Flying the coop

 That's what they are doing...one by one.  Once they were five and now they are three.  Jordan and Kenzie left for the University on Friday.  Needless to say, it was a difficult morning sending them off.  It wasn't as hard this time.  Mainly because they left together and because they both have people they know down there.  Also, let's just say it, they are not going to the Phillipines thank goodness!  That being said I will miss them both and I will especially miss my companion, Kenzie.  She's been by my side for as long as I can remember.

What exciting happened the last few week?  Our cat had kittens.  Kenzie and Riley actually got to watch the kittens being born so that was pretty cool  They are starting to get really cute now that they are two weeks old.

We keep them in a cage for now so they don't get eaten by our neighborhood fox, mountain lion, racoon or skunk.

We also got a visit from Grandma and Grandpa Belt but I didn't get a picture with them here.  I think Kenzie has one but she didn't send it to me.

The Sunday after Grandma and Grandpa left, Brad took me on an "easy" hike.  And while yes, it was easier than say the last hike we did where we climbed up 4000 feet, he neglected to tell me it was a 12 mile hike.  And so, it was a little more than I expected.  That being said, the view was amazing of the two mountain lakes.  Had it been less of a hike we might have hiked down to the lakes but having already gone 6 miles and having 6 miles to get out, we decided not to on this visit.

Kenzie and I went on another hike the following weekend.  5 miles total.  It was MUCH easier and the boys went on a mountain bike ride.  Here are a few pictures from the boys' ride.

Also the boys got to go on some motorcyle rides together in the moutains.

Blue sometimes tries to sneak in the truck too but hasn't realized that hiding in shotgun isn't very sneaky.

I made the kids pose for cheesy pictures every now and then because it was Kenzie's last week home.  The following was my favorite because Ben just finished putting a flex on, Kenzie is trying to look like she doesn't care and Riley is just smiling away in the corner.  Such cute kids!

 

I am almost done with this.  I love it.

We took the kids waterskiing on Wednesday.  It looks like it is cloudy on this day but it wasn't.  It was smoke from some fires to the north of us.

We got all three older boys on the barefoot boom skiing together.  Check it out.

We attempted to take family pictures.

A picture of Brad taking a picture of the kids.

We had a few that turned out cute but Brad says the ISO is too low to blow them up big.

Of course the last one is my favorite and Riley is sticking out his tongue.  That's family pictures for you, right?  I may try to blow them up anyway.

Best news of the day...Kenzie got a four year full tuition scholarship for college!  How cool is that?

How cute that it made her cry!  We were surprised because didn't think we would find out this late in the game.  I mean school starts tomorrow.  Congrats to Kenzie!