Yellowstone Bound

We love camping in this family. We don't do it nearly as much as we would like to. So when my sister said that she was getting together with some of the Sorensen clan to camp in Yellowstone for a few days my ears perked up. Sean wasn't going to be able to take off that much time especially since we were meeting his family in Duck Creek, Utah the very next week. But I started to contemplate the idea of heading up to Yellowstone with the kids and then meeting Sean in Utah afterwards. I got some crazy glances when I talked about my plan to some people (and I even wondered about my sanity to myself a couple of times), but the pros outweighed the cons to me and so I loaded all six kids (one being a two month old baby)and made the 18 hour journey up to Yellowstone by myself. I actually broke it up a little bit, which was nice. We had a great time with Grandpa and Grandma Sorensen, Jesse, Caleb, Corbin, Charity, Chad, Coren, Risa, Haakon, Garrett, Melanie, Genevieve, Aeris, Cian, Leia and even a super quick meet up with Kyra at Burger King on our way to the airport to pick up Sean. I knew it would be a bunch of work (physical and mental....HE HE HE), but Sean and I have always felt it important to make sacrifices to get together with family, especially since we don't live near any. I loved getting together with cousins at family reunions when I was a kid, and I want that for my children. I want them to know and love their cousins and get excited about spending time with them. Not to mention how much I love it when I have the chance to hang out with my family. And what better place to do all of this that at the awesome National Park of Yellowstone while we camped together. Camping is such a great outlet for kids for be free and explore. Staying up too late at campfires, tasty eggs and potato and sausage breakfasts, running free through the campsites and nearby nature, seeing wildlife close enough to touch, sleeping in the chill of the late summer with nothing between the fresh air but you and a thin tent layer, getting a free pass from bathing for a few days :), etc. So, here's a quick run down of our adventure:

Thurs: Got up early and hit the road. Made it all the way to Price, Utah (8 full hours of driving) before making our first stop. We only had to pull over to the side of the highway for one quick minute for Nathan to go to the bathroom. Every one else made it the entire 8 hours - even the baby (drinking a couple of bottles along the way). Made it to Charity and Chad's house that evening.

Fri: Hung out at Charity and Chad's. Headed up to Rexburg. Made it there by about 8 PM Sat: Went to the grocery store to stock up. Hung out at Garrett and Melanie's for the morning. Took Ben and Caelan and went and saw a town production of "Les Miserables" which Garrett and Caleb were performing in. It was so great! I love that musical and it was especially fun to see two of my brothers rocking the vocals (several solo parts each). And the kids loved it too (which made my heart happy). We spent the rest of the trip listening to the soundtrack. Headed up to Yellowstone late that afternoon and made it there around midnight, at which point we quickly set up camp.

Sun - Wed: Saw all the sights of Yellowstone: West Thumb Geyser Basin, Old Faithful, Artist Paintpots, Mud Volcano, Fountain Paintpots, Norris Geyser Basin (where Austin completely lost ALL control for a good two hours - Yikes), Steamboat Geyser, Gibbon Falls, Mammoth Hot Springs, Virginia Cascade Scenic Loop, Upper and Lower Falls (where we hiked down 300 steps for a great view and then hiked back up), LeHardy's Rapids, and more. We saw thousands of bison which delayed us on several occasions, elk, deer, and lots of birds. We swam in the Boiling River (where a hot springs joins up with a river), we found a shop with $1 fudge bars which we purchased more than once, we went on lots of hikes, we went to church at the lodge at Old Faithful, we saw a quadruple rainbow (that's right friends) and we got some tasty ice cream cones in West Yellowstone. And we battled the rain through the entire trip. We ate dinner one night all huddled under a canopy while it rained around us. The kids were real troopers. It was wonderful!

Duck Creek 2013

We did our annual Family Reunion at Duck Creek in August this year (since I was due with a new baby the weekend of Memorial Day). We stayed in the same cabin that we stayed in two years ago. We had a fun filled weekend of hiking (we hiked to some "falls" which were somewhat of a disappointment to the kiddos once we got there....more like a little trickle), crafting (Lani brought a project for all the ladies to do - a cute wood saying "Be-You-Tiful"), resting, spotting wild life, chatting, playing games, zip-lining (Sean got a part for the zipline in the yard and fixed it the first day. The kids spent hours on that thing...and even all the adults took a turn or two as well), cooking, scenic drives (we drove to a look out point one evening which was gorgeous - same look out point we went to when Caelan was just a couple of months old and we were together with the Crusaders), swinging, 4-wheeling, nightly family devotionals and just enjoying time together. We were challenged by Grandma and Grandpa to read the Book of Mormon by next year as a family.

