West Yellowstone

Last weekend, Troy and I enjoyed some relaxing time camping in West Yellowstone. There are a few things I love more than to ditch the cellphones and email for a tent and campfire. We spent a good 12 hours Saturday exploring all the little side canyons and less popular hiking trails. 

Admiring the beautiful rainbow above Lower Falls.

Troy in front of Heart Geyser

Beautiful river outside of the Old Faithful Lodge

And no Yellowstone trip would be complete without some wildlife. 

**Camping trip next weekend**

**Five weeks until Europe!**

Children, Children Everywhere

These past two weeks have been fantastically crazy. An elementary school surprisingly offered me a job as their year-round PE teacher, which I started Monday. Woohoo! Now teaching sports to a rowdy bunch of kids may not sound ideal to anyone else, but I absolutely love working with kids and as I'm sure everyone has noticed by now, I am quite passionate about exercise. So this brings the job tally up to three. On top of the PE position, I still teach youth fitness classes (6 a week), coach soccer and teach Pilates at a local gym. Speaking of the Pilates job, I have been subbing like crazy lately and yesterday I was asked if I would be interested in taking over one or two of the classes permanently. I actually did say "woohoo!" after I was asked too. :) And the best part is I get all this done Monday-Thursday so I can still take long weekends out of town with Troy. This couldn't have possibly worked out better!

Mirror Lake

Troy and I had planned a quick camping trip for last weekend, but after the weather took a drastic dive from 70 to 50, we left the tent at home and just went hiking. We took two of our dogs up to Mirror Lake, a beautiful area only 45 minutes from our home.

Did you say "walk"? Abby gets so excited to hike. She eagerly watched the road for the entire drive.

The hike we did was roughly six miles and passed 17 lakes. This was the first lake: Lily Lake.

Shady, true to her terrier blood, was trying to attack the birds and squirrels.

Our hike started at 10,000 feet and peaked at just under 11,000 feet. Absolutely beautiful!

This hike was a photographer's dream. Obviously Troy and I are a far cry from pro photographers, but with the abundance of lakes, flowers and wildlife, I was wishing I had a nice camera to try to capture all the beauty.

We ended up taking a couple-mile unintentional detour thanks to our vague map, but it led us to the most beautiful part of the hike. If you were guessing that is snow in the distance, you'd be right. Crazy, huh?

Animal Rescue 5K Results

The Ching Farm Animal Rescue  held their first annual 5K last Saturday at Liberty Park. This was one of the most informal runs I have ever attended, but also one of the most fun. At 8:00 am, the handful of runners gathered behind the start line draw on the sidewalk with chalk. In lieu of a tradition bib, each participant had a picture of animal currently at the sanctuary with a small yellow number on the bottom right corner. Since it was held in a park, we didn't have to worry about traffic, which is fantastic. My time was typical (30 minutes), but if anyone is looking for a fun, no-stress 5K, this is the race for you! I know I will definitely run this again next year.