Saturday Nature Hike

After an exciting evening of Football (see post below), we took refuge on a Nature Walk featured in Arizona Highway magazine. We drove Northwest of Flagstaff to Kendrick Park Watchable Wildlife Trail. The map is shown below.

The temperature was starting to feel like Fall and the sky was a bit overcast. We didn't see many animals, other than squirrels or mabye a bird. Nevertheless, it was just nice to get out in nature. Below are a few shots of the walk. It'll be two more weeks before the Fall colors really come in, but there were spots of color.

Friday Night Lights

Seth is the last of seven Ellsworth kids to go to high school. He is the fourth of four boys. Suprisingly, he is the first to play high school football. As the center on the varsity squad, he is in on nearly every offensive play. On Friday (26 September 2008), we drove to Prescott to see him play. He is on the Millenium Tigers. The following picture gives a flavor of the game.

After beating Prescott 34 - 21, the boys wanted Seth to autograph a football. Here is a picture of Edmund watching Seth sign the ball.

Then each boy put on Seth's helmet. The boys have a bit to grow before they are ready to hit the field. Ethan, Edmund, Warren, and Wesley each had the helmet on.

The Family Reunion 2008

Top 10 things we loved about the Winter family reunion.

10. The water

9. The fish

8. The food

7. The Wii (by request of boys, sorry no pictures)
6. The trampoline

5. The tractor

4. The campfire (and the skits)
































3. The games

(The Diving Contest)
























(Water Balloon Volleyball)

("24")

2. The testimonies - Thanks everyone who shared with us your testimonies of Jesus Christ and the Restoration of His Gospel to the earth today.
1. The people

Family Fourth of July in Silverton, CO

We had a really great time camping in Silverton Colorado. Elise was excited to see mountains that looked like Switzerland (her Swiss blood started boiling) and to eat strawberry rhubarb pie at the Silverton rhubarb festival. Kyle was excited to hike in the wilderness and to fly fish again. The boys loved the Silverton Fourth of July and the mine tour. We all loved seeing friends and relaxing.

Here are the four boys outside of our camping trailer (this is the same trailer that took my parents and five girls on a trip across the United States, pulled the entire way by a Toyota minivan, go Toyota!!) - this is one of the only times during the camping trip that they were clean. Note: we also pull the trailer with a Toyota minivan, newer model.

Kyle's friend from work, Steve Allston, took us on a tour of his in-law's mine. This was great!! It was so interesting seeing the ore veins running through the mine. The boys loved collecting rocks. Thanks Allston family and in-laws!

This is Molas Lake where we camped. It was a beautiful lake in a basin of the Colorado alps near Silverton, CO.

Kyle fly fishing near Silverton.

The boys on a beautiful hike near Molas Lake.

Steve and Kyle ran a 5k early on Friday. Are those first place medals guys?

Eating strawberry rhubarb pie at the rhubarb festival.

Elise with our awesome friend Natalie Barstatis. The Barstatis family moved to Durango from our old street. We miss you guys.

The firefighters battle at the Silverton Fourth of July Parade.

This is the Ellsworth family staking out our place at the Silverton Fourth of July Parade. This was so much fun and the fireworks show was the best we've seen.

Free Day

To make summertime more exciting Aunt Amy (Leavitt) suggested the idea of taking one day a week and making it a free day when we did not have any jobs (everyone except mom and dad, that is). We selected Thursday and the boys (and mom) look forward every week to our free day. On free day we generally spend time playing or going on outings. On this free day we took the boys to the Arboreteum. We attended a raptor demonstration:

And went on a lovely tour, where mom got some ideas for gardening in the difficult climate here.

Another school year over

Edmund graduated from kindergarten this year. We are so proud. His teacher said on his report card that he is ready for first grade. The boys had two great teachers this year - Mrs. Skeen (K) and Mrs. Boettcher (1). Here is a picture of Ed with his teacher:

Fun as a Family

Yesterday we went to one of our favorite swimming holes. We love this place because the water is just right for kids to play in and to swim. We had fun catching crawdads and just playing. We went up river and found a couple more really good swimming holes.

It seems like there are two areas that we get a lot of opposition in - doing fun things together as a family and going together to the temple. That means they both must be pretty important to the Lord.

We are purposely not telling you the location of this swimming hole. If you want to know you will have to go with us (blindfolded:-).

Here is a picure of the boys with C.J. the Crawdad. The boys really made a nice home for him.