Active Labor

Labor Day weekend 2009 was a busy one. I skipped out of work early Friday afternoon and took the kids up to see Grandma Shirley. Last October when Grandpa passed away he was buried in the wrong plot. Dad noticed it on Memorial Day, and Grandpa has since been moved to his final resting place. We had a second graveside service on Sunday and once again got to relive some of our favorite stories about Ross.

On the way back from the service we drove through Sugar City. Dad told me some stories about the events of the weekend that the city was covered with six feet of water after the Teton Dam failed in 1976. I don’t know why those events fascinate me as much as they do, but I determined to get some of his stories down on paper for a future post.

Saturday we took the kids to the St. Anthony sand dunes and let them get all gritty. It was a lot of fun. I had this great idea that I would take a towel along and wipe the majority of the sand off of the kids before they got back in the van, so I would have less to vacuum out later. My sand mitigation plan worked well, except I forgot to make the kids empty out their pockets. You will see from the pictures that they had accumulated a great deal of sand from sliding down the dunes.

We also took the kids over to uncle Nephi’s and gave them their first exposure to canoeing. I’m not sure what was more popular: the canoeing, or feeding Chester the horse all weekend. It’s too bad Chester has a bum hoof and couldn’t give some rides.

The barbecue was great. We didn’t get rained out, the food was great, and Ard didn’t burn the house down (though it was dicey for a few minutes when the grease trap caught on fire).

Shared brought his four-wheeler and we had a good time with it...

...until that buzz-kill ranger showed up...

A spoon full of sand? Thanks, but I had a big lunch...

Is that sand, or are you just happy to see me? We made a lot of jokes about 'Kats' burying their poop in the sand.

Unfortunately we didn't bury him deep enough, and he was able to escape.




Bean got tuckered out before everyone else was ready to leave, so she took a little nap. When she woke up she was unhappy that she couldn't have her sucker back.




Now that is just plain nasty...




Beckie, Chester. Chester, Beckie. Chester doesn't like camera flashes.



American Gothics...

Fork you, steer!