Happy Birthday!

        

  Today was my birthday. We went on a 5 mile hike. Before that we had pancakes for breakfast and my dad made me a giant “cake”. On the hike we saw a doe deer with her fawn and a raven. We also saw a trumpeter swan in Swan Lake and a heron in Heron Pond. We also thought that we saw bear claw marks on trees and then realized that they were made by porcupines climbing up. We had to be careful, because although they are good climbers they have been known to fall out of trees. Anna had a little trouble during the hike. (Well, more than a little.) We had forgotten the spray fan that mists and fans. Luckily, we had quench gum that kept her going.

       After the hike we went swimming on the beach. It was the same beach that we went on yesterday. It was about 70 degrees in the water. Mom, Dad, and Anna went to a bear talk while Emma, Jack, and I stayed on the beach reading until 4:30 when the talk was over. We went down to the marina and met up with the other three. Then Dad, Emma, Jack and I tried to rent a boat. It turned out that outside of the cove the wind was blowing at 25 miles an hour. The wind was making 3 ft. white caps.  Mom claimed that it wasn’t something my dad couldn’t handle. Captain Stubing was a captain after all. We called mom and didn’t get an answer when we realized that she must have had the other walkie-

talkie off so we went into the grocery store. 

 We bought some ice cream to celebrate my birthday. (July is national ice cream month according to Hagen Daaz.) We got back to the R.V. when Dad remembered that mom had the keys. We needed to get into the R.V. because we had melting ice cream. I knew how urgent this situation was so I started thinking of another way in. I walked around the R.V. and saw an open window. I remembered that our friends got into their R.V. by going in through the window. You guessed it. We sent Jack through and got the ice cream into the freezer. My birthday was spectacular! J

 

PS- We are heading into Yellowstone tomorrow.  We have heard cell reception is so-so, but there is no data coverage so we may not be able to post for a few days.  Will update you when we can.