Homecoming parade

Friday was the Homecoming Parade. Jared drove the Red Pickup with a trailer and one 4 wheeler on it. As you can see, there were alot of Seniors that wanted to be in the parade. It was a cold, windy day, so Jared was glad he was inside the cab.

17 months

Yesterday was Randy's 17 month mark, only 7 to go!

SNOW!!!

We had our first snow of the year today. Blake was outside cleaning out the garden and it was snowing hard. It only lasted a few minutes, but it was snowing. They are predicting more that might even stick on the ground this weekend. Most of the leaves haven't even changed colors yet. Makes you wonder what kind of winter we will have.

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More Spud Harvest

So, Jared skipped school to drive truck for Bart today. Blake went by on his way home from work and took some more pictures. He also took some video of Jared driving and the combine. He says that Jared does a good job driving, and stays where he should under the combine. This is his truck waiting to be filled with spuds.

Famous Idaho Spuds!

There have been some REALLY BIG spuds this year!!!

Maybe it's just really small trucks! Actually the spuds that Blake brought home from Bart's were really large.

That's also one really big cat!

Spud Harvest

Jared went to help Uncle Bart dig spuds on Friday. It is one of his favorite thing to do. He loves the smell of the "spud dirt" and loves to watch all the machinery, He was way excited this year because he got to DRIVE a truck! He didn't think the day would ever come that he was old enough to drive truck! He's talked me into letting him skip school tomorrow and help Bart one more day. I finally decided to let him go when he told me that they are having an assembly tomorrow, and it's early release Monday, so classes will be really short and he won't miss much. I'm really becoming soft in my old age!

Yellowstone

To celebrate Blake's birthday, we took a little trip to West Yellowstone and Yellowstone Park. We took Brian's pickup and loaded the 4 wheeler in it. We stayed at the Worldmark resort.

We stopped in Island Park on our way and fed the fish at Big Springs.

We rode the 4 wheeler around for awhile. We found the school bus that we saw last winter when it was buried in snow.

We saw an elk ranch with HUGE elk behind the fences.

We found the boat dock that looked totally different last winter.

Blake is loading up the 4wheeler after we had ridden around for a couple of hours. It was perfect weather, just a little breezy, but really nice temperature.

On Thursday we rented a GPS that told us all about Yellowstone Park. It was like having your own personal tour guide. We learned alot about the park, and it's history. We drove the north loop and saw many things we had not seen before.

We saw quite a few Bison and Elk, this big guy was just sauntering down the road.

Friday morning we took off again through the park, we went south and drove through Jackson. It was a nice relaxing trip to see things almost in our back yard.

We saw Old Faithful erupt. We couldn't have timed it better if we tried. We walked up and sat down on the benches, waited a whole 3 minutes before it started spouting off! Can you see the rainbow in the steam?

When we left Old Faithful, there was a huge crow sitting on the seat of the 4wheeler. It didn't move until we starting backing out!

We saw the back side of the Tetons. They are so majestic and huge! This was taken right out of the pickup window.

Senior Pictures

Saturday, Jared and I decided to try taking his senior pictures. We took pictures at Matsuura's tennis courts, the river, our driveway with several different "props", down by a straw stack, and in the house. I'm not a professional photographer by any means, and I really don't know how to deal with shadows and stuff, but all in all I think they turned out pretty good. Here is a sample of some of them.
Isn't he cute? Please vote for your favorite!

Michael Packer

Randy's best friend, Michael Packer returned last Wednesday from his mission to Birmingham, England. He gave a really good talk in church on Sunday. I'm sure he was a really good missionary. He seems so confident and sure of himself. He has definitely grown up!
It was so fun to see him and hug him (even if he didn't really want the hug). He still has his fun sense of humor, and a little bit of a British accent.Michael showed us a picture he carried in his wallet for the last two years that was just like this one. The only difference was that Randy was standing where Jared is. Welcome home Michael! Good luck at school!

Senior

Wednesday was the first day of the last! It is the last year of high school for any of the Blake and Diana Purcell children! I know, I know, that means we are getting really old! This is the last time I will take a picture of my children going off to school! I can't even begin to imagine where the time has gone! I remember Cindy's first day of kindergarten, and how hard it was to send her off to school, and now my baby is a Senior!
There he goes, driving off into the sun....rise!