The Trailing of the Sheep!

Sloane at the Sun Valley Lodge hanging out with the swans

Every year, in Sun Valley, they hold a Trailing of the Sheep festival. This festival marks the end of fall and celebrates the migration of sheep from the high country where they have been grazing all summer to the low country where the lambs can be taken to market and the rest wintered. The highlight of this sheep show is a big parade full of traditional sheepherders and the like and roughly 2,000 sheep right down main street in Ketchum. It's quite a sight and one not to be missed, if you've never been. It just so happened that Phil had an off-site board meeting in Sun Valley for the weekend so off we went.

Phil and I got to golf Elkhorn on one of the most beautiful fall days you can imagine and Sloane and Porter got to hang out with Aunt Ashley, Greg and his kids - Taylor, Ashton and Cameron who Sloane loves.

For the parade, Greg and Ashley came up from Hailey and Uncle Steve, Debbie and Hilary came up from Idaho Falls to witness the spectacle.
Seriously people, it's ALOT of sheep.

More random activities...

We've been really luck this fall because we are actually having an extended Indian Summer and the weather has been fantastic for getting out and doing stuff. Sloane loves going to the zoo, the park, McCall, Crane Creek and Porter just tags along and hangs out in "the bucket"

Porter rooting for his favorite team

Hanging out in the exersaucer

Giving Penguin piano lessons

Dumbo really can fly

Airplane noise is a miracle sleep inducer for babies

Phil and Sloane playing in the water in Lake Payette in McCall

More labor day..

When it was time to leave Idaho Falls, we decided to head on over to McCall for a night to finish off the weekend.


However, we were in the Trinidad and it was really, really windy heading over the mountains and very bumpy so we just headed back to Boise for one last dip in the pool at Crane Creek. Porter got to hang out with his buddies, the Thompson Twins, who are 2 days younger than him and Sloane got to have her first ice cream cone.




Thank goodness for showers at the pool. We did make it up to McCall the next day when the weather calmed down and we made it home just in time to have 20 of our closest friends over for the big Boise State Virginia Tech game. Football season already?!? GOOOOOOO BRONCOS!!!
YEAH! We won! High five Aunt Julie!

Labor Day weekend

I guess it's been awhile since we last blogged so when that happens, I have to go back through all of our pictures and see what's sitting on the camera waiting to be shared. Oh yeah, here it is - Labor Day weekend. What a whirlwind that was! We were going to go to Idaho Falls because it was Great Grandpa Longhurst's 80th birthday party and thought we would stay for the weekend. We just happened to luck out that Daddy had a demo flight to do in Idaho Falls during the week so we snuck aboard the Pilatus as extra cargo and got dropped off a day early.
Nothing like flying in style!

This was Porter's first PC-12 ride and from the looks of it, he really seemed to enjoy himself.

As did Sloane, with her in-flight movie and snacks.
When we got to Idaho Falls, we had the good fortune of having Cousin Rebecca Suitter over to hang out and babysit the little ones! She is a very special girl with a way around kids - we call her the "baby whisperer" because Porter and Sloane love her so much.
Grandpa's party was a good time - the whole family was there. (That's a lot of people, in case you are not familiar with the Longhurst clan.) Sloane got to run around with lots of her aunts, uncles, great aunts and uncles and cousins. I think cousin Gracie was her favorite!

Porter had a good time, too, although he didn't get to move around and mingle much, he was passed around from adoring relative to adoring relative all day.

Luck seemed to be on our side all weekend, because it also just so happened to be one of my favorite times of year - grain harvest.

I was so excited to take Sloane and Phil out to the grain field to see them cut. Being out there brought back so many fond memories of harvest - the smell of fresh cut straw in the air mixed with diesel fumes (I LOVE the smell of diesel fumes to this day,) the taste of a handful of fresh grain that turns into gum if you chew it long enough, and the feel of big piles of grain playing around in the back of the big grain trucks.

Sloane and Phil got into the cab of the combine with Grandpa Suitter and rode up and back down the field and then dumped the grain out into the truck. While Sloane was very excited to see the entire operation, she was signing and saying,"all done combine" after about 2.5 minutes into the run. Oh well, maybe when she's older :)


Grandpa's birthday present was a new golf club driver from the family so we went to test it out at Sand Creek Golf Course with cousin Tyler Longhurst. Turns out the driver works really good! (or maybe it was just the golfer!)

Sloane always loves running around the farm at Grandpa Suitters. There is so much to do and so much room to do it in. One of her favorite activities is to feed the fish in the pond. This time, someone introduced Sloane to the pond scum skimmer and she learned how to skim and fling the scum on Grandpa Suitter. This was great fun to everyone but him, but he was a good sport, as always.