Family Pictures in my Favorite Place

A few weeks into July I realaized that Natali would be gone bu the time our annual fall pictures came around.  The thought made me more than a little sad.  Then I had a genius plan - my friend Heather agreed to come up to McCall with us to take family pictures at the condo.  We played all day with her family and then rushed to get ready for pictures.  I love how they turned out.  This one of Bob and Mack is one of my favorites.  Makes me smile everytime.

 She managed to hide Emmy's sunburned cheeks but if you look close you can see the red on Greg's feet from the long day outside.  I will treasure these pictures as the last in this phase of life - so glad we could make them extra special being in McCall.

Hiawatha Trail

Grandpa wanted to take Natali, Kate, Abby, and I to the Oregon coast in the airplane. As the day approched the weather didn't cooperate so we had to make a different plan.  We decided to let Natali go to work and Grandpa would take Emily and Rachel in her place and head up to Coeur d'Alene to take our turn on the Hiawatha Trail.  We had a early flight then rented a car and headed to rent our bikes.  There was a bit of waiting and fixing problems but eventually we hit the trail.  The trail starts right at this tunnel (picture showing Rachel from the back riding toward the tunnel - Emily shown on the other side).  The tunnel is 1 1/2 miles long.  It has little gutters on the side for the water to run down and it is cold and totally dark.  As we entered Emily realized her light didn't work.  I rode close to her and she did have a head lamp but without the bike lamp she was a bit scared - understandably so.  She was nervous about riding into the gutter so she stayed right in the middle and we slowly made our way through the tunnel.  I loved it; Emmy not so much, but she survived and we made it out the other side.

The view was incredible as we costed down the path in the middle of the forest.  I loved the dark cool tunnels and the view from all the bridges.  

Kate flew down the hill - we hardly ever saw her.  She loved her rented bike and wanted to keep it.  Emily was a bit more nervous and kept her pace slow and steady but she still loved it.  What a cool experience.

When we got to the end of the trail there was a long line for the shuttle back up to the top.  This was probably the worst part of the whole trip.  It was sunny and hot -so hot.  We made the most of it eatting the remnants of our lunch or letting Grandpa feed them to the friendly chipmunks, Phantastic Gus, Chip and Dale.

We did have one mishap on the ride.  Near the beginning, when Emmy was still getting used to her bike, she hit the only slightly steep part of the whole trail and her bike slid on the gravel.  Her hands and one knee had a few battle wounds but she was a trouper; she hopped back on and rode the rest of the trail even though it hurt her hands quite a bit.

After over an hour wait we finally got shuttled to the top, jumped in our car and hurried to the airport.  We grabbed some takeout on the way and arrived about 20 mins before the airpot closed for the day.  Our timing was pretty tight - we landed in Ontario just as things were getting dark.  It was a long day but such fun.  So grateful Grandpa took us on that adventure.

Cousins and More Cousins

One of the best parts of the summer is all the cousin time.  Andrew and Emily went to McCall with the Wilford's and Andrew learned to water ski!

Bernard's came for a week and the kids loved the time with them.  Grandpa and Aaron took the big kids water skiing.  Their late night arrival led to a lot of pizza and ice cream.  Well, let's be honest, every trip to Grandma's ends with ice cream.

Lily and Phoebe really hit it off this time.  They had a blast together swimming, playing with toys and doing crafts.

There were lots of sleep overs and the girls loved the time at Grandma's becuase she always makes it a party.  My girls all tackled multiple sewing projects with Grandma over the summer and did a lot of baking.  With Phoebe they made bread dough and created shapes out of it before they baked it.  

A pizza

Lily loved her cat, and 'L' and Phoebe made a toilet - they may have been singing a lot of "Parry Gripp" songs (think "There's a cat, flushing a toliet...).

Then the Castleton's came and Kate and Sophie couldn't get enough of each other.  Reed spent most of his time at grandma's house catching tadpoles and when he realized what specimen where available at our place he had to come spend the night.  We spend a lot of time fishing all of the neighborhood lakes.  Like a lot of time.  I was going for best aunt ever and fished in the heat for hours but it finally payed off and we caught a blue gill.  

Andrew worked for a man in our ward who runs a fireworks stand.  He used his employee discount to hook Mark up with a ton of fireworks.  Let's just say the 4th was memorable and no people or buildings caught fire.

The twins celebrated their birthday with all of us at Grandma's. We had a blast playing silly games and eating two delicious birthday cakes.

Castleton time also included a lot of make overs, yoga with Sharee and Holly, baking, crafts, and lots of swiming. We love summer time with cousins.