Summer of the Sloth

Yes, I am the sloth...

It's been nearly 2 months since I updated the blog with our spring break mad dash across the country. What I didn't put in that update was that the day after that post went up I was having surgery on my shoulder. It had been planned for a month or so but I was waiting for school to let out so I could use the summer to recover. That is why I have been a sloth. 

I am not kidding when I say I have done *NOTHING* this summer. Well, nothing but lay low, baby my shoulder, cry at physical therapy visits and gradually get back to my mom duties and real life. It's been a slow process and some of that "real life" stuff I am still working on but like it or not school begins tomorrow and ready or not, here comes some more "real life"!

While I was perfecting the life of a sloth this summer, some not so sloth-like things happened....

Annah attended AFY (Adventures For Youth) in Idaho with 

her sweet friend, Elizabeth.

Salt Lake Bees baseball game

Headed for adventure...

AFY group 2016

  

Power Poll...yeah, Annah!

Andrew and Heather and their family came to 

visit for a few days from Texas!It was so good to see them

and the kids! Connor (10) was visiting his dad so we didn't get to see him,

These boys...Fletcher (3) and Ackerley (5) ...adorable!

Just before they left to go back home Ackerley came over

 to me, hugged my leg and quietly asked me if I was going 

to come to see him at his home. I said that maybe 

sometime we could come to visit. He then said, 

"Can you come on Sunday?" Oh sweet Ackerley....

Fletcher wouldn't look up so I could take his picture when 

they were in the car to leave...silly boy! He's a little sweetheart!

Andrew in his Texas shirt.... :)

One last picture before they drove away (Fletcher was hidden by pillows!) It's times like these that I wish for kids and grand kids to be closer so that we don't have to say those hard goodbyes.

Abigail returned from BYU-Idaho where she made lots of great friends...

And she received her mission call to the Arizona Tempe Spanish-speaking mission and will report to the Mexico MTC on September 13th where she will be for 6 weeks learning Spanish before reporting to Arizona!

...And she had her 19th birthday! Her friend Jen made her a cheesecake to celebrate her 19 years. Jen and Abigail have been friends since they were little and now they will both be serving missions! 

We took Jacob back to school as he gets ready to start another year at Morehead State University where he is in the Space Science program. He and Abigail won't see each other again for 18 months. :(

And now we look forward to Jordan, McKenna and Mackson moving to Kentucky in another week so Jordan can attend the University of Kentucky. We are thrilled to have them close by to be able to see Mackson grow. The last time we saw him was when he was 2 weeks old and this month he will be 5 months old!

 What a little doll he is!

 Mackson reminds me of Jordan when he was a baby ...

So it's been a slothful summer for me for sure but not so much for the family! Life keeps moving along as it should.

 Here's to my slothful summer on my way to a fabulous fall!

Oh, Idaho!

As May quickly drew to an end and June is now underway, I have not yet written about our amazing race across the country to Idaho in early April! Time has gotten away from me but the memories of that time call to me to be remembered. :) 

It was all we could do to stuff everything into the trunk of our Elantra. With Abigail going back to college there was a *lot* of stuff! But we managed to smush it in and hit the road! 

Good thing these two get along so well because it was 

pretty close quarters in the back seat!

We traveled over 1,700 miles but the sights were spectacular!

Tim indulged Annah and I as we wanted to stop often to take pictures.

*This is one of my very favorite pictures*

Annah taking pictures :)

We even climbed through snow to be able to get a closer look with the lens!

Then it happened....

33 hours later we arrived! Abigail did the honors of driving us into IDAHO!

I have not been back to Idaho since I attended school there back in 1980!

While the sights were beautiful, the best Idaho views were the grandbabies!

Sweet baby Mackson 2 weeks old when we were there...

And Baby Mackson was blessed while we were there!

 And baby August was 6 months old!

Tim and Lisa drove to Idaho from Tempe, Arizona on their way to their new home. The timing was perfect to be able to all meet up and catch up for a few days before setting off on their adventures in ALASKA! We hadn't seen August since he was just 2 or 3 weeks old!

He is the spitting image of his daddy as a baby!

 Alaskan adventures are calling them. It was a tearful goodbye.

Then it was Jordan's graduation from BYU-Idaho! YAY Jordan!

Wait....it's empty! :) hahaha!

(they will mail him the real thing)


Abigail showed us around the BYU-I campus and it was amazing to see the changes in the campus since I attended there 36 years ago!! It was called Rick's College back in the day and there were a few buildings that I still recognized! It was a neat experience being back there and walking around the campus and seeing Rexburg again. I had a lot of good memories in that place and I am happy that Jordan and Abigail get to have good memories there too. :)

We even were able to find the house where I lived in a basement apartment all those years ago! Back then it was the last house on the street and had fields around us but that is not the case today. It was a nice trip down memory lane!

When the time came for us to head home, at Annah's urging, we decided that Yellowstone National Park wasn't too far out of the way and made plans to go to the the West entrance of the park. It was such a beautiful drive getting there! After an hour and a half on the road the excitement mounted as we got closer. We saw a sign in the distance...surely it was a welcome to Yellowstone....
or not.... 

Seriously? Nowhere on any website we looked at did it say that the West entrance was CLOSED! It was only open to bicyclists. After talking to a guy on a bike it turns out that it was opening the following weekend. :( 

So Annah had a welcome to Yellowstone on one side of the sign....

and a leaving Yellowstone on the other. Hahaha!

Annah was disappointed but immediately began to recalculate the route home on her phone and realized that if we got back on the road and didn't waste any time we could actually drive the 8 hours to Mount Rushmore and make it there before it closed! We hit the road and sailed right through, stopping only when necessary for bathrooms, gas and food. They shut off the lights on Mount Rushmore at 11 pm but at 9 there was some kind of a "show"...whatever that meant. We wanted to get there in time for the 9 o'clock show!

Some sights along the way... :)

We arrived at about 8:45 PM and as we drove toward Mount Rushmore I began to notice that there was not a lot of traffic. There were hardly any cars for it being a Saturday night at Mount Rushmore but we kept driving. We drove toward the gate and read that there was an $11 parking fee. With no other cars coming in with us I was fumbling for money. Slowly approaching the open gate we stopped to pay but there was NO ONE there. It was beginning to feel a little creepy....no cars, the gate is open but no one was there. We drove in and began to go up the ramps to the parking levels and as we went from level to level there were NO CARS!!  What was going on? 

We eventually found 2 other cars parked but that was it. 

Looked like we had the place to ourselves! 

It was dark, windy and cold but we were still optimistic that there would be a 9 o'clock "show" even though it was just us and 4 other people that we saw wandering around. Nine o'clock came and went and there never was a show. 

We never did figure out just what was going on but we got 

to see Mount Rushmore! :D

Check that off the bucket list!

It was a fantastic 10 days gone even though the trip home was nearly 40 hours. It was worth every hour on the road to be able to see some of our kids, daughter-in-laws and the two grandsons! We wished the whole crew was there with us. One day we hope to have the whole family in one place at one time!

Way to go, Idaho! :)