More Summer Goings On

Chick Fil A "Cow Appreciation Day" - We dressed up as cows and got a free meal. I was so surprised how great the service was: no line, workers walking around refilling people's drinks, someone got me all situated at a table. It was great.

The kids took swim lessons, so for two weeks Austin, Ian and I waited while the other 4 swam around for 40 minutes. The kids loved it and all really improved. Megan and Ben were both moved up to the next level on the first day because they could both free style swim. They all graduated with flying colors. Nathan is becoming quite the little fish. He wants to constantly take off his floaties and try to see how far he can swim. Megan also really improved. I thought I wouldn't get to the pool much this summer, but we spent several Wednesday afternoons at the pool in June and July. Most of the times Ian would just sleep in his chair which I would keep close by. One time I put him in his wrap and had him strapped on me - he didn't even flinch when I got into the water and he slept for two straight hours there on me. He loves being outside, so I think that helps.

Goodbye to the Big Travel Van

We sold our van. We decided we were going to sell it earlier this year which is when we bought our other Suburban. There was a little problem with it, so it's been sitting for several months since then. Sean fixed the problem, and then we finally got around to cleaning it really good and taking pictures of it. Sean took it to work and sold it the first day it had the "For Sale" sign in the window. One of his employees came up and was interested in buying it. He brought the money the next day and we signed over the title. The funny part about this story is that we had 4 cars. The new Suburban started having brake issues which Sean had been fixing but there was still something wrong. It had gotten a little scary so I wasn't going to drive it again until we got the final problem taken care of. Then last week while Sean was driving home from work in the little Honda, the sunroof glass was sucked off the car and shattered on the freeway (totally strange). Since we were in monsoon season we really needed to get that fixed, so Sean took off the whole sunroof unit and was hoping to get to a junk yard to find another one. We sold the van and so I was probably going to pick him up from work in the red Suburban, but while I was in town I was at a store waiting to pull into a parking spot and the car just stopped. I tried to get it started and it wouldn't start. I called Sean. He came and checked it out and couldn't figure out the problem so we had it towed to the house so that we could figure it out from there (luckily we have towing on our insurance...up to 13 miles, so we only had to pay the difference). We went from 4 cars to zero in a manner of about a week and a half. AWESOME! He he he. Actually the very next day Sean went and got several parts from U-Pull-It (like a junk yard) and got the Honda and the new Suburban up and running. Within the next week he also fixed the red Suburban which ended up just being some wires that weren't connected. Nothing too serious or expensive, but still kind of funny.

Ian's Blessing Day

Ian was blessed on July 7. My family couldn't make it out. Sean's parents were here that weekend - on their way home from Philmont. Unfortunately Lindsay went into the hospital on Saturday with lots of pain and was going to have her gall bladder removed, so Sean's parents had to leave Sunday morning before church so they could get home to her. So Sean told the bishop to invite the whole bishopric up during the blessing. It was Sean, Bishop Foutz, Paul Crozier (1st counselor) and President Jay Manning (from the Stake Presidency who is also in our ward). We considered briefly postponing the blessing until we went up to Utah and then we could do it with Sean's dad and Kelly, but we decided we would just do it. So we did. It was a nice blessing. He was blessed to have a desire to serve a mission and to be worthy to do so. He was blessed to gain an education and also more importantly to gain a spiritual education. He was blessed to have a desire to find a companion and marry her in the temple and have a family.

Toothless Megan

Megan has had a pretty loose front tooth. She's good at wiggling it, and she's really been trying to get this one loose enough to pull out. She came up to me one afternoon telling me that it was really loose. She said, "Maybe Ben or Nathan will accidentally punch me and then it will come out." (Just a couple of months ago Ben's friend, Aaron accidentally punched him while they were jumping on the trampoline and knocked his loose tooth out...which we were so happy about - that thing had been sticking straight out for weeks). I smiled at her and she headed down the stairs. She didn't even get all the way down the stairs when I heard her exclaim, "Mom, it's out." She came running up to show me and said, "I wanted to get it out myself so I punched myself in the face and it came out. First I missed (as she demonstrated by punching herself between the eyes) but then I got it (as she demonstrated by punching right at her mouth)." I had a good little laugh.

Summer Goings On

We took advantage of the Free Day at the Zoo through the local radio station. It was totally crowded, but we had a fun time anyway.

The kids painted each other's faces.

Making forts and tents in the front room.

Staying "cool." Actually this is one day after we came home from one of Caelan's softball games. She just finished the season a couple weeks ago. She had a great season and a great team - lots of fun friendships made and the girls got second place in the tournament (a real come-back after their regular season). I actually went to two softball games the week that Ian was born. We spent a lot of time at the baseball fields during the past two months. It was lots of fun, but also good to be done.