Family Reunions

Our family has been able to escape real life for the past few weeks which has been a WELCOMED change. We spent a week up in Idaho, Island Park, and Yellowstone with Mike's family. We nicely fit 30+ of us into a fun cabin in Island Park where we enjoyed waterfalls, river rafting, hiking, sleeping, campfires, and lots and lots of kids running around. Then we headed up to Yellowstone where we were able to enjoy the incredible sights of that park. We had a blast. One thing that I learned (or maybe just confirmed) is that I LOVE wildlife...from a distance... and in a car. If I don't have something between me and the bears...count me out!

After Mike's family reunion, we headed up to my parent's house where the fun continued. We spent hours in the pool and playing with cousins. The kids had fun on tractor rides, tie-dying, playing badminton , and roasting s'mores around the campfire. We also headed to Santa Rosa and Bodega Bay where we enjoyed the stinky sea weed and really fun tide pools. The kids loved finding all the little sea creatures. All in all, it was exactly what we (especially me) needed. Now back to reality...uhh, do I have to?


Big, fat, ugly Bison. These things were all over the place.

Sisterly love in front of a beautiful waterfall.

Okay, it's the first day and we're already tired of pictures. The landscape in Northern Idaho is absolutely breathtaking. The big tree kind of got in the way.

We had a great time at the Wolf/Grizzly discovery museum. Confirmed...enjoyable if massive animals are confined behind large fences.

Old Faithful.

Our fun cabin in Island Park.

Mike giving his first driving lesson.

Girls just hanging out in the hot tub. What's a vacation without a hot tub?

Hermit crabs in the tide pools. You can see he's starting to come out. What you don't see is that one second after this picture he was flat on his back on the sand. There was no way Kate was letting that little thing crawl on her.

Kara like the crabs crawling on her.