This morning Lucy woke up at 6 am. Rather than get up with her I asked her to play in her play room for a while. A little after 8 she came in to show us what she was up to… practicing drawing caterpillars!
These pictures don’t do our trip justice. It was more amazing than I can ever relate.
The first morning, I unzipped the tent to find snow had fallen in the 25* night. We, surprisingly, stayed pretty warm in our tent.
We decided to check out Old Faithful first:
One of the amazing pools around Old Faithful:
We hiked about a mile to see Old Faithful go off and to avoid the crowds:
Here’s our view, before it went off:
We waited, in the snow, with one other couple and their 3 year old and then it went off:
Lu didn’t want her picture taken:
Old Faithful, the snow, and us:
We saw a few Yellow Bellied Marmots:
The next day we went on a 6 mile hike to Shoshone Lake. It’s the largest lake in the contiguous United States that you can’t get to by car. It was also right in the middle of a bear area. We had our spray and we made A LOT of noise! No bears were seen!
The lake!
Shaun’s favorite part of Yellowstone was Hayden Valley, we had our best grizzly sighting here-too bad I don’t have a good zoom lens!
Some of the hundreds of bison we saw:
Lucy counting them:
A hot spring run off:
The Grand Prismatic Pool-AMAZING!
Lu and Daddy watching an Osprey.
As it gets a fish!
One of the MANY elk we saw!
The view of Yellowstone Lake from our campground:
A cute, but blurry picture of my Lu:
The Lower Falls:
The Grand Canyon of Yellowstone:
Hiking down Uncle Tom’s Trail to the bottom of the Lower Falls:
At the bottom of the 327 steps:
And back up:
The Lower Falls from Artist’s Point:
Hello there, bison!
A fox! The only thing to actually scare us-it ran right at Lucy and Shaun! We were very careful to follow the 25/100 yard rule while there!
The Petrified Tree:
We got to see babies nursing in this heard of bison:
Lu and Mommy having a peanut butter cup at lunch 
ELK!
8 big horn sheep-4 ewes and 4 lambs:
We also got to see the sheep nursing!
Bison sparring:
A heard of bison right outside of the Old Faithful Inn:
Our last sunset:
I have a lot of videos to share! If there is only one you watch, make it this one of Lucy riding her 2 wheel bike ALL BY HERSELF!
I can’t believe that on my last post that I didn’t mention Lucy’s LOVE of Sound of Music. Tessa started watching it and passed her love to Lucy. We watch certain scenes of that movie on loop it seems. Here is what bedtime looks like almost every day in this house:
She knows all the words to MANY Sound of Music songs. It’s cute, but we’re pretty Sound of Music’d out!
Here’s what Lucy has to say about Santa Claus:
And here she is on Christmas morning!:
Here’s another video of her riding her bike this morning!
Now for some pictures! Santa brings Lu 3 gifts as do Mommy and Daddy. The rest of this? Is from all her relatives that don’t live here in Boise!
Little girl was SPOILED!!!
Here she is trying her bike out for the first time:
Through the house!
And opening her MAKE-UP!!!! (one of her persistent wishes)
No worries, it’s just hardened nail polish.
It was a great Christmas and we’re looking forward to an awesome New Year!
I’m on Christmas break so I have some time to catch up. I really should make it a priority to post on here more often because I don’t want to forget all the sweet things that Lucy is doing. My very favorite thing right now is that she says “Super, duper, bery” (for “very") all the time. For example, “Mommy, I am super, duper, bery hungry!” It makes me melt every time. 
Last you heard from me, it was her birthday. Look at my 3 year old!
A Jeep!
At Flat Bread Community Oven watching her pizza getting cooked.
Happy Birthday little one!
There was a zoo birthday party!
With big balls:
And more candles to blow out:
Porter was there!
Mommy was too!
Papa too!
Isabelle, Vanessa, Kaitlyn, Lucy, Tessa, and Claudia at the zoo with popcorn!
On the carousel.
Then it was Lucy’s first day of school!!!
And then the Harvest Festival at the Botanical Gardens:
And then we went pumpkin picking with Jack and Tessa:
And then Lu got a haircut!
Halloween!
