On the way into school on the first day. Yeah!!!

Ali and Sophie our neighbor waiting for their turns to be tested. They won't be in the same class this year but maybe next.


Ready for school! The boys are heading off for their first days. Ali has testing today but not actual school until next week. She as very excited though to go in for her testing and get to wear her uniform. She LOVES her uniform.


We are missing Friday school and heading up to Jackson for the weekend. My family has been there the whole week but with Carter starting junior high I thought it best to let him adjust the first few days. He wasn't thrilled with missing Jackson though. We headed up for a long weekend and rushed nearly everything into the few days we had. They ran the snake river, did the tramplines, climbed rocks, hit up the candy store, did a little hiking. We missed the horse riding day and the trip to Yellowstone but we did pretty good at smooshing a whole weeks worth of fun into a few days.

Jackson Hole Playhouse night. Ali and I went with a bunch of the girls and Jake to see Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. Jake was our stalwart man. The rest of them were babysitting all the kiddos. At least that is what they claim when they opt out of the playhouse evening. Ali loved the play. All of it right up until the point she fell asleep. She is really big into boyfriends and all that stuff. She tells me about what her first date is going to be and who it will be with and where they are going....SO, she is going to go to Nielsen's Custard with Sam Yost and she is going to drive. She is only five....how do I put a stop to this? We all had a great time. We even had chocolate milkshakes during intermission. Ali kept asking me, when do I get that milkshake the whole first half. They take orders as you come in so she knew about it from the get go. Probably not the best parenting tactic in the world. You can have a milkshake in about an hour, just sit here and wait. We all had fun and really enjoyed the show.

Guess who had a birthday? Papa turned...I can't say it....well lets just say he's not 60 something anymore. As you can see from his present given to him by his two oldest grandchildren there was a little razzing about the new decade mark he just entered. Yes, you read that title correctly. There must much laughter and well, lots of laughter....

This is the reaction of my Mom to the above book. She laughed hard for many many minutes.
Rachel thought up a little birthday surprise for Papa. At some point during the present opening all the grandchildren ran up the stairs to the loft. The adults were like, what's going on. Then a shower of balloons and a chorus of laughs came floating down to us. With a big "surprise" at the end of it all. It was really cute and sweet and it actually looked super cool to see nearly 30 balloons float down from the loft. Everyone loves their Papa!!!

You have never seen a birthday cake more fully surrounded than this one was. I decorated it with the candles to say 70 but somehow they got rearranged to 19. I guess that is how old my Dad wishes he were turning. Don't we all wish we could turn 19 again. He did have lots of help blowing out the candles. Which is good because when he was helping me blow out the fire that was billowing out of the oven earlier that evening I didn't feel like he was that much help. We did manage to get the fire out, though the food did not fare so well. No, the fire was not my fault!!! The readers who actually know me from my younger years might thing so, I walked into the condo on arrival to find Joey with poop all over him....(I called his Dad Jake to the rescue) then I rounded the corner and the oven was on fire....hello, did we get there just in time or what. How did they survive the first half of the week without the Pollan's? Or maybe we just bring disaster wherever we happen to go. I don't know.

Byron pulled off a little scam here at his favorite restaurant Bubbas. So he loves the biscuits and gravy and by loves I mean LOVES. The only trouble is he really likes the blueberry pancakes as well. So he ordered biscuits and gravy, Ty ordered biscuits and gravy, Carter ordered biscuits and gravy....Byron is panicking a little, Ali orders a pancake, so Byron tries to convince her to order blueberry pancakes...no way she refuses, plain pancakes for her. I ordered an omlete. Byron turns to Carter and they negotiate a quick trade plan so Carter switches his order to blueberry pancake. Phew!!! Byron gets to eat his biscuits and gravy with a side of blueberry pancake...and the universe is restored into it's full order again. The good news is we all had delicious and wonderful breakfasts. We also didn't eat again until seven that evening. Now that is some breakfast.

Any trip to Jackson just couldn't be complete without a trip to Bubba's.

The piece de resistance. The candy store!!! How do my kids love the candy store, let me count the ways....taffy, butterscotches, everything gummy and sour, bit-o-honey, jaw breakers, bubble gum, fudge, sour squirty things, etc. etc. etc. $25.00 later we exited the candy store with happy smiley kids, soon to be happy smiley and hyper kids!

This is our newest tradition up in Jackson. We love the huckleberry picking hike. We have a secret location we go to. I guess once you found a huckleberry picking place it is mandatory to keep it secret since nobody will tell you where theirs is. So we have our secret place and we go out into the woods and pick the yummy berries. We did pretty good this year. We brought back a taste for everyone but still not enough for a pie.

Ali is on a butterfly craze this trip. Everywhere we go she catches butterflies. It is like they are tame or something. She catches them and then carries them around like they are her pets. She is having lots of fun with these wild butterflies that seem more like domesticated cats.

Tyler on our hike showing us which way we need to be heading.

Byron is diligently looking for huckleberries. He was the king this trip and found more than anybody. He was especially generous in the beginning when he was the only one finding them. He kept sharing with us all to try and keep us excited about looking. It took a while but we finally found a patch that hadn't been picked over by other hikers.

