Month: January 2018
Enjoying Idaho
Our time in Idaho has been action packed! We’ve been helping my mom move to a flat in Idaho Falls, spending time with the Keck Family and Kjira, and getting my medical nonsense taken care of. We also made a another trip to Utah to a special family baptism. It was so fun to see the creatures with their cousins again. Aidan and Emma were born a few months after their cousin, Gabriel, so the three of them were often referred to as ‘the triplets.’
The three of them are still just as cute together!
They are all such a goofy, fun bunch.
We sat and played games through the night and. Into the morning hours.
Kjira took Jake and us to Targhee Ski Resort for a day and taught her siblings how to snowboard.
They did so well as I followed them around on ski’s.
The view from the top of the mountain was so gorgeous.
We played and played, had a BBQ in the parking lot,
until Aidan got nauseated, tachycardia confusion and extremely pale. We recognized it as altitude sickness, had him checked by the first aid nurses and they confirmed it, and left to get him to lower elevation. We of course had to stop for a square ice cream cone in Swan Valley.
Everyone was freezing so they ended up with a hot drink in one hand and an ice cream in the other!
At the Keck’s house we built a snowman.
We rolled snow into huge balls very quickly – it was perfect conditions for snow man building.
Jake had to help us lift the huge, heavy balls of snow…
The final result was an anatomically correct happy snowman.
Dave and ZoAnn made sure we made him an IT right away!
Mycah is now the proud owner of another Teton instrument. She has progressed beautifully in her ukulele playing and has wanted a better quality instrument, and picked out a Teton. While she was in the store trying it out she sang as she played, and was asked to record a couple of songs with them for their Youtube channel.
She did an absolutely beautiful job. I’ll keep you posted when they air it.
We left Idaho Falls yesterday and have traveled to be with our friends, the Whitaker’s, just outside of Townsend, Montana. After being here a few days we will continue on to Nebraska to be with Hunter, Nonna and our sweet baby, Zailyn. Her first birthday is January 27th and we are so excited to share it with her.
Montana is absolutely gorgeous! We are sledding, tubing, exploring, playing games, watching movies and hot tubbing. Life is good and many photos will follow…
Baby it’s cold outside…
It’s fascinating to be in a place where the butter on the kitchen counter doesn’t melt and the salt is not all stuck together. The cereal stays crispy once the box is opened, items in the drying rack actually dry, and two minutes after rubbing lotion into my hands, it’s disappeared and I need another round. As we walk outside we follow a visible cloud of exhaled air, take cautious goofy steps to avoid falling on ice and find ourselves discussing when frost bite will set in.
When we arrived in Salt Lake City and exited the terminal to head to the car rental area, Aidan and Emma spotted snow and ran for it.
Emma gathered too cold snow into a snow ball, and threw it at her brother just to feel it disintegrate and settle all over her. She quickly told us that snow is colder than she remembers!
We spent a couple days in the Salt Lake area visiting our daughters, Ashley and Aundrea, and were also able to see some of my sisters kids. Being with family is such a beautiful thing.
It’s so interesting being back in the US after all this time. Everything is so spread out and so commercialized. Advertisements are everywhere you look, and constantly replay on the TV. There’s so much stuff. Everywhere! Huge stores of food. Piles and racks of clothing, and everything else that one does not need. It’s all there – everywhere, just dollars away. I listened to the kids talking in the hotel room…
Emma – ‘Is the tap water drinkable?’
Jude – ‘Yes, it’s all fresh’
Emma – ‘Really? We can just drink it right from the there? It’s available to everyone?’
Mycah – ‘Yep, it’s safe for everyone. What an amazing thought!’
Emma – ‘That’s amazing. Even poor people have water to drink. No one has to buy it. It just comes out fresh right there from the tap.’
Mycah – ‘Isn’t it amazing. So much fresh water.’
Emma – ‘I’m going to drink from it all day. If anyone needs me I’ll be by the tap. Drinking free, fresh water.’
I love that our children don’t take priceless gifts, like fresh drinking water, for granted. In so many places we’ve been and lived and explored, people are sick, they are dying, because they are so thirsty and dehydrated and desperately drink from polluted waters.
A glass of water. What a gift.
The creatures have been so excited to be back with Kjira. We are loving spending time with her and my sweet Momma. Jet lag is kicking our butts a bit, but we are adjusting as we visit with friends and family, drink Reeds Dairy Chocolate Milk, and venture out into daily highs of 7 degrees and other crazy numbers that should not be found in nature.
Beautiful new adventures are being embarked upon, memories are being made and we continue to draw closer still as a family. The creatures got really close yesterday as they tried to all fit into a photo booth!
Life it good. It’s freaking cold, but its good.
Adventures of a Tribe 