Stimpson Family Reunion 2009

We had a great trip to West Yellowstone for the Stimpson Family Reunion!

We visited the stink pots and saw a buffalo, eagle, and an elk with huge antlers.

It was so great seeing everyone, although not everyone could make it this year.

A night on the town!

Have you ever gone to downtown Boise to walk around and see the sites? It is a lot of fun. Lisa and I decided to go there and try out the Mongolian grill. It was delicious, actually too delicious. I ate so much I thought I was going to lose it. The huge trough bowl I filled to the rim with some of the freshest and best food I'd ever seen. Yum. It was really good ;-)

Trace didn't come with us this week (thanks to Sarah & Shawn for watching him) so we had time to walk around and see what downtown Boise has to offer. There were some cool fountains and it sure felt good to stand near them in the heat since its been around 104 the past few days!

Now this is one cool building. The sides are angled really weird. I wondered what it must look like from the inside.

I wished I had brought a couple toilet plungers because I'm sure I could crawl up the side of it. Maybe next time!

Cool buildings... complete with a thumb.

Doesn't this look like a perfect place for a movie? maybe one about a man who lives in a box or possibly a Secret agent leaping off of these stairs?

The one picture thats missing probably would have been the most entertaining... the one I didn't take, but wanted to of the nearly 7 foot tall man/woman we saw with huge blonde hair that was fluffed two feet wide. I guess we'll have to return another time to take that pic. lol ;)

One last plug for the Mongolian place. It was really good! ;-)

Wow! Time flys!

Why summer is the best time of year!

Camping, fishing, camping, snacking, and more camping.

After work Monday Lisa, Trace, Kenya and I loaded up the Explorer and headed to the forest.

We weren't sure exactly where we were going and after circling around the lake we ended up finding a spot around 10:30 at night. Mosquitos feasted on Lisa. We had brought dryer sheets as a repellant and it worked for me but not so much for Lisa. Thank goodness a tiny store in Cascade had repellant for sale by the can at 7 bucks a wop! Wished I had got some at Walmart for 4.50 instead of thinking "that is way too much for bug spray". I learned that you can't pay too much for bug spray when you really need it. ;-)

We found the best campground we have ever seen. It was at Lake Cascade, secluded, and right on the lake. Trees galore!

We brought a raft and some life jackets and paddled around a bit. I had all these plans for the many fish I was going to catch... Never happend. I fished and fished and only caught one!

The handy baby-pack was excellent. Trace loved it as we walked around.
Trace is quite the camper!

If you look closely, and I mean very closely you will see my tiny fish! I named her Sue.

After a night of fishing with everything in my box with no luck, Lisa was telling me about something she had read in "The Work and the Glory" about Wilford Woodruff. He fished with hair and ended up catching more fish than anyone else.

Call it inspiration or sheer brilliance, I decided to try hair fishing for myself.

I looked up and on the tree saw a bunch of mossy hairlike stuff which looks like buffalo fur. So I thought "what the heck" and grabbed some and put it on the hook, tossed it out, and immedietly had a bite. This was the end result.

Since my fishing wasn't bringing in much, we went into McCall and visited the fish hatchery. There was a lot of fish! I wished I had brought my pole!

Trace wasn't much of a fan of his life jacket.

The last morning, I woke up and looked in the cooler to find that we had accidentally left the worm container open. oops!! They were everywhere crawling around in hopes to escape my hook.

I quickly cleaned it up and snapped some pictures before Lisa could see. ;)

After this, we decided it was time to head home.

Trace and Lisa went swimming the other day (meanwhile I was slaving away at work).

Hooray for summer! Trace loves the water. He is sure to be a water rat like his parents.

So we have a huge box of blocks. I whipped em out the other day so Trace could play with them. Before we knew it we had built a tall tower that was too cool to just put away so it took its place as a centerpiece for a couple days.
For the 4th, our ward had a delicious and excellent pancake breakfast Saturday morning outside. It was tasty. For the fireworks we went to Sarah & Shawns for fireworks. We had a fun time!

Trace started crawling a couple weeks ago. He is now crawling everywhere! He is getting bigger and bigger and is almost 11 months old! wow!

Meanwhile, Trace's little brother or sister continues to grow!! 14 weeks tomorrow!

A big fish, a stubbed toe, and a heck of a lot of fun!

Since I know the first thing you will want to see is my poor toe I have it here for your viewing pleasure. In the middle of the night I was being the loving spouse and getting up to flip on the heater and this was my reward. The table bench was the culprit. Youch! The good news was baby Trace slept right on through it!..oh and yes I did clip my toe nails immedietly afterwards. :) Sick!
I've always been a terrible fisherman but I love to go fishing. We found a perfect spot and I sat down with my walmart reel and all of a sudden "pop", my reel popped right off and my pole came apart... but there it was! ... a fish! I grabbed the line and yanked and yanked flopping the poor fish high onto the hill behind me so he wouldn't flop himself back into the lake.

Only then we realized that we didn't have a bucket... I ran up to the explorer and found a bag which we filled with water and stuffed him inside.

By the way, anyone know what kind of fish this is? I have no clue! But he was tastey!
Lisa was an excellent cook as usual. She cooked up Mr Fishy and we all tried eating him.
Delicious but very very boney! Shawn was the only lucky one to get one stuck in his throat!

We had a great time! !

Below are a few videos we took of the weekend.

Fun times!

Videos:

1) Campground slothing

2) The fish o fishes!

3) Awesome camp spot - Canyon Campground about an hour from here.

Hooray for summer!

So where are the dwarfs?

My niece Kiera had her princess birthday party yesterday. Lisa (Snow White) was the guest of honor. Here you can see a little prince Trace.

Kiera was a beautiful Cinderella.

There were lots of little girls. You should have heard them let out a scream when Ogre Shawn came out and startled them.

I am still waiting for the 7 dwarfs to arrive and begin cleaning up our yard so if you see them please send em our way.

The Blue-Mouthed Group!

Trace got his first taste of a Raspberry blue snow cone. He liked it. We all did!

Camping...Finally!

We have been wanting to go camping for so long! Finally, we were able to go. It was kind of a last minute trip but I got home from work and we loaded up everything and headed to the woods. We brought Kenya, a sack of snacks from Albertsons, and a slew of blankets.
We drove about an hour and found the perfect place. The best places for camping have tons of trees, a creek of some sort, and space. We had our pick of spots since no one else was camping.
Trace loved looking at the fire. I will admit it was a bit weasely of a fire as most of the twigs we could find were pretty small but it did the trick.
Since it was still a bit chilly in the night we all slept in the same bed. Yep.. Kenya, Lisa, Trace, & I all all snuggled nice and warm.

We had a great time and will be going again soon. Only next time I'm double checking that we have enough propane for the heater. ;)