The bad part about us having to stop in the middle-of-no-where for fuel is that the fuel we got was bad. My check engine light came on and so for the next couple of days I made countless trips to a friends house who happens to be a mechanic, several trips to his shop and a couple of trips to the parts store. Needless to say I got a couple of new filters on the truck and thanks to my friend Anthony and his son Anthony our out of pocket expense was pretty minimal compared to what it could have been.
While trying to run the bad fuel out of the truck we managed to visit a couple of scenic spots outside of Laramie. We drove with grandma Janice to Cybil Canyon north of Laramie where they used to have a wildlife reserve that I visited numerous times on school field trips when growing up. Now it is an animal disease research facility but they did have a couple of Buffalo and Landon just loved watching them.
The boys and I also managed to visit the Snowy Range Mountains west of Laramie one afternoon. I just happened to turn onto this little dirt road and right in front of us we watched this deer eating and then she crossed the road so we could get a better look at her. Lucas thought this was so cool.
When we stopped at this scenic lookout at the top of the Snowies this beautiful butterfly landed on Landon and sat on his shirt for a good minute.
Yes that is snow and this was at the end of July! BURRRR
One of our favorite things to do while at Grandma Janice's is to stay up late and play dice. We play a game called Farkel and Lucas whooped our butt the first time he played. This particular night he decided to wear mom's non-prescription glasses the whole time and was just super cute. 
On Thursday, July 29th Steve drove to Laramie to spend the weekend with all of us and then he had his Laramie Enduro bike race on Saturday. This is the crazy long race he has done for the past 5 years that takes place east of Laramie in Happy Jack. It is approximately 70 miles and this year he got his best time ever of 7 hrs 17 min.. 
On the day of the race the boys and I, along with Grandma Janice woke up early and got ready to go on a picnic and a hike in Vedeawoo. While growing up in Laramie we would frequent Vedeawoo numerous times throughout the warmer months and it still remains one of my favorite places to camp. Lucas had been looking forward to climbing on the rocks during our entire vacation. 
Aunt Tonia & Barley met us at the park entrance and the five of us enjoyed a nice picnic before wandering off with the boys to do some climbing. Lucas likes to get down on hands and feet like Spider Man and Landon remained a little timid which was just fine with mom. ;)
Barley enjoyed the various little puddles in the rocks where he could stop off for a little drink. (He's so small you can barely see him to the left of Aunt Tonia.)
After our hike it was time to head to the Lincoln Monument to meet up with Uncle Robert before we then headed to the finish line to watch daddy complete the Laramie Enduro. In the past we have had time to sit on the sidelines and shoot the breeze but this year we had only been waiting on the sidelines about 15 minutes when Steve came down the final stretch and ended his race doing bunny hops for the boys. We were so surprised to see him so soon especially after his time the previous years had been closer to 8 hours. Yeah Steve - we are so proud of him. Unfortunately my camera ran out of juice on the hike in Vedeawoo with the boys so we have no pictures of daddy but we will always have the memories.
This year Lucas, Landon and I left for our Wyoming trip on July 17th. This was the first time since Lucas was born that I dared to brave the trip alone with the boys. Before the trip Lucas got a Nintendo DS handheld gaming system to keep him busy on the 6 hour drive and Landon brought lots of movies to occupy his time. 
We spent the first 6 days at Grandma Janice & Taby's place. We got to spend a lot of quality play time with some of our great cousins - Bradon, McKayla, Richie & Stacy. 
We also got to visit with Aunt Terri, cousin Jenika, and Aunt Tina.
We spent an entire day at Washington Park with Bradon & McKayla swimming and just playing around. On Tuesday, Aug.20th we took Grandma Janice to Ft. Collins, CO for a doctors visit. While there we had lunch with my high school friend Karolyn and her kids and then we went shopping. My mom will forever remember this day as the day I took her to Ft. Collins to the Dr. without any directions and then decided to take a different route home so as to avoid the traffic.......Fortunately we found Hwy 287 but not before we realized that we still needed to make it back to Laramie before we ran out of gas. ;) 
One of the days while in Laramie I took the boys to The Boardwalk, Inc. where I worked right after high school. Lucas and I had been disagreeing on what a deer and an antelope look like and this was the perfect place to do a side by side comparison. When I worked here over 10 years ago I worked in the 'Indian Room' where we sold Indian jewelry, pottery and many other Indian artifacts. The stuffed animals were a part of my everyday life but my boys sure acted like this was a once in a lifetime opportunity. Throughout the rest of our vacation Lucas kept asking if we could go back to the store that had all the animals.
