Baa Baa White Sheep

Our family (Babin's and McCabes) spent a wonderful weekend in Sun Valley at the Trailing of the Sheep festival! We were celebrating Grandma Doris's 80th birthday and wanted to take her to a place which is an important part of her heritage. At one time, her family had one of the largest sheep ranches in the area and she spent a part of her summers at their rustic property just outside of Ketchum. It has been 10 years since all of us have gone away together for a vacation and it needs to happen more often.
We found a great condo to accomodate all of us on vacation rentals by owner- one of the best websites ever. Our view to the left were the Pioneer Mountains....
and the view to the right was the Warm Springs section of Baldy. Not too bad!

We spent time together playing games, eating, watching football (Go Vandals!) and talking. As Eliza is getting older and more independent, it has been such a joy watching her bond and interact with our family. She had no problem being without mom and dad when she is "helping" out everyone else. I am sure it helps that no one can say "No" to her too.

Here she is helping Molly stretch out after a long run

Grandma Doris and I tried to get everyone to play bridge but they were too afraid. Chickens.

We spent Saturday at the park in Hailey were most of the festival activities were. They had cultural groups (Basques, Highland Bagpipes etc.) performing, food, wool shearing demonstrations and other vendors.

3 Generations of Babins!


Eliza a.k.a "the dancing queen" danced away with Molly and the Basque dancers.

Sorry the video below is sideways (Molly is too tall to capture it the other way) but it shows you Molly and Eliza getting their groove on.


Grandma Doris has a Scottish background and is always emotional when hearing the bag pipers play.

The intensity of the dogs hearding the sheep is amazing! It make our dogs look so lazy.

GD, Mike, Eliza, Lucas, Julie, Molly, Gale

Coloring and watching football with Molly. Since Molly is a preschool teacher she is always bringing the coolest things for Eliza to do. Eliza is really into learning her colors and watching football, it was a pefect match. Several times the first thing out of her mouth in the morning is "I watch football."

I thought this cheezy smile made her look so grown up, it was scary!

Walking with Grandpa to the fly shop. Lucas always has to go to the Silver Creek fly shop and act like he absolutely has to buy something. "It is the only place that sells hats that fit me!" Mmmm, hmmm.

Waiting patiently for the sheep parade to start on Sunday

The Peruvian participants were absolutely beautiful!

The highlight of the weekend is the actual trailing of the sheep through town to their winter pastures. The 4-H side of me gets so excited to see this! Can you believe that in the early 1900's there were over 2 million sheep in Idaho. We still don't have that many humans here today!

Guard dogs protecting the sheep as they go through the crowd

Before we headed home we had to stop at the old homestead for Grandma Doris. This is what is left from the original cabin. It was such a beautiful area and we were thrilled to have shared a part of Grandma's history this weekend!