Summertime is Family Time!

I love the month of July. The weather is finally consistently hot enough to use our swimming pool, we have getaways planned every weekend, and my out of town kids come to town. 

Whitney arrived in Boise after all of her world travels and one of the first thing she did was sit down at the piano and play and sing.  

We really miss Whitney's music when she's not around.

The night Whitney arrived was mutual so I had to attend the water kick ball activity.

The girls loved it. They had to kick the ball and then slide into the wading pool bases filled with water.

Thankfully there were no injuries.

 

We've got an awesome group of young women.  They all love each other.

Speaking of Young women.  I finished my "friendship quilt".  Last year, the Laurels and leaders shared fabric with each other for the purpose of making a quilt.  

I finally got mine done.

I think it turned out pretty cute!

Whitney and Tom left on a backpacking adventure the day after she arrived.

They headed up to the Trinity mountains above Featherville and Pine and had a fabulous time.

Cute little hikers!

So while they were off hiking, we had a pool party!

Tommy loves floating around in his own little boat!

And we picked fresh raspberries and made homemade raspberry ice cream 

for the Gabrielsen barbecue!

The back packers and Sara and Jon and family returned just in time to drive out to Caldwell for a delicious barbecue at John and Cindy's. It was so nice to see Ali and family and Carina and Jasmine.

Rhonda entertained us with stories from all her travels.

Cute sisters

Cute cousins with a photo bomber

Tommy was supposed to fall asleep in his stroller but wanted nothing to do with sleeping.

The 2nd cousins loved the paddle boat and Jared and Sam's crazy driving.

And these 2nd cousins had a hey day on the tramp!

Siblings with baby Elizabeth.

The hosts with the most.  John grilled some delicious ribs and sausages and we all brought the sides.

These four little boys (Adam, Zach, John, and Anders)

 were hilarious planning their attacks on the little girls

More cute cousins!

We were all really entertained by Aaron and John's fireworks.

It was as good a show as at the fairgrounds.

They were a bit loud for the babies.

We had some awesome pool parties with all the cousins.

and walked to Delsa's for some ice cream

This baby loved the jumperoo! It was quite entertaining watching her "go to town".

Missy invited us over for a visit and so Sara and Whitney could see her beautiful new home.

Sam gave Whitney bow and arrow lessons and Whitney was able to cross one more thing off of her 30 before 30 list.

Claire was dying to hold baby Elizabeth. Missy has a huge playroom in her basement and the kids had so much fun playing and doing gymnastics.

Each time the grandkids get together, they think we need to have a tea party, so we planned one.

Sarah and Devin had a business trip up to Coeur d Alene so Whitney babysat their kids.

We had some delicious treats.

The little girls love getting dressed up and using great grandma's china.

We had cucumber and peanut butter sandwiches, veggie plate, fruit plate and cheese plate.

For dessert we had delicious sugar cookies, browned butter chocolate chip cookies, banana chocolate cupcakes and dipped strawberries and of course herbal tea and lemonade.

Tom took Zachy to lunch but determined that Tommy better stay with us.

He was a pretty cute party crasher.

I love these granddaughters of mine!

We drove over to the cabin on Thursday. Sara's family hadn't been there for a while and were so happy to get to spend some time in Island Park.

The wild flowers were beautiful!

Canoe rides with Grandpa are always a hit.

I never tire of that view!

On Friday we drove in to Yellowstone National Park!

Thankfully we found some buffalo for Sara.

This girl became a Jr. Ranger by completing a workbook and attending a Ranger's lecture.

She's a smart little cookie.

Reppin the Y!

We drove to the Grand canyon of the Yellowstone.

It was picture perfect!

We even saw a buffalo in the parking lot at Canyon Village.

And inside the store!

Dragon's lair.

Selfie time.

 Sara was so excited to see this guy right by the boardwalk.

 

I see some mother daughter resemblance there.

Of course we had a delicious picnic.

We love going to Yellowstone and trying to find all 50 state's license plates.

I think we found 38 this time.

 

We got back to the cabin and Sarah and the kids arrived shortly after.

The cousins were so happy to be together at the cabin!

These two are BFF's

Friday night Grandpa built us a fire and we had some delicious s'mores

We took a picnic into Harriman State park on Saturday

and hiked and Tom took the older kids on a mountain bike ride.

This little guy is almost ready to walk!

Whitney is a favorite to wrestle with.

Saturday afternoon, the older kids floated down the Snake River from dock to dock.

 

They had a blast and I think went 8 times.

Sunday morning breakfast time at the cabin

We love going to church at Island Park so we dressed up and headed to church and then came home and took some group pictures.

One last canoe ride with Grandpa

Then we all packed up and headed out.

I drove with Sara back to Colorado.

We stopped in Jackson Hole and looked around

These Cardon kids love gems and rocks so we had to look in every rock store in Yellowstone and Jackson Hole.

Zack ran into this grizzly bear in one of the stores.

We had quite an adventure trying to drive back to Colorado on Sunday.

The highway we were going to take to Rock Springs, Wyoming was closed because of a forest fire, so we had to detour around through Afton and Star Valley to Kemerer. We finally arrived at our Rock Springs hotel at 9 pm.

It was a very long day with 4 kids in the car!

We drove the rest of the way into Denver on Monday and arrived on Monday afternoon.

I was able to spend a couple of days with Sara in Denver.

The last day I was there we went to brunch at Snooze.

It was so yummy.

I had the best hot chocolate of my life

and a delicious eggs benedict duo, one caprese with tomatoes and fresh mozarella cheese and the other with salmon and holandaise sauce.

Delicious!

Sara and I went shopping afterwards and when we arrived back home I found out it was

Grandma Appreciation day.

Zach had made me some delicious snacks!

And Lucy had made delicious brownies.

We drove into Littleton later that afternoon and went to a great living museum with farms representing life in 1860 and 1890.

Here's Lucy teaching school in the schoolhouse in 1860.

I flew back to Boise on Wednesday night and unfortunately got caught in the Southwest airlines debacle but luckily my flight wasn't cancelled it was just delayed two hours which meant I didn't get to my home until 3 in the morning on Thursday.

But, it was totally worth it to be with Sara and family and help her drive back home.

July has been full of fun.

I can't wait to see what August brings.