We also spent one afternoon in Downtown Laramie where the boys enjoyed going on the foot bridge that goes over the train tracks and visiting the Chocolate Cellar where they each got to choose their favorite treat.
The three of us headed to Cheyenne on July 23rd so that we could spend time with Aunt Tonia, Uncle Kent, Shaunelle, Kathy, Destin and baby A.J..
Saturday we woke up early and went to the Cheyenne Frontier Days Parade and then went shopping at the mall. Sunday after church and after I went running; Uncle Robert and Aunt Shelly joined us from Nebraska so we could all go spend the day at Cheyenne Frontier Park.
Lucas and I rode the spinning dragons and after that I was done with the rides until maybe next year. Usually I can talk cousin Kathy into going on the rides but this year she was content to watch from behind the gate. I remember the days when there wasn't a ride I didn't like, now I can't think of one I do like. 
We were all so excited for the boys to start swimming lessons this summer. This year we waited until mid July to sign them up because in previous years we had signed up in June and at 10:30 in the morning it was still pretty chilly outside. Looking back I was surprised to see that I actually had pictures of Landon with his swimming instructor because he only lasted a total of 5 minutes......if that. 
When I first signed Landon up for swimming lessons I thought he might still be a bit young to go out there on his own and debated whether or not to do the mommy and me class with him. I guess I chose wrong. The first couple of days I took Landon over to his instructor and said mommy will be over here watching you but he would just scream and jump out of the pool. Finally one day I said I will see you after your lessons and started to walk out the gate and he again jumped out of the pool and chased me down......... Needless to say I gave up for this year and let him hang out with mommy. 
Of course he was the first one in the pool when swim lessons were over and the pool opened up for the public. I will blame his stubbornness on him being 2 and hope that next year he will be willing to leave my side. For now things have to be on his terms and on his schedule........
He was so outgoing during his swim classes and each morning tried his hardest to pump his little brother up; saying things like "Landon you should stay with your class during swimming lessons today so that you can learn to swim under water like me." and "Landon you should listen to your teacher so you can get a treat." So cute he was (and still is of course).
On the last day of swimming lessons Lucas got to jump off the diving board and he absolutely LOVED it!! He had done this in the previous years as well but he always had on a life jacket. This year his swimming instructor had him jump in and resurface before she gave him a boost to get to the side of the pool. 
Every year, for the past 5 years, I have started our 4
After getting home from the race and getting the family ready in all our red, white and blue attire we then head back to the Sandy Promenade where there are games, crafts, bounce houses, food vendors and tons of other fun stuff for the the family to do. This year we met our friends, The 
The boys loved the Poppers or whatever those things are called.
A couple of weeks ago we went with some friends to Strawberry Reservoir for a weekend camping trip. Both boys were so excited to get to pack their bags and get to sleep in a tent all weekend and hang out with friends. 
I love how our truck ends up looking like the Beverly Hillbillies. We weren't even half way to our destination before both boys fell fast asleep. Knowing it would be a late night we went ahead and let them sleep.
We were the first family to arrive and were a little sad to see that our camping spot did not have any shade at all. Out of the four other families that joined us that weekend - none of us ended up with shaded areas so we all went home a little browner than we planned and it wasn't all from the dirt.
Here Landon managed to find a little shade from the picnic table...... 
All the kids who joined us really enjoyed the construction site.
Saturday we went out on the boat with Mia, Angi, Bart and Deja. We all had such a great time even though Lucas did not like when the boat went too fast. He did really enjoy catching his first fish and was very intrigued when we got back to our camp spot and watched his dad clean and gut the fish. I thought it would make him sick but nope! He wanted to see the brains.
Saturday evening we all went down to the docks where we put hot dogs on a fish line and caught craw dads. The kids really enjoyed this and so did some of the adults.....;) Thanks again to Bart and Angi for taking us out on the boat and to all the other families for such a fun weekend.
