Pumpkin Patch and Thermopolis

Friday, Hannah's class had a field trip to the pumpkin patch. Here is her class with her teacher and a few siblings that went along too. I drove them on the bus!


After we arrived, the first thing we did was get on this hay ride. It takes us to the field where the pumpkins are.

Then each person gets to chose the pumpkin of their liking.

Then the tractor takes you back to this field. In the field are several hay structures to play on and this tent. This is Hannah and 2 friends from school, Kayla and Cassidy, and Halee.

Halee wondered off by herself to where the swings were. There were so many children there (another school was there too) and I was visiting with moms that I didn't even know she was gone. I was standing at a hay stack waiting for her to appear. As I'm scanning the area to see where she might be, I spot her over by the barns with a man that works at the farm! Oh, my! We had a little chat about that. Anyway, she really wanted to go and swing in this Clifford swing. So, I finally relented and took her for 5 mintues.

Friday afternoon, after school and the bus route, we jumped in the car for a 5 hours trip to Thermopolis, Wyoming. Ed volunteered to preach for the congregation there. They put us up in a hotel right in Hot Springs State Park. Saturday morning, Ed went fishing with one of the men from the church. The girls and I wandered around the park to "see the sights." This is one of the sights. I think this is teepee rock. Someone had the water piped to the top of this rock. As the water evoprates, the minerals are left on the rock.

Then we walked around some mineral water pools and made it to this swinging bridge, which crosses the river. The girls didn't like the bridge too much because it did swing as you walked on it!

There were 2 little playgounds there too. One had this statue of a buffalo. Halee is posing for me.

The girls have also learned how to do the monkeys bars recently too. Everytime we go to the park, I don't think to take the camera. So, here I had it with me and got a video of Hannah. These monkey bars were a bit to challenging for Halee.

In the afternoon, we went swimming in the hot springs pools. There were 2 slides there - one inside and one outside. This slide is a great slide for the kids to go on by themselves. The first time I went down with one of the girls, we actually stopped on the slide several times and had to work our way down. You have to lay down to make it go fast. So, the girls spent a lot of time on it by themselves. We would stand at the bottom and catch them. We did go on the one outside, but only 2 times. The wind was blowing a bit and by the time you got out of the warm water and walked up all the stairs, it was a bit cold!

This is Hannah. She could touch the bottom of the pool and got to where she didn't want us to catch her.

This is Halee.

This morning Ed did a GREAT job of preaching. There were 12 adults in attendance. His lesson was on how God had some temples built and how they were to be built, but in the end, we are the temple.

On the way home, Ed called his mom to see if she wanted to meet us in Laurel (about 10 miles from Billings) for a few minutes. Well, she had Chloe with her. The hospital that she works for is wanting to take some pictures with kids dressed up as doctors/nurses, etc to make posters with to hang up in the hospital. She had sent me an email a week or so ago asking if the girls could come. Well, the photo shoot is on Mon and Tues afternoon and I didn't think there was any way we could make it over there. The girls both have school and I work . . . I didn't put it together that it was tomorrow and we would be traveling thru to drop someone off! That is why she had Chloe. Anyway, Ed and I discussed it and decided that Halee could stay and we would meet on Tues in Big Timber to pick her up. Of course, Hannah was quite sad, but she just can't miss that much school. (She's already missed a day being sick and on Wednesday she has to have her 2 bottom teeth pulled and in Nov, she will miss 3 days for Thanksgiving. That's the way it goes when your 6!) The girls had fun playing at the park for a while. I'm sure Halee and Chloe will have fun the next 2 days too.