddie eating them. Damn dog was sniffing them out and eating them right off the bush!

For my work we hosted a big fundraiser for Poindexter Slough. This picture doesn't show very many people but there was actually a pretty good crowd. It's the first fundraiser I've done and it turned out great!