"The Wild Wild West" - Day 9

After a full week of adventure the kids were beginning to sleep in later and later each morning, as you can see in the picture below. Anyway, day 9 began with all of us saying goodbye to Jenny's aunt and uncle and their family. They had a 2 day drive ahead of them back to Texas, so it was time for them to say goodbye. After saying our goodbyes we made yet another trip to the corrals. Megan loved riding the horses so much she wanted to do it again. This time she rode "Ice," the same horse she rode earlier in the week. It was fun to see her "get to know" the two horses throughout the week. She would pet them and say hi to them behind the fence and call them by name. "Hi Quarter! Hi Ice!" Pretty cute.
Later on, we decided to drive to the south end of the park and hike the "Taggart Lake" trail. We had a great picnic next to the water, and then afterward we all got a kick out of watching the boys try to balance on the rocks and not get wet (a feat that turned out to be unsuccessful for many of them.) Then in the afternoon Ben and Jackson officially earned their "Junior Ranger" badges. They had been working on the project the entire week and they were officially "sworn in" by a resident park ranger. There was official applause and everything. It was pretty cool.