Tyler was planning on flipping but when he got up there he said he had forgotten how high it was and did not care to do any flips. Can't say that I blame him.

Bungee trampoline time!!! Carter Ali and Tyler love flying high on these trampolines. Three minutes of jumping, flipping and soaring in the clouds. They really love it!

Carter flipping on the tramp. With some quick advice from his trainer he was flipping like crazy. His hat finally flew off.

Playing in the snake river shallows. Lots of rock skipping and target practice on any sticks that happen by. We did a little splash practice on Ty as well when he got out pretty far. He got a little wet and I was the only one to actually pelt him with a rock. My aim is not so good, probably not a great idea to try and splash your kid when you have no aim. Lucky it was a little rock and I just got yelled at a little, no tears.

Tyler took his shoes off but when it started to rain we had to head for the car quick. So Carter graciously said, hop on I'll give you a lift. That worked well for a couple yards and then Ty's mightiness got the better of Carter. So I handed Carter the shoes and carried Ty the rest of the way. Man that kid has put on some lbs since I carried him last. I have a bad back and a bum knee so I don't carry my big boys very often. We made it to the car and all heck broke loose from the sky. Giant drops of rain and a minute later large chunks of hail. Seriously sheeting from above so we could hardly even see to drive. Man were we glad to be in the car and not out on the rocky open shores of the snake river.

Chortney and Baden ready to slide.

Byron assisting with Joey since Marie is PREGNANT with twins and can't make the slide herself this year. Did I mention she is pregnant!!! We are all so excited for them. We are pulling for a little girl, just one please! Well two would be okay too but at least one little princess for their family!

My brother Jake and Tommy ready to bust out of the gates. Watch out Tommy as far as slide records go the only surprising thing is that they still let Jake buy a ticket. He has been know for ramming, jumping that tracks, scraping up his whole body, etc. etc. I guess being a Dad slows down the race a bit. Let's hope for Tommy's sake that they make it down still on their sled.

Ali and I with the majestic view in the background. You could hear us girls screaming for joy the whole way down. For some reason Ali loves to scream and she likes me to scream with her. So when she says one two three scream, we do. We were going really fast and it does feel a lot like a roller coaster without seat belts. Really though Ali just likes any excuse for a good loud scream fest. She is such a wild one!

Byron pulling is neck trying to spin Carter around. He started with Ali, then Tyler wanted to try and then Carter pretty much goaded him into a swing by telling him there was no way he could still do that to him. So, yes he can still swing Carter around but it wasn't easy!

Alpine slide, a favorite Jackson Hole past time. This slide is fast and pretty long.

The conquering heroes up top the great wall of rock!

Ali doing an awesome climb to the top.

They put in this awesome new rock climbing wall at one of our favorite parks. So fun! There were climbs for all skill levels. Carter and I did make it up a medium hard climbing wall though. I was very proud of him for showing me where it is and how to do it. Then Amanda had to tutor me again but I got up the thing. I also bruised my knee on the ledge where you get onto the top but it was awesome! We all had fun on the walls.

Byron and our kids!!

Schwabacher's Landing hike. There are beavers out here who have created a little pond in the middle of the river. We like to go out and see the reflection of the Tetons on the pond. Ali found us a snake, a leach swimming in the pond, and lots of butterflies. She loves to catch butterflies!

Ali our front before she heads off to Kindergarten for her first real day of school. Last week she did a testing day but today it starts. This is big time and she is so excited she can hardly stand it. All morning it was how much longer till school starts, how many cartoons? She understands time according to cartoon length. So, two cartoons equals one hour. We made it on time, took her to the bathroom and she was just set to walk on in all by herself and not even look back. I did steal a kiss though on her way into the classroom. This girl is SO ready for school!

Ali and I went to Nielsen's and had sandwiches and custard before her first day of Kindergarten. We showed up in style riding our cute green scooter. It really was so fun. She was so excited to get in there and had absolutely no trouble leaving me behind. This was good because if she had a hard time I probably would have just told her she can start next year. She is loving it and already has two little new friends she is talking about. She has three teachers in her class and she loves all of them.

After her first day of Kindergarten. She loved it but man was it ever tiring! She said they went on a gingerbread hunt and followed clues all over the school till they got to a treat at the end. I think she loved it!!! The next day she said they played games the whole day. When she came home she had a lot of actual work with her so somehow they are tricking them into thinking their work is a game. Sounds fairly genius to me.

The Ruesch's decided to move to Utah! Baden got into Legacy Prep this year, that's the charter school my kids go to. Deborah did the lottery just for kicks and he got in. 900 kids applied this year. So they called her on the Friday before Jackson that was like Aug 12th and by Aug 13th they had decided to move to Utah. Chortney already has a new job lined up but it doesn't start until around March. He will finish up his old job and then move on down with them, hopefully after their house has sold. So that was huge and exciting news. Baden and Ali both have afternoon kindergarten but different teachers.

The family went out to Apollo Burgers to celebrate Chandler's birthday! The kids are dressing up in clothes made out of the tissue from the presents. Luckily the restaurant was nearly deserted because we were a noisy bunch especially with those chair legs scraping on the tile floors. I could have pulled my hair out listening to that scratching noise.