shooting deer

While Brent actually shoots the deer and provides us with yummy food all winter long, I like to sit in photo blinds on the King Ranch and shoot deer with my camera! We went down to visit my Uncle Tom last weekend for our last summer adventure. We rode around the ranch for hours and hours getting lots of history from our personal tour guide. We had fun helping patch fence, chase cows out of pens, and stayed up way too long chatting and playing with the pups. Here are a couple of fun animals we got to watch play. Thanks Uncle Tom!

Riding with Paco and Lefty

early morning sun

Harris Hawk

run little guy, run!

I nearly jumped out of the truck to take these cute little piggies home! Then I remembered how BIG they get!

evening fun at the waterhole

Caracara falcon

coyote, this one gave me a rush!

my favorite

last stop- Colorado!

After we left Idaho, we headed down to Colorado to visit some friends. Sadly, Brent and I did not get a single photo of our time with Tony and Roxy who live in Fort Collins. Most of our time with them was around the dinner table since we weren't together during the day. The last day we went on a long bike ride and I couldn't take my camera, so boo on us. Anyway, we did have a great time with them and will just have to go back and get a picture another time!

One of our day adventures was hiking with John and Donna Goodwin. Yes, Emily's and Sada's mom and dad! They've had a family cabin in Colorado for years and we met up with them one day to hike all around. We had an amazing day with them marching through snow and visiting. Another event was touring the Coors Brewery in Golden. It was quite interesting and the beer tasted just a tad better there! Brent showed me around his old graduate campus, Colorado Christian, and gave me a tour of some of the places he enjoyed including a huge outdoor red-rock amphitheater. It was my first time in CO and I loved it!

After three days in Colorado we hopped in the car and headed home. We've had a great time and are so blessed to have had the time to get away and enjoy our summer. Three weeks and 4,500 miles later, we are safe at home with Champer and Prince. They were both very happy to see us! Thanks for keeping up with our trip, it's been fun!

hiking with the Goodwins

lots of snow to walk through

waterfall under snow, crazy! we walked over it, scary!

We stopped to eat our packed lunch and take in the gorgeous views!

Thanks Donna and John, we had an amazing day with you!

Brent listening to the tour while taste testing

amphitheater

Teton Hiking

105 Texas heat all summer? No thank you! We've really enjoyed beating the heat this July. Here we are in SNOW...crazy!

The Young family cabin where stayed for three nights

Tara, Rusty and Ryan (Tyler is down in Florida with his dad)

We are at 10,000ft with Grand Teton in the back sitting at 13,000

hiking down the mountain

pretty flowers

Idaho fishing!

Rusty and Ryan took us fishing one day while we stayed up at the cabin. We can't say that it was the best day for catching fish, but it was so incredibly beautiful out that it didn't really matter if we caught anything. Brent learned how to fly fish and I caught a fish! I can't really brag when I say that I had the catch of the day since the brown trout was smaller than my hand, but I DID catch the only fish of the day, haha. It was super fun and we enjoyed the views all along the way. We had never seen canola fields until this trip and boy were they awesome!

can you see my fish? look really hard!

Rusty teaching Brent how to fly fish

Ryan keeping the boat steady

Teton Mountains watching us

canola and mountains!

Amya Tegan Young

My cousin Tara and her husband Rusty just welcomed home a new baby girl! Miss Amya is so beautiful and sweet and only five weeks old! I loved holding her and taking pictures of her. She'll probably be super big the next time we get to see her, so we are really grateful to get to see her so precious and tiny. I am also extremely grateful to see that she's gotten the super looooong Urban fingers and toes ;)

Yellowstone Highlights

We survived the bears in Yellowstone! I must admit, I was pretty nervous knowing a man had gotten killed by a bear about a week before we camped out. I really got nervous when an elk walked right past our tent as we set up camp. I calmed down and enjoyed myself and we had an amazing time in Yellowstone. We'd love to go back and spend about a week to get everything in. Too much to do in just two days!

the welcoming committee (literally the first thing as we drove in the park!)

mama elk about 20 yards from our tent

hot springs at Old Faithful (after the hailstorm)

evening hike to a lookout point

our campsite

lake yellowstone

baby bison

hot spring pool with mountain background