June 2024

This summer was packed with a lot of camps, trips, and sports.  Sam played All Star baseball for the Roswell Renegades Black team.  He also went to BT basketball, wrestling, and football camps in June.  Grace continued club swimming with Swim Atlanta and was in the Roswell park long course pool every day at 5:30am and had afternoon workouts as well several days a week.  She and Henry went to Middle School Youth Group camp for the first time at Camp Hidden Lake and both had a super fun time.  Henry also went to Scout camp at Woodruff this month and continued his track season all the way to state meet with Alpha Crush.  Nicholas swam summer swim team with Edenwilde, went to Scout camp at Woodruff, in addition to starting daily morning BT cross country practices.  With all this running around, we were grateful to have Penny Czbala as our nanny, aka kid chauffeur, to drive them all the places while Shawn and I worked.

Rainbow over Roswell :-)

Sam at wrestling camp

Sam's All Star summer baseball team

The crew of Scouts heading to Woodruff

Service at camp

Nicholas working on an engineering merit badge at camp

As one of the older scouts, Nicholas got to camp 1 night on hammock island

Dutch oven cooking

We celebrated Shawn on Father's Day.

"Your the Man of this house" :-)!!

Custom coaster made in woodcarving merit badge class

Henry had a fantastic USATF State meet, despite the intense heat.  He placed 4th in the state in the 800 M with a 2:42 time.  He placed 5th in the state in the 1500M with a 5:31 time.  He placed  4th in the state with a 12:20 time in the 3000M.

Nicholas (along with Michael, Peter, Hudson and Justin) were awarded the 4th and final Scout religious emblem, the Pope Pius XII award - they put in a great deal of time and work over the past year to earn this.  And Shawn, the lead teacher for the program at our parish, also dedicated a great deal of time and effort to make this happen for these wonderful scouts.  They received the award from the bishop at a special mass.  Nicholas (and a couple of the other boys) have actually earned all 4 possible Catholic emblems in Scouting and so also received the Pillars of Faith Award at this time - a huge accomplishment that well less than 1% of scouts achieve - we are so proud of you Nicholas.  I'm also very thankful to Shawn for taking on the program to make these wonderful opportunities available for the scouts of our area and parish.

With Bishop Tran

Shawn, Cherie and Doug taught these boys a lot. 

About to head off to Camp Hidden Lake with youth group friends.

Messy games at camp

Olympic theme dinner night at camp - GO USA!

The SPC crew

This little fawn was in our back yard for several days with its mother!

Friday pizza night

Nicholas competed at the summer swim end of season meet at GA Tech.

A lot of HOT baseball tournaments called for a lot of Kona Ice!

This guy had an AMAZING catch in center field with a perfect no hop throw to the catcher for an out at home plate to save the game!!!

And they took home the rings!!

 

Yellowstone and Grand Tetons

We had the trip of a lifetime to Yellowstone and Grand Tetons! We left the day after the kids got out of school and were gone May 25-June 2.  While this is the start of summer break for us in the south, it was still chilly and we hiked through quite a bit of snow in both parks.  But we beat the summer crowds and saw a ton of wildlife out and about - it was a perfect time to go!  We spent 4 days in Yellowstone, staying at Old Faithful Inn. We would stay there again in a heartbeat,  and could easily go back and spend another week there seeing all new things. The highlight in Yellowstone for most of us was the hike through Lamar Valley and the horseback ride on the ranch, but I have to say,  seeing all the geysers, mudpots, waterfalls, the Grand Prismatic pool,  and an abundance of wildlife was also just so awesome!!  This is the wildlife we saw in Yellowstone:  Bison, elk, mule deer, rabbit, hawk, ducks, geese, chipmunks, squirrel, magpie, grizzly bears,pronghorn, black bears, Uinta ground squirrel, osprey, red fox, moose, sandhill crane.

The Western entrance

Bison everywhere - babies too!

The dining room in Old Faithful Inn - we enjoyed the all you can eat buffet there one night - what a treat!

Staying at this huge old log cabin was so special - the ambience there, especially in the evening, was so great!  We were on the go a lot and so didn't spend a ton of time relaxing at the inn, but it was the perfect place to stay - even had 3 queen beds in 1 room - and it was no big deal to have to walk down the hall to the bathrooms.

The Northern entrance

We went to the town of Gardiner, MT, just on the Northern edge of Yellowstone, to go to mass and that is also where we did our rafting and horseback riding out of.

Mammoth Hot Springs

Being way to close to a bison!

Grand Prismatic

The secret hike led us across this fun marsh, through snow and to an amazing waterfall.

White water rafting the Yellowstone River with Flying Pig adventures.  It was a lot of fun, though only class 2-3 rapids so not super thrilling for the boys who are more experienced rafters.

It was Sam and Grace's first time white water rafting so it was perfect - we saw a ton of wildlife along the way.

Later that day we drove up a rough rode north of Gardiner, MT to Hell's A-Roaring Ranch.  This experience was one of the highlights of the whole trip!  We went horseback riding for a 2 hrs through the Montana mountains where there was nothing but wildlife and mountains and open ranges in site - it was absolutely breathtaking!  Then we came back to ranch for a delicious hearty steak dinner followed by a campfire complete with story telling, song singing, and roasting marshmallows - just perfect!!!

Old Faithful

Lamar Valley hike

Enjoying the peace of nature

Grand Canyon of Yellowstone

Moose were so cool to see!

We passed over the Continental Divide on the drive from Yellowstone to Grand Tetons.

A beautiful drive

The Tetons are just spectacular!

Every hike was beautiful in its own way there!

In the Tetons we stayed at Colter Bay cabins, which wasn't anything fancy, but worked great with the 2 bedrooms and 4 beds.  We had 3 days in Grand Tetons, and again, could have easily spent another week here.  It would particularly be great to go back when warm enough to enjoy all the water options here (like rafting, kayaking, etc) but we packed a lot of great hikes in here. The highlight for all was the Jenny Lake hike for sure, but every hike was spectacular, and seeing a grizzly bear with her cub right next to our car and going to a rodeo in Jackson Hole were also new and fun happenings!  We saw the following wildlife in Grand Tetons:  grizzly bears, bison, raven, weasel, Uinta ground squirrels, duck, minnow, yellow bellied marmot, sandhill crane, moose, elk, snake,butterflies.

Elk

I was super excited to have family photos taken here

Ferry across Jenny Lake (well worth it!)

Jenny Lake hike 

We hiked as far as we could - until we go knee deep in snow.

Moose up close

Enjoying time on the shore of the lake

Not a bad lunch spot near the Catholic Chapel of the Sacred Heart in the middle of the park!

Another picnic spot on a hike - saw moose drinking from the lake here, and some snakes!

Jackson Hole Rodeo did not disappoint!!