Austin For Historian

Austin decided to run for student body officer this year and he decided to run for Historian. He was allowed to make 2 posters.  Ethan came up with the great slogan, "Make your Historian A SMITH-sonian" and Austin liked it.  So we made the posters and he will give his speech Thursday and voting will be Friday.  Good luck Austin!

Smith Family Photo Shoot 2013

 A few weeks ago we gathered almost all of our family for a family photo shoot.  I got the disc in the mail today.  I now have a photo of each family, each couple, and each child from that day.

 

The Cederlofs

  

 The Hardings

 The Smiths

 

 The Carmans

 

 The Smiths

 The Davenports

 Kim Smith

 The Pattersons

Mom and Dad Smith!

First Day SAHS 2013-2014

 So today was the first day of school for my Sophomore and Senior.  They thought they were too old to have to get first day of school pictures, but, as we all know, children are never too old for their mother to want to remember these milestones.  So I got out the camera and snapped some impromptu photos of the boys as they were about to leave.

Austin fell back to sleep during family prayer and didn't move for 10 minutes or so.

 When it was time to leave Ethan tried to avoid the camera at all costs and yet I was able to snap a quick picture of him as he went from the trunk of the car to get in the passenger seat. 

 I hope these two will have great years.  They are such fun boys and they are good kids.  I'm so proud of them!  I can't believe Austin is a senior and that this is my last "first day of school" picture of him.  Next year we will be dropping him off at college somewhere to live all on his own!  Wow!  He's almost ready though...he's been growing up and learning to be independent and doing a fine job!  He is hilarious and care free and super smart and quirky!

 

Ethan will also have a fabulous year.  He's a sophomore now and he is a kind, generous, obedient, thoughtful, gentle soul.  I couldn't be prouder of my boys!

First two back to school

 Back to school day is always a bitter sweet time for our family.  We absolutely LOVE summer and the fun things there are to do, but school is a more structured, progressing time for our family too.  It's good to have the schedules and the discipline and the learning, otherwise we would just play all the time!  So, today I sent Evan off to middle school (7th grade) and McKinley off to elementary (4th grade).  They were excited.  They are ready.  They will amaze me again this year with their intelligence, their kindness, their generosity, their drive, their talents, their eagerness, their everything!  I know they will do great, but more importantly, I know they will BE great!

Bear Lake 2013!!

 

Another amazing Bear Lake vacation with the Smith family!

 This year our family did back-to-back Bear Lake vacations with both sides of the family.  Luckily we made the first week more about adventures and exploring the area and enjoying Raspberry Days, so when we headed to camping and beaching at Bear Lake we were ready for it! 

It's always a lot of fun to be with the big Smith family.  All the kids and adults enjoy visiting with each other.  One of the neatest things that you see at Bear Lake is different groups of kids playing together.  You really see everyone play so well with everyone else.  This year we were missing our  missionaries...Ashlee, Andrew, and for the last 3 days...Zachary.  We also didn't have Darla and Brady with us, as they had to work.  But we had everyone else there!

At the end of last year, we decided that we wanted to stay an extra day at Bear Lake now.  We decided that we wanted 3 full days of beach fun and so we made our reservation for 5 days.  That includes arrival and departure day, so you end up with 3 full days.  It was nice.  We ended up leaving Thursday night, but it was nice not having to check out Thursday morning.  I think we decided to do it that way again last year.

 We also moved to the group site this year and we loved it!  We had our own big pavilion, a fire pit on the beach and a ton of room for our tents.  We hit the jackpot with the group site.  We hope we can get it again going forward!

So many memories are made at Bear Lake for our family.  It is truly the best tradition we have.  Our children look forward to it every year and every year it turns out to be amazing!

 I saw a sign as we were driving around about for an Ice Cave and so I looked it up online and figured out where it was.  We headed out towards the cave and had to travel down a really fun, bumpy dirt road to find the "cave".  Grandpa Dick made the drive with us and we found the cave after a 40 minute drive to no where. 

 The ice cave is more of a hole of rocks from outside and when you go inside it, you discover that the water has made a cave back behind the hole.  You have to crawl through a tiny opening to get into the "cave" part of the place.  And yes, there is ice.  Ice on the ground and dripping water everywhere.

 We found some places that had huge icicles that you could climb on.  Of course it was very dark and all we had was a cell phone light, so it was a slippery skating time getting around in there.

 It was a pretty neat natural phenomena that there was ice in the cave in the 90+ degree weather, but we read on the sign that the "cave" is only accessible in July and August because the ice doesn't melt until then.  I guess the whole thing is filled up with water/ice most of the year.

There was a group of rock climbers there too and it looked like a great place to do some climbing as it was a steep, long way down.  Luckily there was a trail around to the side that didn't require any climbing gear!

 Saturday was our beach day at the North Shore in Bear Lake.  Dave and Jim, and Austin had joined us the night before while we all went to the rodeo and then we wanted to have a beach day.  We scoped out a good spot at the VERY busy North Shore and really enjoyed a perfect beach day all together. 

 The girls enjoyed playing in the sand and burying each other!  Vicky and I enjoyed a nice walk down the beach where we scoped out all the different toys, and shelters, and set ups that the various beach goers had.  We got some great new ideas and saw some serious beach goer setups!

 We all swam in the nice, turqouis waters of Bear Lake and enjoyed a little sun and shade.

 The boys were there as well, but we didn't end up with any pictures of them.  We were having too much phone and they were not wanting to be photographed like the girls were!

Raspberry Days Parade

 The first week Vicky and I and the kids were up at Bear Lake, we made sure it was over Raspberry Days.  We wanted to have lots of things to do and we did!  There was a cute beauty pagent the first night there and then the next day was the Raspberry Days Parade.  The kids all caught and collected candy as the various cars and "floats" went by.

 There was even costume animals and at the end a petting farm of animals, including llamas, buffalo, and goats.  The kids loved the parade and the craft fair booths that were just next door to where we watched the parade.  All in all...a great time!

Minetonka Cave

 Our first day trip from Bear Lake (Fish Haven, ID) was Minetonka cave.  It was a HUGE cave near Paris, Idaho that was accessible by guided tour.  We showed up at 12:00 and got on the 12:30 tour.  This tour is strenuous, with 888 steps all together, with 77 down (and then up) at once!  It was very worth it though as the cave was simply beautiful.

It was a nice 40 degrees and dark inside the cave the whole time.  One of the rooms in the cave was longer than a football field and 2 1/2 stories tall!  Wow!  It just kept going and going!

We really enjoyed all the formations and the different rooms inside the cave.  Well worth the hike in and then back out!