Which Lu LOVED! She totally got the concept and we told her that if a light was on, it meant the people had candy. She would yell, “Their light is on! CANDY!!!!” And then totally said, “Trick or Treat!” She told me later that it was her favorite holiday and that she couldn’t wait an entire year to go again.
We took a Girl’s Trip to Portlland and Lu got to see her friend Madeline:
Her Challenger school picture. We’ve titled it “I Pity The Fool.”
Lucy’s art skills since starting at Challenger have taken off!
Thanksgiving at school:
Turkey day at our house:
Our annual Thanksgiving hike:
Lucy’s favorite friend!
(we’ve seen Santa 4 times this year-she LOVES him)
The next pictures I have are of Christmas tree hunting.
And sledding!
Our tree:
Decorated:
Lucy also got her Alphabet crown this month!
That means that she went up to the Director’s office and knew all the letters and what sound they make. Lu is the youngest at the school to have her crown. As she would say, it’s a “super duper” big deal!
She got ice cream for that accomplishment!
And just this morning, frosting cookies with Mommy:
Now we’re off to her very first dentist appointment!
Merry Christmas all!
We’ve been BUSY this weekend. My Aunt Marci and Uncle Richard came to visit from Bakersfield. Here’re some fun pictures.
Breakfast with the lions again!
Meeting a Walaby!
(great camera skills, eh?)
Feeding the giraffes:
The zebra!
The butterfly exhibit:
Just being freaking cute:
Silly Daddy/Uncle Shaun:
What a fun time!
I can’t believe that I haven’t been home on a weekend in 5 weeks. Even though it was all fun stuff (vacation, camping, etc.), I cannot tell you how nice it was to have a weekend at home with nothing big on the agenda.
Friday night we had a BBQ at Megan and Luke’s for Megan’s Mom’s birthday. It was HOT that night but we still had a blast.
Playing Frisbee!
You can see Lu’s new haircut in these pictures:
There were flowers from Megan’s garden that I arranged. Arranging flowers is not my strong suit but I thought these turned out really nicely.
We had a HUGE salmon!
Everybody enjoying the feast!
Porter’s Gramma and Lucy hanging out:
Fireworks!
And Lu’s reaction!
Porter’s initial reaction:
Lucy continued to love them:
Porter, not so much:
Then we had musical entertainment!
And then last but not least, “cake” for the birthday girl. Megan got this recipe out Sunset and it was for grilled strawberries and angel food cake. It was apparently delicious.
On Saturday, Lu and I went to the Farmer’s Market with Lissa and Tessa, then the park and then out to lunch with Shaun at the Crow’s Inn. He was on the way back from an epic mountain bike ride and liked the restaurant so much that he called us to join him for lunch. I’m glad we did (but I didn’t get pictures).
On Sunday I attacked the garden or as Shaun lovingly called it, “Chelsea’s Jungle”:
Most of that is weeds!
In the middle of weeding, I took a break to get some pictures of Lu. She picked out her entire outfit.
It was finally done!
It looks so much better, don’t you think?
Lu and I harvested some veggies-the garden is about to EXPLODE!
Lu LOVED everything that we picked:
Then, later, to beat the 100 degree heat, Daddy and Lu ran through the sprinklers!
What a FUN weekend AT HOME!!!!
Father’s Day Camping:
“Breakfast” with the Lions at the zoo. We ate, the lions played:
Feeding the Giraffes:
On the plane to PA. Daddy got Lucy-fied:
Sticking stickers is serious business!
PA!
Camping!
Caught up!
The weekend before Lucy and I left for California we went on our first Idaho camping trip. We went about 67 miles away but it took a good 3 hours to get there because 50 miles of that looked like this:
Dirt road!!!
On the way up we saw a heard of deer!
Shaun thinks that big one is an elk. I have no clue.
Our camp site was right by the river and incredibly remote. We saw 4 other cars on the main road all weekend!
On Saturday we went on a beautiful hike. I was 100% sure that I would die on the drive to get to the hike but thankfully we didn’t. That road was scary!!!
I did get some beautiful pictures of flowers!
There was still a lot of snow!
The river was the focal point of our trip!
Doesn’t Lucy look jazzed?!?!?! (she had just woken up from a nap)
The whole family 
Sawtooth hiking!
Awesome sights!
