Family photos

It has been a couple years since the last time we took family pictures, so I asked my dad if he could shoot some more for us. I told him I wasn't sure where we should go for the pictures, but I mentioned Fall Creek and Twin Bridges as possibilities. He had just been to Fall Creek with the varsity scouts, so he thought that would be a lot of fun. And fun it was.

My favorite shot of the group.

 Our cute girls.

Us.

But what you don't see in the polished shots we hang on the walls is the adventure it was to get eight people (our six + my parents) (five of us in skirts) to this point.

Traveling downhill from the road to the bank of the river. Remember, Miriam doesn't like heights. This took a lot of encouragement from several people to get her where she needed to go.

Wading through water to the falls. The mud is so thick and squishy here that it was a trial getting your shoe unstuck with every single step.

Climbing up the falls.

Did it take more time than we thought it would? Yes. Did we get wetter/muddier than we anticipated? Definitely. But was it worth it? Absolutely.

Labor day weekend

After the first week of school, we got to enjoy a four-day weekend in Island Park with family and woodland creatures. Ana went on her first archery hunts. Seth and Bekah devotedly went on all the hunts. The rest of us spent time at camp reading and playing. We also got to attend church with about a million other people in Island Park, and Grandpa Dennis and Grandma Susan hosted a big Dutch oven dinner for friends and family in the camp Sunday evening.

 Ana, Seth and Bekah in camo before Ana's first hunt Friday evening.

Winnie and Miri shooting arrows at targets. Winnie loved the archery range so much and spent a good deal of time over there. 

Miriam reading on her Kindle while she rests her feet on a furry ottoman. Peach LOVES going camping with the family. 

The "fairy fort" Aunt Rachel helped the kids build on Monday. 

Miriam driving Grandma Susan on the four-wheeler. Grandma taught her how to drive on this trip.

School starts

This is a big year for all the Grover girls, academically speaking. Rebekah is starting high school (this trimester she has three band classes and four honors classes), Ana is starting middle school (and already has had to do some class swapping because she wasn't placed in a single elective of her choosing for some reason), Miriam is going into fourth grade and starting GATE (gifted and talented program), and Winnie is skipping first grade and going straight into second.

The girls with their grades (Bekah's in ASL).

 The girls with their bags (and instrument cases).

The girls walking to the bus stop. Due to a shortage of bus drivers, Miri and Winnie now have to catch the bus at 6:59, which means we get to wake up earlier. Bekah carried both her trombone and euphonium onto the bus the first day. But that was Bekah's only day riding the bus to school. She has marching band during zero hour, which means she gets a ride with a neighbor (who is also in marching band) and has a class before school officially starts. She starts at 7, whereas Ana and the rest of the secondary students start school at 8:45.

Summer miscellany

When something doesn't warrant its own post but it's still worth sharing, it ends up here.

 In preparation for an upcoming addition/remodel, Seth and I bought this sectional, covered it in plastic it and stored it in the shop until we have a space for it.

When we had the Wilde cousins over for a couple of days, Miriam and Cooper made this expansive LEGO village.

Winnie with her Play-Doh ice cream cone. Well after Memorial Day, we packed up the kids to visit cemeteries and eat at Big Judd's. 

Winnie reading a Magic Treehouse book in her bed. If I ever thought to myself, "Where is Winnie? I haven't seen her in a while," I'd have to remind myself to check her bed. More often than not, she was in there reading. As of last count, Winnie has read 58 of the 60 Magic Treehouse books.

Winnie buried in the sand in the side yard.

Seth, Miriam, Peach and Ana at the dog park in Idaho Falls. We thought it would be a fun family date to take Peach to the dog park. It was the first time any of us had been there. Peach really couldn't have cared less about the dogs, but she loved saying hi to all the people.

Ana and Bekah playing ukuleles together one Sunday morning.

Ana with her ice cream at Black Bear Diner. After a long, tiring softball tournament, we let Ana choose where all of us should eat afterward.

Bekah and some of the all-you-can-eat sushi we had for her birthday date. We've determined to take each girl out for her birthday throughout her teenage years.

Winnie and her swollen eyes one Sunday. 

Miriam and her swollen eye the same Sunday. After church I took both girls in to the pediatrician to see what the heck was going on. Our Primary president didn't even recognize Winnie at church. The pediatrician was fairly stumped (why would one girl's upper eyes be swollen while the other one's lower eye was swollen?), but gave us some allergy medication samples. The swelling went down on both girls' eyes within a day or two.

Group selfie during a side yard hot dog roast while Seth was on a work trip.

Winnie eating a unicorn. Or sucking on a unicorn toothpick that came from Oakley's birthday cupcakes.

Miriam playing with Easton through the sliding glass door at Oakley's birthday party.

