White Water Rafting

Dan gets the vacation planner of the year award. Knowing that we had to start in Missoula to see the Restaurant:

He also planned for us to go river rafting for the first time as a family. We will be doing this again!
We chose Zootown because they promised that we would have our own guide/raft. At the last minute we had two additional people added. They were fantastic-a mother and daughter from England! It was so fun to learn about their lives and where they had been traveling in the US.

Missoula, MT

We started our journey to Queenie and Grandad's house with a stop in Missoula. 

After checking out the airport and "improved" Jedediah, we hit the ski slopes...in a way....

The girls loved the hotel because they got their own room with a "real" bed (usually we are in a suite and they are on the pull out couch). I had to take a picture of Lauren's "move in"-everything in it's place from the jacket to Caroline to the flashlight nearby ( :

We also took time to check out the "sites" in Missoula including their famed "Carousel". Each horse was sponsored by a local family or group. The girls loved the ride one time and wanted to move on...

Next to the ride the city built an incredible playscape! If only we had something similar in Austin. The girls were all over it and we could have stayed for hours! 

The best part of the Missoula trip was the white water rafting down the Clark Fork.This picture is of the girls from the "base camp" of the Zootown crew we went with(loved them-highly recommend if you are wanting to raft or kayak in Missoula) 

 We ordered some more picture of the trip but here are the girls and I ready to get on the boat. 

Before we drove to see Queenie and Grandad(the girls could hardly wait!), we took a tour through the University of MT-Go Grizz!

Finally on the road and we started the morning with donuts...

Lookout Queenie and Grandad-here comes trouble!

Last week of July Camp

It is HOT. Yes it is Texas and the last week of July but we have been so fortunate to have a milder summer so far. Luckily both girls were in camp each day.

This week was "Rainforest Camp" for Lauren. Two Regents Juniors(Emma P and Mary Frances P both on the Basketball team) created and led the camp of aprox 12 girls. Each day they did a different craft, learned about the rainforests and practiced a play about a sloth(Lauren was a monkey). The play was performed for us today along with an awards ceremony ( :

The Group(Lauren is sitting on Mary Frances lap)

The end of the performance-the sloth was saved! 

Receiving her award from Mary Frances

Her Camp "Award"

Kate went to a fantastic cooking camp put on by a Regents grad headed to TCU in the fall(go Frogs!). She led both 3rd and 4th graders(girls and boys-love that Mark, Thomas and Caleb were there!) in Coach Tucker's kitchen. They made everything from pizza(including the dough) to homemade pop tarts(with homemade pic crust) to whole wheat bread. Lunch each day was something that they spent the morning making from scratch. Kate learned so many skills and she is going to be even more of a help in the kitchen ( :