River crossings!
Our destination was a big, beautiful meadow.
Lucy loves camping!
Mommy loves camp cooking-cobbler!!!
Men playing dominoes. Aren’t they manly?
Lucy and one of her favorites-Miss Sarah!
Lucy got over her fear of dogs this trip (there were 5!). It was great. Here she is hand feeding Mateo:
Her first s’more!
It was an awesome trip! Numerous times while we were in CA, Lu asked to go camping-she loved it. We’re off for another one in a few weeks!!!
We just got back from California. One of the reasons we went to visit my ‘rents was because it was my Mom’s birthday and she wanted to go to Disneyland. Go to Disneyland we did!
We started on my Mom’s favorite ride, the Carousel!
I hate that this one is blurry 
Cousin Luke got in on the action too. As did Mimi (my Mom) but all of my pictures of her did not turn out.
Next up was Dumbo!
Lu waiting to get on (one of my favorite pictures from the trip):
Luke and Papa were behind us:
Lu loved it!
Next up was my Mom’s other favorite ride “Small World”. My Mom and Lu putting a penny in the water:
Then we went to Toontown to meet Mickey and Minnie!
I will spare you the pictures of Minnie since Lu got sunscreen in her eyes moments before meeting her and was in tears
Lu also REALLY wanted to drive a car!
Then it was the train all the way around the park!
Last was the Jungle Cruise but I didn’t get any pictures of that unfortunately.
Before leaving the park, Lu got a balloon, ears, and ice cream! She was a happy girl!
And TIRED girl!
Luke had a blast too. He and Papa went on some of the more age appropriate rides and then when Papa needed a rest, his Mom (Aunt Sheri) went on others. He had quite the day and got to do basically all he wanted to do. Something that the youngest of 3 boys doesn’t get to do very often!
Luke and Sheri:
Mimi, Luke, and Papa:
I think Lucy has had it:
Love this picture though:
These too:
It was a blast! Happy birthday Mom/Mimi!
Sorry, I’ve been slacking big time! Here are some great Lucy pictures for you!
At the Zoo Boise Easter Egg Hunt a few weeks ago:
Easter was SO FUN this year because Lu was SO excited about the Easter Bunny. She just thought he was the coolest! It was incredibly fun to experience the holiday through Lu’s eyes. I LOVE that she’s getting to an age where everything is fun and exciting and new. It’s awesome!
Both Lu and Tessa really wanted to SEE the Easter Bunny, but sadly, this was as close as they got:
My Mom made them princess bunnies that they can dress up-SO CUTE!
Our friend Rebecca came over for the egg hunt and brought these cute little paper mache eggs that she and her son Ollie made and filled with candy.
It was egg hunt time!
Found some!
Lu was very particular about the type of eggs she wanted. “Where are the small pink eggs Mama?”
“There’s one!”
“You mean, these things have treats?!?!?!”
“Lu-Smile!” “CHEESE!”
Look at the loot!
“mmmm…Candy bracelet!”
Two Cousins…and Ollie!
We’re in trouble with these two.
I love these two pictures of Lu:
Trouble!
And finally, Mother’s Day!
A few months ago I sent Shaun some links to camera bags that I’d like for Mother’s Day. Last week, he emailed me saying that they were out of stock and asked if I wanted anything else. I told him that I really, truly don’t want anything other than a day with Shaun and Lu, some Lucy artwork, and to not cook. Yesterday I got all of that and more. Best Mother’s Day ever!
First, I got to sleep in and then we went to a few local nurseries to get supplies for the garden. After that we went to 13th Street Pub and Grill for a yummy lunch including a free mimosa and yummy bloody mary. We then had a (much needed) family nap followed by an afternoon in the garden. The night ended with a dinner out at the Ram. We were supposed to go to our friend’s house for Friend Dinner but they had to cancel. I told Shaun that we could just have leftovers but he said absolutely not and that we were going out. Okay then! It really was a nice family day AND my husband built me a trellis for me peas!
Evidently I had a hard time with the focus yesterday 
Look at that hand made trellis!
I also got some garden markers:
And Lettuce!
Last weekend we went to a native plant sale and Shaun terraced an area in the backyard for it. Here’s our native plant garden
And the reason my day was so wonderful!
