Back to School--Aug 2014

We have had an exciting August!

Our foreign exchange student arrived at the beginning of the month. She will be here for the school year.  She is a perfect fit for our family.  She has red hair and likes music. :)

Ryan, Meg and Yuliya--DM airport Aug 2014

You can tell by this picture that she fits right in with the Carson kids...

I'm calling her my long lost daughter.   :)

We have had fun showing her what life in Iowa is like. We have taken her to the Iowa State Fair and our favorite restaurants. We like sharing our favorite movies with her as well. 

But then school started and schedules filled up for the three high school kids:

First day of school--Aug 2014
Yuliya 10th grade, Meg 9th grade, Ryan 10th grade

The are all in marching band...

Yuliya is in volleyball as well, so her schedule is pretty full.

These two kids are at Iowa State University. Its fun to have them on the same campus this year.
(Ellyn transferred to ISU over the summer after spending her freshman year at University of Iowa.)

First day of classes for the Cyclones!  Aug 2014

I'm keeping busy feeding people...

Hope you've enjoyed August--its almost over!!!

Our Vacation to Wyoming

We returned to the Tetons in Wyoming for our family vacation this year. We just love that place.

Here are some pictures of the beautiful scenery and wildlife.
For our last couple of days we went to Cheyenne for Frontier Days and went to the rodeo. It was a lot of fun.

Branson vacation -- July 2013

Please forgive me for posting some old news.
I'd really love to get caught up with some things I have neglected to post about...

Our family vacationed in Branson for a long weekend in late July.

We went to Dixie Stampede, which was a lot of fun and had fabulous food. The outlet mall provided some great bargains. The remainder of our time was spent in a boat on Table Rock Lake. 

Most of the pictures I took were on the water, except this one outside Dixie Stampede. Love these 4!

There was a huge cliff along the lake. It made my heart race just looking at it. (I'm scared of heights.)
My oldest and youngest jumped off. It seemed like time stopped while I waited for Meg to surface!
Brandon was in the water waiting for her, which gave me a little piece of mind.
Really, I would have liked to tell them they couldn't jump. But I was super proud that they are braver than I.
They loved it and Brandon went back for a second jump, because it was so exhilarating!
I guess I'll never know about that feeling! :)

Meg's jump...

 Brandon's jump...

Friday Five

1. A friend shared all of these huge, beautiful tomatoes. Meg and I are thrilled to have so many to use in salsa. We made some fresh salsa with the tomatoes from her little garden but plan on canning a batch using these.

2. Ryan got his school permit and drove himself to school every day this week. I am glad the school is so close, so I don't have to worry about his safety. He enjoys leaving for school when he wants, rather than waiting on everyone else to get ready.

2. Meg is a manger for the eighth grade football team. They had their first game this week. Brandon was hired as one of the referees. It was a little odd to watch a game that none of my kids were playing in. I was still entertained watching them do their jobs.

3. Ellyn is getting settled into college life. I love to hear from her and get random picture texts like this one fairly frequently:

4. I hatched my first swallowtail butterflies this summer. They are much different than monarchs, but some things about them are much the same. They have a very short life cycle like the monarch, which makes it so fun to bring them inside to observe. It is always a relief when the caterpillars get done eating and make their chrysalis. They eat a lot by the time they are this size:

Hello world...
(note the green and yellow chrysalis at the bottom of this photo)

5.  Now that school has provided some structure and routine to my days, I have been walking with a friend at a nearby county forest preserve. I don't know who enjoys it more, Mandie or myself. We had some super hot weather to walk in, but today cooled off and felt like fall. I am excited for cooler weather.

Hope you have a great weekend! It is going to be fall-like here in central Iowa!

Jackson Hole -- July 2013

continued from yesterday...

We love Jackson Hole in the summer, and the drive to Jackson and Grand Teton National Park is one of the most scenic drives in the country.  It is safe to assume that arriving in Jackson by air is just as amazing as by car.

*(Because of the breathtaking beauty, prepare yourself for an abundance of photos.)

We were looking forward to the relatively short flight from Eagle, Colorado, to Jackson, which included great views of the mountains.

As we all know, the weather plays a huge role in air travel, and a thunderstorm over Jackson messed up our plans for landing there. My wise husband/pilot determined that the black ominous clouds hovering just above the steep mountain tops were nothing to mess around with. I didn't get a picture of the scary view, because I was too busy gnawing off all of my fingernails. (I tend to be a nervous flier and those black clouds did not help my mental state.)  I breathed a big sigh of relief when he turned the plane around and headed for a small airport that was approximately a two hour drive from Jackson.

We spent a couple of hours at the airport hanging around and obsessively checking the weather to see if we could go ahead and fly into the Jackson airport. We finally determined that we should jump in a rental car and drive to Jackson rather than waste anymore daylight. As usual, the drive did not disappoint.

Sunset from the deck of Jackson Lake Lodge...

We only had a couple of days in Jackson Hole, so we tried to enjoy the area as much as possible.

We took a day hike around this beautiful lake. 

Byron and Ellyn split-off from Meg and I, and they ended up seeing a black bear along the trail. 

The bear reared up to see them and then went back to eating berries--a pretty thrilling sight when you're from Iowa.

My second shot of a grizzly bear!
(You can read about the first one from our trip in 2011 by clicking HERE.)

The famous Moulton barn at sunset. The most photographed barn in America turned 100 this summer.

The Moulton barn in the morning sun...

We had a super trip and hope to enjoy the Grand Tetons for many more years!