Vacation

Wow, this is some kind of blogging record for me. I haven't posted anything in a few weeks. The kids and I have been traveling. First we drove to Idaho where Christopher attended EFY (especiallly for youth) at BYUI. He was there for 5 days so the rest of the kids and I just hung out at My Aunt Joyces and my cousin Jims house. It was a lot of fun. Wendy, Christy, Susan (sisters) and Jaylene(cousin) were all there too. The kids LOVE Jims house. It's maybe 8 or 9 acres on the snake river with ponds full of fish, ducks, peacocks, horses, goats, llamas, cats, dogs, turtles, snakes, crabs and wild animals that wonder onto thier property. The house is a 7000 sq. ft. log home with secret passage ways and places to climb the walls. Outside by the big pond Jim has a 3 story crane with a swing attached. The kids take the rope to the top of a ladder on a hill next to the pond and then swing out over the water. It looked like so much fun. I wanted to try it but I thought my arms might rip off lol. As you can probably imagine the kids stay VERY busy at Jims house and the adults have fun just hanging out and enjoying how beautiful it is and (of course) the kids having a blast. Another fun thing we did in Idaho was going to "Bear World". It's a park where they've tried to re-create the old time Yellostone Park where people would drive through with the bears climbing all over their cars while they feed them. Bear World does however prohibit feeding the bears and you have to keep your windows closed at all times. So you slowly drive through a bear habitate that's all fenced off. It takes about 15 minutes to drive through it but you can drive through it as many times as you'd like. Last year I poured chocolate milk on the car and that seemed to do the trick of attracting the bears to climb on our car. This year we had 3 car loads and we rubbed oranges all over our cars before driving through. It's pretty exciting when the bears stand up on your car. The kids are all screaming and laughing. Susan (she was in Christys car) wedged a cookie in her window (a big no no). The bear took the cookie and ate it but he got his claws caught in the window and started to pull. Susan siad the window was so close to popping out. Christy couldn't drive away with the bears claws caught so Christy very nervously slightly unrolled the window to free the bear and quickly rolled it back up again. Very exciting for the two thrill seeking moms lol. On another day we drove to the little town of Dubois where my mom grew up. We went to the cemetery there with all the kids to visit graves of family members. Way back when the cemetery was just sage brush my great grandma went up to the mountains and got baby trees to transplant at the cemetery. Then she would haul all the water to water them. She cared for the trees for many years. Those same trees are still standing. They are the only trees in the cemetery and planted all around our families graves. I love going there. Even though I have never lived there I feel very connected to the land and that whole area in Idaho. We then drove to Humphry (sp?). It was SO beautiful. As beautiful as any country side drive I've taken in Europe. There is no longer any kind of town in Humphry. Just desserted buildings and beautiful green rolling hils, meadows and the creek. My mom spent her summres in Humphrey riding horseback through the hills, learning to swim in the creek, bathing in that same creek, fishing, picking wild flowers, playing with her pet sheep and anything else her active imagination could think of doing. Not a lot of money but such a charmed childhood... Next we drove to Utah where we stayed with Jaylene for a couple of days and then drove down to Saint George to stay with Christy and her family for a few days. That's where we are now. We will be leaving soon though, and driving down to Carlsbad, ca. Emily will be going to surf camp with her cousin Camille next week. Christopher will be happy to be reunited with his surf board and the little kids and I will hang out on the beach. We will be home in a week...