1st day of School

August 26, 2010 The Kids heading off to another year of school.




Logan is starting his Senior year! WOW! I can't be that old!



Spencer is a Mighty Sophomore!




Levi is a sixth grader this year.




As you can see Kate is a silly second grader.

Harvesting Honey

Saturday, August 22 We went out to check on our bee's. Mike has been building some new frames and we added some of them to the hives. We brought some home to harvest.




Logan is holding two supers the brown colored was in a new one that Mike built. Each one of those boxes holds 10 frames. We have 2 different hives one with 3 supers and the other with 4 so a total of 70 frames.



Here is Mike & Levi with one frame that we brought home.


Mike is cutting off the bees wax so that we can get to the honey.


The kids love chewing the bees wax. Here is a picture of Kate tasting the honey.


After removing the wax we had to be patient and strain the honey. We are still trying to perfect this process. You can buy commercial equipment to make this process easier and quicker we still have some researching to do so we can be more efficient in this process.





Here is the finished product. We got 2 1/2 pints off one frame. We should have all the honey we will ever need. I have decided this is one of Mikes better hobbies it for sure is one that we all enjoy being apart of.

Foster Family Reunion

Just before Logan and Spencer came back to Montana they made a stop off at the Foster reunion. Aren't they handsome boys even if they are a little dirty.

Trip to Colorado!

Spencer spent the summer with Grandma & Grandpa Foster working with them. He had many great experiences! He built a barn, built a fence, worked on a dump truck, drove grandpa's blue truck and he also got to do plenty of four-wheeling. Spencer had many great life experiences. Thanks grandma & grandpa! But to end his summer, Spencer and Levi got to take a trip to Colorado Springs, Colorado to help move an Uncle. They worked hard and had a good time. Here are a few pictures that we got from their trip.



Grandpa & Levi loading the trailer.



Levi & Spencer loading a chair into the trailer.



Peyton trying to steal Spencer's hat.



Grandpa & The grandkids at the park.



Levi with his cousin Brinley.



Levi & Spencer playing.

Pig Wrestling

The Saturday before Logan was to come back to Montana was the Caribou County Fair. Three of his good buddies from Grace ropped him into being the fourth member in their pig wrestling team. They were the only high school mens team. While they awaited there turn they watched all these grown buff men try and fail at putting this greased pig into a barrel. Logan said that he told his buddy Jordan who orgainized the whole thing that this wasn't one of his brighter ideas.

In the end they ended up being the winners. Only three teams were successful in completing the task and Logan and his friends did it in the fastest time. They each walked away with $25 to put in there pockets.



Logan is the one with his arms around the middle of the pig.

Logan had a very sucessful summer and it was fun for him to hang out with some of his old friends from Idaho. He was able to go fluming, swimming, play in a couple of basketball tournaments, four wheeling, camping and he even bought himself a guitar and has taught himself a few songs. He accomlished all this while making close to $4,0000 working for Calvin Lloyd milking 108 cows twice a day.

Good Job!

Our Garage Sale Find!

Last Saturday we were out doing our weekly routine of hitting all the garage sales in Laurel and then working our way to Billings to hit Costco's for their samples. When we came across these two cute little bunnies. A Mommy and her little daughter. Of course we had to get them, the cage came too. Also included in the deal was the bedding,feed and water bottles. What a steal! So now we are bunny farmers. The neighborhood kids love them. Notice the lock we had to put on the cage.







For now this is the extent of the chores for the kids to do. Hopefully the cows will come later.

A New Boy Scout

Levi is just begining his trail to An Eagle Scout.
Here he is all decked out for his first night of scouts.
He has gotten a good start all ready. We just completed the cycling merit badge this week and he is working on his personal fittness.
Here We Go!



Kate can hardly wait for her turn to be a scout.
She just needs her uniform.
Two more months and she will be able to go to Faith In God. She can hardly wait.

Family Vacation 2010

Logan & Spencer got home from Idaho Sunday afternoon and Monday morning the 9th we packed up and headed to South Dakota. We had a great time and got to see a ton of sights on the way. Our fist stop was Custer's Last Stand that is only about an hour from Laurel and we spent close to two hours there. It was the first stop of the trip and I forgot to take some pictures.



Here is the gang all packed up to go. We loaded the van with all our sleeping gear and food and drink to last for next 3 days. We were packed to the hilt.



We arrived at the first tourist sight just before closing. The park ranger was very helpful and got us lined out for the next few days. We got loaded up on all the brochures and information. We were able to book an 8:30am tour to go through Jewel Cave, the next morning. So we set out to find us a place to camp for the night we ended up being only 7 miles outside of Custer.




Here are the boys trying to make us some roasting sticks to roast mellows.



Here we are packing up camp after a good night sleep.



Kate & Levi trying to get out of cleaning up camp.



Here we are having breakfast before we head out on our tour. Hopefully you can't see the Mountain Dew box in the background.
We did have something a little more healthier.
Costco poppy seed muffins. Yum! Our favorite!



We had about an hour to kill before our tour so we drove into Custer and bought some ice and took advantage of the Flinstone sign. It was a little amusement park but it was so early in the morning the town was all asleep.





Jewel Cave is the second longest cave in the world and it is still growing they are still discovering it. We enjoyed the tour and got to see many formation. Mike took lots of photos of them but I don't want to bore you with them all.







Our next stop was at Crazy Horse Monument. I had never heard of it until my parents went there last year. It was amazing!
It is the world's largest carving in progress.









Mt. Rushmore was a little disappointing after seeing Crazy Horse. It is only a 1/4 of the size. But it was still beautiful and we can say that we have been.



We have never seen so many motorcylces EVER! We would have to pick the week the bikers come from all over the United States to go to Sturgis South Dakota.
Here are some of the bikers stacked up in the parking lot at Mt. Rushmore.
As we were leaving Mt. Rushmore and heading for Mammoth Hot Springs we decided just for fun to count how many bikers we saw. In a 30 minute time period we counted over 630 motorcycles and only 16 cars. These were just the ones on the road. Crazy!



It was a little drive to the Hot Springs and this is what happened to the group.








The Mammoth site of Hot Springs is an indoor working paleiontological site/museum more than 58 Columbian and Wooly mammoths have been unearthed.



After leaving the Hot Springs and heading towards Devils Tower we came across a buffalo jump site. The boys had fun exloring this area and stretching there legs.



We never made it to Devils Tower we ran out of day light. So we found this campground and built a big fire and the kids got to roast hot dogs and we cut up the watermelon we had been paking for 2 days. Everything always tastes better camping. It was the best watermelon yet this season.



Here a few photos of us camping.






There was so much to see and do but we were ready to come home so we got up the next morning and headed for home. We had a great trip and it was so fun to see some more of this beautiful and unique world that we live in.