Summer? Oh yes.

Well, I guess since it's July it's time for a post on the old blog, right?  Indeed.

I think "summer" really started for us when Jack's preschool let out in mid-June.  We then spent a few weeks at home hanging out and doing some fun stuff (can you tell that I just don't remember what was only a month ago?  Blame it on the children).  Then we headed off for a two-week trip to UT, ID, and MT to be with family.  Huzzah!  It was an AWESOME trip.  We spent a couple of days in Salt Lake seeing Mike's family, and Jack and I did an overnighter at my sister's house in Orem, which was super fun.  One of my all-time favorite things to do is to go thrift store shopping with her, and I got to do that, so the whole trip was a success :).  After a few days in UT, we headed up to Island Park, ID (just outside of Yellowstone) and spent the better part of a week at a cabin with four of Mike's siblings, his parents, and his aunt.  Let me just repent here and now for always deeming the state of Idaho a total loss in God's works of creation.  Clearly the beautiful part of Idaho that people rave about is not Rexburg, where I lived for a year in college, but Island Park, which is so pristine and gorgeous I might just think it was in a different state.  We spent two days going to Yellowstone (or Pinkstone as Jack liked to call it) and got to see some buffalo pretty up close as well as some elk and many, many geysers.  Jack is a little in love with earthquakes and volcanoes right now, so geysers were right up his alley.  He was in heaven.  Eli, on the other hand . . . he wasn't too fond of us not letting him walk on the boardwalks around the geysers.  Something about no barrier between the one and a half year-old and the large pool of boiling water said "Bad Idea" in our heads.  There was a lot of screaming.

After Island Park, we drove up to MT to see my folks.  Mike flew home after just a few days so that he could go back to the grind, but the boys and I got to stay for awhile and hang out.  We played in the back yard, went to the lake (multiple times, multiple lakes), went fishing, road the tour train around town, went to the local chocolate shop, rode the carousel, went to the kids museum and the historical society museum, and got to see my brother and other sister and all of their kids.  It was fantastic!  We had so much fun.  I think the highlight of the trip was just seeing our kids playing with all their cousins in Mike's family and in mine -- what a sweet, sweet, thing to watch.  I also got to indulge my thrift store cravings in MT, and, just like last summer, I was able to buy clothes for Jack for the next year.  Why are used clothes so much cheaper in MT?  Loved it.

Now, what would traveling in Montana be like without a great (read: the Biblical meaning of "great") flying story?  So, the kids and I were supposed to fly out of Missoula on a Friday night.  We drove the two hours there only to learn that our flight was heavily delayed; eventually it was totally cancelled (Note to self:  put San Francisco on the "do not fly through this city" list.  One word:  FOG.).  So . . . after spending some quality time with the ticket agent in Missoula, we concluded that there was no way we could make it home that night, and we drove back to Helena and were able to fly out of Helena at the crack of dawn the next morning.  All in all, we got to spend more time with my folks, which was great, but the 4-hour round trip drive and the whole run-around was kind of blech.

We are so grateful that we were able to see so much family; it certainly made us question why we live so far away!  Since then, there's been a lot of reminiscing on the part of the three-year-old and wondering if we can "go on another trip tomorrow".  Oh son, if only!

Here are, well, a lot of pictures.  And I have more on my phone that I'm too lazy to throw at you at the moment (and I think that might just be overkill).  I'll try to post the uberly-cutest ones at some point.

A special thanks to Tiffany (Mike's sister) and her family for letting us take over some of their living space at Mike's folks' house and to my parents for putting up with kid paraphernalia strewn about constantly.

Ok, I promise that I'm getting to the pictures, but it was just such a great trip, and I wish I could mention every fun moment, every conversation that was so pleasant, every helping hand, every laugh not caught on camera, every day that felt lighter than it would have been here at home, every delicious meal that we didn't cook or clean up after.  Thank you to everyone that let us chat them up, empty their frig, and generally just enjoy being with them.  We think about and miss you often!

{Click the picture to enlarge}