Summer Vacation Part I

I'm taking time to do this blog entry now so that it actually gets DONE. I've had half a dozen things I've wanted to post in the last month, but never got around to it and now I have no idea what they were. Perhaps even more truthfully, I'm doing it now in an effort to ignore (or at least put off a little longer) my HUGE pile to be unpacked from the van, which consists mainly of dirty laundry. I've spent the morning on getting ready for a tax audit (fun, eh?) on Wednesday morning - surely that was more important than that looming pile...

Anyway - our first, and main, trip for the summer is now over - we had a great time! The girls and I left on Thursday afternoon (the 16th), for Hurricane. We spent the night there with Stuart and Heidi so that we could get the timing belt replaced on our van for the 3,000 mile trip we had ahead of us. Joe met us on Friday night in St. George and we drove to Highland together where we stayed with Angelyn and her family.

Saturday we had an Abbott family reunion up Provo Canyon which was a lot of fun. The girls played on the big jump houses that were rented for the occasion - but I think had an even better time playing in the stream that ran past the park. That evening we met Joe's sister Sarah at Rochelle's house (Joe's cousin) for a fun barbecue after a quick sentimental visit to the Law School and BYU campus. Joe left on Sunday to come back to Vegas for work while I stayed up north with the girls.

On Monday we went with Angelyn and Dave, SaraAnn (my bro Sheldon's wife), Sondra, and Sara, Crystel and ALL the kids to the Hogle Zoo. That was quite a day! I think there were about 28 of us - 7 adults and the rest kids. We saw elephants, monkeys, zebras, penguins, bears, a tiger, goats, a gorilla, to name some of the highlights. I'll post some of the great pictures I got there.

Tuesday and Wednesday were spent swimming, playing with cousins (for the girls), reading, and shopping (for me - all by myself!). We also got to see my old roommate Michelle Webecke and her FOUR BOYS and new set of twins. The kids really hit it off and my girls, who had complained about leaving their cousins for an hour, did not want to leave!

On Thursday afternoon we loaded up the van again and, with much complaining about leaving cousins, drove the four hours to Rexburg, ID. We stayed with one of my great friends and former mission companions, Saralynn Jensen and her FOUR BOYS who are all roughly the same age as my girls. (It's a good thing I have a lot of friends who are having boys.) We had a great time with the Jensens, and got to go to a splash park and ride a carousel on Friday - Pioneer Day. The kids got a free lunch at the park. Again with much complaining about leaving their friends, we piled into the van on Friday afternoon and drove the 5 hours to Great Falls, Montana. We managed to make it with only one stop for dinner and a potty break. We got to GF just in time to pick up some food for Joe, gas up, and meet him at the airport. Boy were we glad to see HIM! It was absolute pouring rain in Montana and I was afraid that he would be delayed by it but the timing was perfect. We left GF by 9 and arrived at our destinaton in Magrath, AB Canada (just over the border, between Cardston and Lethbridge) at Joe's sister's house before midnight. Whew! There's the first half of our trip! Pics coming as soon as I find my camera cord...