Miriam, Seth and Winnie during their annual sleepover on the trampoline.

Bidoof participating in the tea party Winnie set up for her and Seth in the family room.

The portrait Winnie drew of me while we were on our trip to Virginia.

Seth getting his portrait drawn by Winnie.

Right after our trip to Virginia, I took both girls to the orthodontist for a swap-a-roo. They went in with Bekah sporting braces and Ana being bare-toothed ...

... and came out just the opposite.

The egg smiley face I inadvertently made one morning for breakfast.

Ana, Miri and Winnie participating at the annual Snake River Roaring Youth Jam.

The lion sleeps tonight. Winnie dressed up as a lion at the Youth Jam.

The scrapes on Winnie's face sustained from falling out of a tree. One weekday this summer, Winnie came in from the backyard bawling. She said she had been climbing a tree and fell out. Remembering her broken wrist from two years ago, I asked her where it hurt. She indicated her upper arms and her head. I asked her to move her arms around to see if they hurt worse when she did. They seemed okay, so I comforted her and ran to town to do some shopping. When I got home, she came to me and said, "Mom, my head still hurts, but I don't remember why." Alarm bells went off in my head, so I asked her, "You don't remember what happened? You fell out of a tree." She looked at me skeptically and said, "I don't think so." I ran her to the pediatrician's office, and the doctor said she had definitely sustained a concussion. She gave me care instructions, and I told Winnie she wasn't allowed to do cartwheels, somersaults, play on the trampoline, climb trees or play on the swingset for a week. It was a long week, but her recovery went well, and she's back to normal.

Winnie and Miri sporting some cool pineapple-themed accessories after they were gifted to us.

Ana's picnic-basket-turned-book-basket-on-a-cart. Her library bag wasn't big enough, so she converted this to store her books, card and reading log.

Ana holding her baby cousin, Tayzlee, while on a quick there-and-back trip to see Tayzlee get blessed in sacrament meeting.

Grandma Scott dressing Tayzlee in her blessing dress while Winnie entertains her.

Winnie, Miri and Ana sleeping in the backyard on cots.

Winnie giving Grandpa Scott a hug after he was set apart to be in the bishopric of the singles' ward.

Summer hike #5: Devil's Staircase

We had one last weekend before school began, so Bekah, Ana, Grandma Scott, Grandpa Scott and I drove toward the Tetons Friday, August 23 to hike the 9-mile Devil's Staircase. It's been a long time (since high school, I believe) since I've done this hike, so it was good to get back there.

We heard a few pikas at the pond/lake at the top, and we saw some rodent that looked like a black rock chuck. The jury is still out on what that creature actually is. It kept wagging its tail like a dog or cat.

Headed up the trail. Besides the distance, I thought it best to have the younger two girls sit out because (1) Miriam doesn't like heights, and (2) Winnie probably would have accidentally cartwheeled off a cliff.

Like this one.

The girls spotted a cairn at the top, so Ana have to make another one. You can see Tablerock in the background.

Rebekah eating lunch with Tablerock in the distance. The parking lot at the trailhead for Devil's Staircase actually leads to the face trail for Tablerock. So if we had gone left instead of right, we would have ended up on top of that.

Summer hike #4: Webber Creek

Grandma Scott wanted to take us on this 8-mile hike near Indian Creek that Uncle T had introduced her to a couple of years ago. It was flat enough that we brought the younger girls and Peach along for the ride on Saturday, August 17. Uncle T and Bennet (and, of course, Grandpa Scott) joined us as well.

The weather was lovely, the creek babbled playfully (we didn't have to pour any drinking water for Peach ... whenever she got thirsty, she'd leave the trail and drink from the creek), the company was delightful, the road to the trail head was only slightly iffy for our van, and Peach almost nearly got run over by motorcycles on the trail.

 The whole crew headed up the trail.

Winnie runs on pickle power. She ate all of her pickles before we stopped for lunch.

 Eating lunch at the campground (our destination). If we had hiked another 3 miles up the trail (making the total distance 14 miles round trip), we could have seen the lake.

Uncle T and Bennet brought some slingshots and shared them during lunchtime. There were some old cow bones at the site, so T set up a scapula against a log for a target. Winnie hit it.


Family picture before leaving our lunch spot.

Winnie really wanted to leave the trail and climb up to this cave on the way there. I made her wait until we were headed back. Ana and Peach went up to the cave as well. 

Rebekah loves getting her picture taken.

And Ana came back with all this loveliness stuck to her socks and shirt. 

And this on the back of her leg. (We applied some After Bite, and it calmed down pretty quickly.) 

Andrea helping to pick out the burrs while Bekah takes it easy and Uncle T and Grandma wait for us. 

Peach and Seth in the back of the van while Ana and Bekah get loaded up.