Updates from Dallas, TX

Okay... so I've been terribly, terribly bad at updating the blog. But, I have decided to start again!

Overview of us (SPRING 2012):

We currently live in Dallas, TX (Addison, actually). I am the Director of Admissions at The Winston School... a lovely little place (1st - 12th) that serves students with learning differences. Coke is Upper School faculty at Parish Episcopal School. He teaches photography. Our kids attend school there (Flynt is in 2nd grade and Riley in 6th).  Here are some photos from this year!

October Review... We've been busy!

Kids on first day of school... catching up... enjoy!

Coke and Flynt head to FORMAL DINNER one evening. Don't they look handsome!

 

A few sample football plays from Riley's Flag Football team... 

Riley on the football field... Our ability to film our children while watching their games is POOR. We find ourselves watching the play, and the camera is just still... not shooting much of anything in particular. Sorry! She's quite good, and generally scores a touchdown or makes an interception (or both!) in every game! It's fun to watch... come join us sometime!

 

Jane and Guy visiting! It was awesome to have Mom and Dad here... they got to see a snippet of life in Mt. Pleasant, UT and Wasatch Academy... and, my kids got some good lovin' from Nannan and Papaw! Love you, miss you... can't wait to see you Christmas!

Nannan, Riley and Flynt at the planetarium... fun!

Little Red Rental and Aspens!

Welcome to Mae Kathryn Matthews... born October 1, 2010

Welcome, Mae! The Whitworth family loves you already! and your big brother, too! We cannot wait to visit with you at Christmas! Please give lots of hugs and kisses to your mommy, daddy and brother from us... and Belle, too!

Here is a message from Riley to Mae!

And here is a message for Hank... love Riley!

Lots of love to the Matthews family - so happy everyone is healthy! We CANNOT wait to see you!

Flynt scores his FIRST touchdown!!!!

We play flag football in Utah! It's fun! More soon... run Flynt fun... He's still got that Forrest Gump thing going! :)

More Yellowstone!

Don't be such a "horse's #$!"... I mean bison... I mean buffalo!

Okay, so we were SOOOOO excited to see buffalo... and then it got kind of mundane. But, really, they are huge. We were road blocked by several and just sat in the middle of the street (in our car) watching them SLOWLY make their way across.

this looked like the age old "chase" of women by men... just a little more methodical and slow







here's a video of it!

this one reminded me of ebby! sweet puppy who rolls in anything stinky she can find!

this guy had wood shavings all over him from scraping his horns on a tree to sharpen them... evidence of buffalo sharpening their horns was everywhere - most trees had scrapes on them.

The Yellowstone River... gorgeous!

Day Five - Yellowstone!

So, on the fifth day we enjoyed Yellowstone... it's kind of surreal to go back and remember it now (about a month ago), but what I can say is that it's beautiful. Nothing like it that we'd ever been to before! Sort of like the Flintstone park, though... my kids had no context for Yogi and Boo-Boo. Oh well, times change!

It was the coldest morning we'd had so far!

Then we passed a Mystic Falls on our way to Old Faithful... it was beautiful!

Stefanie at Mystic Falls

 

Riley and Flynt waiting for Old Faithful to BLOW... we were told by some other bystanders that the geyser would go off around 9:50 AM... we got "faked out" a couple of times with tiny spurts, but then it really went off around 10:05 AM... supposedly it goes off about every hour and twenty minutes to hour and forty minutes!

A map of Yellowstone... for those of you who need to SEE where we were... We stayed at Grant Village... had a great campsite right near Lake Yellowstone's edge. It was very nice!

Here's the link to the page with the great maps...

http://home.nps.gov/applications/hafe/hfc/carto-detail.cfm?Alpha=YELL#

A couple of photos from Coke's "artsy" side:

Canyon Falls short movies...

Firehole Creek... the green algae in the water makes it so beautiful.

Day Four - Black Hills of SD, across WY, to Yellowstone!

So on the morning of the 4th day, we went to JEWEL CAVE! It's the 2nd longest cave in the world (Mammoth Cave in KY is the longest). It was very cool... very different from east coast caves because of the lack of water... We all loved it and had a great time... Here are a couple of pictures... hard to see how neat it was though!

JEWEL CAVE

Did You Know?
Jewel Cave is the second longest cave in the world, with over 150 miles of mapped passages. On average, volunteer cavers discover and map over 3 miles of passages in Jewel Cave every year!

Okay, so BEFORE THE CAVE... I needed a pick-me-up! I was very tired... and so, I turned to my roots!

After Jewel Cave, we headed to Yellowstone!!!! Across Wyoming, baby!

We hopped on HWY 16 for the trip across...

We stopped at a loverly DIVE for some cheeseburgers, fries and malts!

We crossed through Gillette, on our way to Sheridan, and over the Big Horn mountain range! Wow!

On the way, we went by Crazy Woman Creek... love it!

East of Big Horn Mtns... heading up into them...

The vistas in the Big Horns were amazing!

JoJo enjoys the scenery, too!

The difference in the terrain on the West Side of the Big Horns is amazing!!

So we made it to Cody, WY that evening and on into Yellowstone! I'll do a complete post dedicated to Yellowstone when next I post... soon, I hope! 

Trying to catch up, but we are sooooo busy in Utah with our new life and our new roles! We love it!