Merril and Maxine in Glacier National Park

Merril had to set up radio repeaters for a race by Glacier National Park and talked Maxine into going with him. Trying to pack in adventures before she leaves home.

They took the kayaks with them but it looked cold to me.

But it looks beautiful up there.

They had a slight mishap with the rhino but were able to get it worked out.

Meanwhile, I took the littles to play in the river by Nisson Park and we found a Walmart cart. I talked the littles into pushing it back to Walmart so it wasn't littering the river. 

It was hot and uphill almost the whole way. They were such troopers. I was proud of them but wished I could've taken a turn pushing. I drove the car.

I wasn't entirely heartless. We went to House of Jump too while Maxine and Daddy were gone!

Build-A-Bear

 

Juliet has wanted to go to Build-A-Bear Workshop since she was a little girl. Now is the time and she decided to do it for her 14th birthday. It was just Nicole and Mikayla. Vanilla was the name chosen for Juliet's bear. Nicole's bear's name Cinnamon. Mikayla chose Maddie for her half bear/half mermaid.

Juliet also got a Gabb phone for her birthday! Haha! It doesn't take the highest quality pictures but it does okay. 

Temple Time!

I'm celebrating 21 years with this man and we were finally able to go to the temple! They are opening up again and we have to make an appointment but yay! I've missed it so much!

Funny story, I grabbed a white shirt for Merril to change into at the temple and accidentally grabbed Jack's clean shirt out of the laundry room. Whoops! Merril put it on and noted that the sleeves seemed a little short. He was skinny enough to pull it off but I'll have to look closer next time! Ha ha!

 

Yellowstone Adventures!

This summer, Merril is setting up radio repeater towers for some races near national parks. He did one near Bryce Canyon already and he has one near Yellowstone. We decided to turn it into a family camping trip! Merril and I stayed in Yellowstone when we were on our honeymoon 21 years ago. That's the last time I was there. It's a 9 1/2 hour drive so we started at 6:30 a.m. to get a jump on the day. Merril went up the night before with Jack to get the camper. He picked up our teeny toy hauler in Cove Fort after the Fish Lake SAR conference. The rest of the kids and I went up in the Expedition the next day.

Merril went up and picked out a camp spot and the rest of us drove and stopped in Rexburg for groceries. We met up with Merril and made dinner.

The next morning, Merril was supposed to be able to set up the repeater early and then go with us into the park but he hit a snag. So I picked up Jack from him and the kids and I hit the park. We tried to go straight to Old Faithful but it was noon and everyone and their dog were on their way to Old Faithful too. We crawled along in 2 mph traffic for around 45 minutes and decided to bag it and go see something else.

We turned around and immediately found some volcanic hot springs!

And Gibbon Falls.

We spent the afternoon finding cool places to stop. 

We came out of the park to make dinner and meet up with Merril. Maxine made flower crowns while I made dinner.

Then we went back into the park to see Old Faithful in the evening. It was perfect! No traffic and the evening light was great to watch Old Faithful with little crowds. Five stars!

We also stopped by Grand Prismatic Spring for the last stop of the day.

The next day, Merril had some radio tower things to finish up and we spent the morning playing at the campsite. Maxine was in her element with the all the beautiful wildflowers.

Flowers ended up in all the girls' hair.

After a bit, we went into West Yellowstone town to shop for souvenirs. Merril finished taking down the tower and met up with us. We decided to get lunch at this funky taco bus.

Mr. Beast was playing in the taco bus.

We went back to camp and had some down time. I jumped in the hammock. Merril rode his motorcycle, kids explored, people napped.

The kids whittled sticks for roasting marshmallows.

This shot is to show how gorgeous our camping spot was. We camped on Idaho public lands and we had a lot of open space to ourselves. We explored and made noise and had a fantastic time! Merril picked the best spot!

I pulled out some glowsticks and the kids played around with them. The kept whipping them and getting them stuck in trees. Jack climbed up a few trees to get them down so we didn't litter. 

The next day was Sunday and we went to church. We spent the afternoon lazily floating down a shallow river. Then we had another camp fire. The next day we packed up and went home.

This was a perfect camping trip! The area was so pretty, weather was great and the kids played well together. It was a great trip!

Smallest to Tallest!

Look at my cute kids lined up smallest to tallest. Mark is trying to look super tall. They are growing up great!

We did a silly one.

And a jumping one. It's really blurry but I feel like Maxine's face is the best. She wants to be jumping the highest. 

😂😂😂😂😂 She wanted it man!

Fishlake SAR Conference

 The Fishlake SAR conference is good times because we can camp an I don't have to cook. The first night there, we bought dinner. The restaurant had a little general store and we bought grab bags for a $1.50. They had cheap candy and toys. We messed around with the necklaces and felt like thugs.

The next day, Mikayla found a snake. 

She was pretty excited about it. 

Kids were also playing in this river, catching fish. I'm pretty sure the fish were supposed to be left alone. I think they were spawning. I made her stop after a while.

The Howards were there and we played around on their boat one afternoon while Merril and Dave were in class.

The Fishlake enduro will go down in the memories of Jack and Merril. So, most everyone took off on dirt bikes and the rhino to ride a trail around the lake. I stayed back at camp because there weren't enough seats. About halfway, the trail became so covered with dead fall that the rhino and Shelly turned around. Merril, Jack and Dave kept going. They were dragging their bikes over dead logs and Jack said it was the hardest thing he's ever done. Shelly got back and asked where the guys were and I said they hadn't made it back. We didn't have to wait very long before they made it back but it was tough. Merril said next year, he's bringing a chain saw. 

And here is Jack asleep with potato pal, a stuffed plush he sewed that resembles a potato. I think it was supposed to be a teddy bear? No matter.