Long post for a LONG TRIP!

After many days of packing, and getting our pop-up trailer ready, we were on our way to Boise, ID to see my nephew Isaac be baptised. I can't believe he is 8 already. I remember going to his blessing. We made it to La Grande and stayed at my parents house. The next morning, Jeff got up and tried to tackle the Goliath of a jogging loop my Dad created, it was 14 miles. After an hour and 45 minutes I was starting to get worried. For some reason small animals like to attach Jeff on his jogs, mostly birds, and squirrels. I loaded the kids and found him. He had just run 10 miles and wanted to finish it, but I wanted to get going and get to Boise. We arrived in the afternoon, and the baptism was in the evening time. At Aunt Netzers (Aunt Annette's) house there is ALWAYS something to dress up in. Jeff just had to try out this wig.

This is my niece Aly before the baptism holding Miss Mae while I get the other munchkins ready.

I didn't get any pictures of the baptism itself, but here is a shot afterwards. My sister put on a really nice dinner at an AWESOME park they have in Boise. The man of the hour is in green swim trunks. It was hard to catch a picture of him because he had 7 of his cousins to play with. The kids were all over the place.

Scottie boy playing at the water portion of the park.

Scottie and Grant playing at the park.

While the kids played Jeff, my brother-in-law Jered, my nephew Rylan, and Isaac played a little football.

G-pa Holman and Scottie just before leaving the park. We played there until WAY passed bedtime. The kids were tired out by the time we made it back to Aunt Netty's.

We woke up the next morning and headed for Montana. We had never driven from Boise to the cabin, so we were excited to see the scenery. FYI to anyone who gets remotely carsick DON"T DRIVE FROM BOISE ID, TO MISSOULA MT! It was winding the WHOLE way. After Missoula, I got some relief, but it was a good 6 hours of car sick roads. Ugh. We pulled off a 13 hour day that day and arrived at the cabin as it was getting dark. The next morning we went and hung out at the lake. We brought the play pen down to the lake with us, and put Miss Mae in there with a towel over the top to shade her from sun and bugs.

Grant and Scottie on the path from the lake back towards the cabin. Must be lunchtime.

The boys playing at the lake. They fished, threw rocks, poured buckets of water and practiced swimming with life jackets on. The water was cold, but fun.

G-Pa Hedgpeth showing Grant how to shoot the B.B. gun. Scottie wanted to shoot the deer that would come and visit us. The only deer we shot at were the ones that would come by the trailer at 4:00 am. Jeff would scare them, but they wouldn't leave us alone. So he got out his pellet gun and nailed one right in the butt. We didn't get a visit from them the next evening.

The traditional bath. ALL of the kids have pictures of taking their baths in this tub. This is Lucy's first bath and she is NOT a happy camper. Grant is now 5 and this was probably his last year taking a bath in that tub, he's getting a bit too big for it.

The boys had fun watering this branch that Jeff stuck in the ground. When they got bored watering the branch, they started to water Aunt Jill while she was reading. haha.

G-ma Hedgpeth and Miss Mae enjoying time at the lake.

The quad is always a favorite. Scott was scared this year, but finally went with his daddy only. He had a good time.

Grant fishing while Scottie is shooting the B.B. gun in the lake and watching the B.B.

s skip along the water. I'm sure it's not very "green" to shoot B.B.'s in the lake. Ooops.

Miss Mae after her afternoon nap. She has been waking up a very happy girl lately.

Cooking dinner. In the 8 years I have been at the cabin, we had never done a hot dog roast in the fire pit. We did one for the boys this year and they had a good time. They also enjoyed S'more's.

We went to the Spotted Bear Ranger Station. It's about 15 miles from the cabin. We dropped off Jeff so he could run 14 miles back to the cabin, and we continued to the ranger station. Here is the shaky bridge we had to cross. The boys enjoyed how bouncy the bridge was.

The boys had fun playing in the sand at the ranger station. There is a beautiful beach to play at and rocks to jump off into the water. The water was so pretty and clear.

On our way back from the ranger station we had to stop by a gravel pit and get rocks for G-ma to build a pathway. We put the boys to work.

We started our journey back. We stopped by my friend Bonnie's house in Spokane and she was SO gracious enough to feed us dinner. We had a great visit and enjoyed seeing there house. We were VERY thankful for real food. We had been traveling and snacking all day long.

Here are Bonnie's kids and Grant eating dinner. After we left there house, we had hoped to pull over at a camp ground and spend the night. The one we chose was full, so we kept trucking along. We stopped at a few of the campgrounds on the gorge, but it was dark and really windy. We decided to proceed to Portland and slept at G-ma and G-Pa Hedgpeths house. They were still at the cabin, but we had a key. That day was a 16 hour day for us. YUCK! We made it back home the next afternoon and spent the rest of the day unpacking and cleaning. Jeff and I finished folding about 12 loads of laundry, we are almost all caught up.

All in all we had a fun trip. We enjoyed visiting with family and friends.