Saturday, June 4, 2016

Epic Road Trip

We bought a car off my parents last summer and drove it from Coeur d'Alene all the way to Houston.  That's a long way, folks.  But we made a trip of it!  Don't have pictures of every stop, but here's some!

We first went to Boise and stayed with Dave's sister and fam.  Always good to see them!  Then we were Rexburg bound.  Stopped in Twin Falls:
Shoshone Falls.  

There was a fire, so it was hazy/smoky.


The obviously Mormon kid at the visitor's center told us to turn right "at the big white church" (the temple) to get to the falls.  It was cute.  Ah, the West and areas highly populated with Mormons...  We've been out of it for what seems like so long, it's always a little weird going back!

BYU-Idaho has changed so much since we went there!  It was fun to show Miles around our old stomping grounds.
He's ready to go to school there for the air hockey alone.

We bought him a quad at the bookstore there.  We figured there was no need to wait until he turned 8 since he has been so amazing about reading the scriptures!


This is the very spot where Dave asked me to marry him.

He's 11 years older this time, though.


We're growing up together!  Crazy.

Yellowstone was next.  You'll see.

Martin's Cove in Wyoming:

All those Mellor's are my ancestors.

McPhail's are Dave's ancestors.

Miles particularly enjoyed seeing one of his ancestors has "McKinnon" in their name.  Nathan MacKinnon is one of his favorite hockey players.





Denver:
One of the factors that helped us decide to buy the car off my parents and make this big road trip was the opportunity it gave us to go visit Grandma Lawson one more time.  It was amazing and lucky to see Dave's parents who were visiting her from their mission in Chile at the same time!


So glad we were able to spend time with her one last time.  I love how she was always up for a laugh.  Grandma Lawson was the best.  Extremely kind, thoughtful, organized and loving.


It was short and sweet, but totally worth it!

Coeur d'Alene: Being a Kid

Still workin' on last summer here.  One day I looked out the window of my parents' house and Miles was floating in a tube out in the bay, a good ways away from the dock.  The tube was tied to the dock, but he had a paddle to paddle around and it so looked like childhood.  I grabbed my camera and ran down to take some pictures, but he had already started to pull himself back to the dock before I got there.  Missed the moment, but took some pictures of Miles being a kid anyway.














Then he wanted me to take his picture while he pretended to ride the jet ski:







Being a kid is the best!

Friday, March 4, 2016

Coeur d'Alene: Uncle Adam and Bikes

We got to spend more time with my brother Adam up in Coeur d'Alene than I had in, I don't know, probably 20 years.  He's delightful!  And he's a good uncle.  He took Miles out to show him how to put a bike together and tried to teach him to ride sans training wheels.  Poor Miles; he doesn't have much desire to learn how to ride and we don't really have anywhere safe to teach him.  Maybe he'll be ready to learn this summer!



Wednesday, March 2, 2016

Coeur d'Alene: Boating

Tell you what, the lake water in North Idaho is cold, after a barely refreshing pool in Houston, TX!  Miles acted like he was getting attacked by sharks after he naively jumped in with his cousins.  And it took quite a while to get him used to that water.  After his first time going in, he didn't want to again!  What a Texan!  Still had a great time, though.





















Dinner on the boat.


Family on the boat:









Tubing!