4th of July in Laramie

At the very last minute we realized that the 4th of July weekend was going to be the only weekend to get to Laramie for quite a while.  Our August was pretty open, but that is baseball month in the Hoopes household so we knew Grandma and Grandpa would be gone a lot.  

First we were excited to have my brother and part of his family with us!  I feel like we really failed in the hosting department with them since we left them after a day, but it was fun to bbq with them and relax for a night and a morning.

Then on the 4th of July we left....and this is how we travel!!  :)

We got to Laramie in time for dinner and to watch the fireworks from Grandma and Grandpa's front porch.  We weren't real close to the fireworks but with it being their first summer in their new house we just wanted to see what it was like from their porch.  It was so fun and relaxing and just steps away from bedtime, instead of having to drive back from town!

Of course the kids came up with a play.

And we did some geocaching (are you seeing a pattern this summer??)  :)

While in Laramie we also went to the kids' rodeo and took the kids on campus to walk around a little bit....and...

geocache yet again!!

This one was kinda fun though...it's a webcam cache...you get online and find where the camera takes your picture....so here we are before we realized we were on camera.

Then us trying to get set up for our shot!

Then us in the form of a W on the lawn of Prexy's Pasture!!  If you click HERE you can see us in the gallery on July 5th!  :)  It started to thunder and rain as we were laying there which was awesome!  Luckily Grandma was with the sleeping baby in the van!  This was pretty fun!  Something random that I hope the kids will remember doing.

While in Laramie we also took the kids to see Monster's University!  Fun fun show!

The weather was beautiful and we realized we had never ever taken our kids to Vedauwoo!  Our Smith cousins live in Cheyenne so we called them last minute to see if they wanted to meet up with us and do a little hiking...and of course we would introduce them to geocaching.

These kids had such a blast together and were such troopers on the hike!  We LOVE our Smith cousins!  We sure miss them and love anytime that we can get together!

On our way back home we stopped by Ames Monument and the Lincoln Monument visitors center for more caching and because I haven't stopped by these places since I was a kid! 

We were super excited to find a travel bug in this cache box!  It's been out about a year and the owners are hoping it will continue to travel for another year or so and end up in New York! 

We LOVE Wyoming!  Here Kaylee is pointing to where both sets of Grandparents live!  What a perfect getaway!  Just what our family needed!  Thanks to Grandma and Grandpa for putting up with us!  I am SO sorry that the only picture I have with you guys is so dark!  Next time!  :)