Vacations Abound

I could do three different blog posts about all our recent trips but I am tired, my house is a mess, and laundry is piling up as we speak. Bear in mind that these trips all happened one weekend after another. So here goes:

Trip #1 - Grandma Wood's Memorial

Three weeks ago we went up to Michael's Grandma Wood's cabin above Crouch to say goodbye. We had a nice memorial service and most of the family chose to stay a day or two to catch up with one another and have fun. That's what I want when I pass. A short sweet service and everyone enjoying being together.

There was a lot of playing with aunts, cousins, uncles, second cousins, great uncles...you name it, we had it.
It was a wonderful trip although there were moments like this. Vacation schedules and sand throwing will get you every time.

Trip #2 - Kennelly Creek with my Family

This was a trip I've been looking forward to for a long time. I haven't seen my brother and his family for about five years. They moved to Montana this winter and were able to come for a visit this summer. All my siblings got our families together and went camping. We even had a few extra. I think the final count was 17 adults, 15 kids, 5 dogs and 4 horses. How can that not be fun? Next to the campsite was a rocky mountain that was made just for kids to climb. Most of the kids were part goat while most of the adults were part sloth. The adults heaved themselves up the mountain while the kids bounded. There was also horseback riding and a creek that was too cold for anyone to put more than a toe in.

I started with Libby begging me to take her to climb the rocks, and then everyone decided to come. This is us before heading out:

This is the group that made it halfway up:

This is the group that made it very nearly to the top (I thought it was the top, but we didn't go quite far enough. My bad). Notice there aren't any adults left, unless you count my nephew but he's still a kid to me. I tell you those kids were smokin' us.
The view from the top. Michael took this one because, as the manly one in this relationship (FYI, he added this sentence while editing), he made it all the way to the tippy top:


The female gene is very dominant in my family. This means there was a lot of hair up there with us. All the girls kept busy putting hair in tiny braids. We were a stylish group.

Grace loves the horses. Loves, loves, loves the horses. We spent a lot of time just looking at and petting the horses. She also spent a lot of time conning grown ups into letting her ride with them.

This is my attempt at getting a picture of all the grandkids. Have you ever tried to get a dozen kids to look at the camera all at once when they wanted to be ricocheting off trees and throwing rocks? Well, I tried and failed. This is what I got. These are almost all of the grandchildren (we are missing one to school and one to a mission).
And these are my brothers. They may be heavily outnumbered by women but they still have gads of testosterone coursing through their blood.

Trip #3 - McCall with Michael's family
Our last trip was to McCall. We went for long bike rides, a nature hike (otherwise known as the mosquito death march) and went swimming in Payette Lake. I've only ever driven through McCall so it was a fun experience for me.
All but one of the Hobson grandbabies. I think Nick had already gone to bed when this was taken. The kids had a blast bouncing around on the bunk beds.
What kid doesn't want to play with a pile of bears? Grace was napping so she missed the excursion into town.This is where I leave you. A picture of everyone enjoying their ice cream. What a glorious summer treat.