The past 5 months!

Okay, okay, I know how terrible I have been. I can't believe I let a whole 5 months go by with nothing. Time has gone so fast. I knew it had been a while, but 5 months?! That even surprised me. Anyway, some of you may get bored in reading my long entry and I don't blame you, but atleast you can see a few pictures of the boys and how much they have grown up.
Since my last post a lot of things have happened, first of which was Tel's 2nd birthday. We had some friends over to help us celebrate (James and Camille Whiting and family). It was a small and simple birthday but I think he enjoyed it. Although I think he would have rather just been allowed to play with the other kids the entire time and not be stopped for birthday cake.
The very last week of May, the Saturday after Casey's last day of school in Riverton we loaded up our U-haul with some help from friends in Lander and my dad and brother, Tyson--thank you all. Tyson and my dad took our subaru for us that evening and were going to bring it back to Cokeville for us. Anyway, at the top of South Pass, the engine blew on the Subaru. Luckily they were able to get cell service and give us a call, and thanks to a good friend, Tawn Gopp, from Riverton, we were able to get it towed to his house in Riverton that night and knew it was in good, honest hands, in getting fixed. We were blessed in that way. On Sunday, Casey and I, with the boys, headed out and got as far as Cokeville. That Monday we were able to move our things into the duplex we were renting here in Afton. We worked on that, Mon.-Tues. and then were back in Cokeville because I had Volleyball camp in Cokeville Wed.-Sat. Well, Thursday night, Tel got a pretty high fever. He had been acting a little funny for a few days, but we thought it was because of the move because he always wanted to go "home". Well, we kept him at our duplex that night and watched him close and kept Tylenol in him, but even with that his fever never went under 101 and he was pretty listless by morning. We took him in to the clinic here in Afton and had to wait well over an hour for someone to get to us. Anyway, once they did they immediately put him in the hospital with pneumonia. We spent the next 3 days in the hospital with him. My mom came to help that first night so Casey and I could take shifts during the night without having to wake up Kimball and drag him along during the switch. Ramona, Casey's mom, also came up to help out when we found out Tel was going to be in the hospital for a few days. It was so nice to have her visit. We enjoyed her company and were grateful for her concern and love. We did take a drive the first day Tel was back home and took Ramona up to see the Tetons. They were clouded over a bit, but still beautiful. Needless to say, our first week was very eventful.
Since then, our summer has gone very well and we have done a lot of fun things. We spent a few days up in Oregon with Casey's sister Kamala and her family. I was able to experience clamming and crabbing for the first time and guess with quite a bit of success. We caught a ton of crabs off some docks, but only 14 of them were big enough to keep. I am told that is pretty good. We also got to go berry picking, which may have been Tel's favorite part of the whole trip, other than the balloon-monkey hat he got at the farmer's market.
We spent the 4th of July with Casey's family in Mt. Pleasant and had a great time there, as always. It is always so fun to see everyone and watch Cameron's amazing fireworks show, which Tel loved this year!
After that trip we did a little less traveling. We visited with friends, Dave and Liza, in Pocatello and they came to visit us, which is alway fun. Kathy and Ramona(Casey's sister and mom) also came to visit for a few days. We always enjoy company. Casey had a football camp and I had a volleyball camp but other than that we were okay to stay home, go fishing, and try out our new boats on Cottonwood Lake. Tel is still all about going fishing. He will pretend that just about anything is a fishing pole and dangle it over any sort of edge and say he is going fishing. At one of the vball games in Cokeville this fall, eh was doing this little game with his blanked on the bleachers. In the middle of fishing he looked over at my mom (Granny) and headed over to her. When he got to her he looked closely at the earrings she was wearing and took one out and said, "hook?" We took him to a fishing store with us to get some supplies the 2nd time we headed out with him. When we went into the store he spied the little kid fishing poles before we ever did and when I caught up to him he was standing in front of them saying, "Oh man! Oh gosh!" over and over again. We just had to get him one after that! It was pretty funny.
At the beginning of August I was feeling a rejuvenated and headed out to Indiana with Taffy to visit Violet and Austin. Taffy and I took Mariah and Kimball with us and left our husbands with the other kids. We spent a week out there with Violet and had a lot of fun. I don't know that we have ever spent that much time together all in one week. We talked about everything and went and saw some neat things. It was a great week!
Our last little adventure before the school year started was doing the El Vaquero Loco race here in Afton. You can choose to do the 25K or the 50K. We did the 25K. It was about 15 miles back in the mountains. It was a lot of up and down hill and we hiked quite a bit of it. It was a ton of fun and absolutely beautiful! I would recommend that race to anyone who loves to trail run and hike. I haven't done a lot of it before, but Casey and I think we may have found we like it better than a marathon.
After that race 2-a-days started for f-ball and v-ball and Casey's meetings started. That week fo 2-a-days was rough on the boys and me, because they were spending so much time and the babysitter's and we were missing eachother, but we survived and now they are usually excited to go play with the other kids for a couple hours during practice. Tel has picked up on a lot more words too, which I credit some of that to being around other kids that are talking to him and expecting him to respond. We really like the family that is taking the boys and are so grateful they agreed to do it.
At the end of August we ended up buying a home just west of Afton, which we are very happy about. We have a great view of the upper valley from our upstairs and downstairs windows.
Overall, we are really enjoying Star Valley and are beginning to make some great friends. We miss Lander and our friends and ward there, as you always do after a move, but things are going well and we have been extremely blessed.
Okay, so I am trying to add some pictures to this post but I am not finding most of my pictures from this summer--hope I can. I have the ones from May and from September and I downloaded all of those at the same time so I have no idea where all the ones in between have gone. Anyway, here are a few pictures.

Saying goodbye to our house in Lander.

Up the Sinks after loading the U-haul.

First meal at the hospital.

First night at the hospital.

The Tetons with Grandma Parry.

Little Buddies

Pictures of Tel and Kimball from this past week.