August 2020

 We finished off our summer with some more great adventures.

Matt, Alissa and I flew out to Wyoming to retrieve the rest of our family who had spent July with family out there.  This was Alissa's first flight.  Because of Covid - we had to wear masks the entire time.  Definitely worth it to make it there in 3 hours instead of driving for 17 hours!

We all got to watch our own show and were given some yummy snacks.  It was great.  

We made it to Matt's parents' house in Torrington, Wyoming near the Nebraska border.

After hugging the stuffing out of my long lost kiddos my first order of business was to find my new baby nephew and snuggle him as often as I could!

Matt's dad made this super sweet giant swing set for the grandkids - epic.

We loved all the family time and they took good care of us while we were visiting that week.

The kids were eager to show me the big hole they'd been digging all month and Carly fell in love with this Sinclair dinosaur - it's been her dream to one day take a picture by a big version of one of these guys - haha!

Full house for home church that Sunday!  Brogan thought his Uncle Matt was pretty cool.  And Cameron was so great with his younger cousins.

We were happy to get to be there when our sweet new nephew baby Waylon got blessed.  

I snapped these awesome pictures of the cute little guy.

This was honestly one of  my favorite things about Wyoming - these cool toads!

This guy would hang out in the flower pot to stay cool.

Family Picture Time!!

Grandma and Grandpa with all 10 of their grandkids!

Just missing Skyler

What a beautiful family.  We are so blessed.

Off to more adventures...many great historical sites are very near where the Hansens live.  We got to see the wagon ruts still in the sandstone where hundreds of pioneers drove their wagons near the Platte River.  SO cool.

We visited Register Rock where hundreds of pioneers carved their names in the side of the cliff - many are still there from the early 1800s.  SO cool again.

Then we went to see Fort Laramie that had great things to see like teepees, army barracks, old ruins, a covered wagon, the old jail, cannons and guns they'd use back in the day and what the army leaders' houses looked like.  Some had real bear skin and cougar skin rugs on the floor.  Again - SO cool!

Aunt Sandy helped the kids make these great t-shirts showing all the states they've been to this summer

Trevor found a cool bug and Jacie is longing for her days as a Viking

Awesome picture!  We just needed Kaeli's kids to get another cool "all the grandkids" shot!

It took us less than one minute to get from one state to another!

We drove in to Nebraska to see another historical landmark - Scott's Bluff.  We drove to the top and could see all the way back to Torrington.  We also got to see another covered wagon replica here - complete with oxen!

We drove a little further up the road to see a second landmark countless pioneers mentioned in their histories - Chimney Rock.  No rattlers were seen, thankfully.  We had fun exploring the museum there - the kids loved trying to make the load in the wagon just the right weight.

We ended one of our days of adventures with a refreshing trip to a lake.  Good times.

Crazy cool thunderstorms roll through here regularly - we got to see a great double rainbow!

Our final adventure was a family trip to Mount Rushmore!  Grandma and Grandpa got to ride with us.

We saw the Crazy Horse monument from a distance.  And we found Mount Rushmore!

We loved learning about how this monument was created.  It was fascinating.

This was our home away from home that week and our sweet rental car.  We packed up and said our goodbyes.  It was a wonderful visit with our beloved Hansen Family.  Great memories made.  

We sure love them.

Our final stop was to visit my sister TeraLyn and her family who live in Cheyenne, Wyoming.

It was SO great to see them and spend time together.  A lot of our kids are the same age - they loved getting to know them better.

Can you tell we're sisters?  She let me drive her Ranger to go get the mail, that's me screaming...

Tera's older girls loved having our little Jacie girl to play with!  Jacie loved it too!

We helped set up a fun game they called 9 Square.  A mix of 4 Square and Volleyball - SO fun!

Epic sunset and I think that bungee chair has been sat in one too many times!

They treated us all to yummy shaved ice.

   

We all snuggled up in their theater room to watch a movie - I loved all the art on their walls too.

We enjoyed a fabulously delicious "Waffle Bar" for breakfast then played one last game of 9 Square.

We then had to say some more goodbyes and be on our way.  

We loved spending time with our Rocknak Family - we'll treasure these memories.

We headed back to the Denver Airport for our flight home.  This was the first flight for Carly, Cameron, Trevor and Jacie.  They all loved it.  Here they are waiting for the shuttle to the airport and waiting for our checked bag to arrive.

Because of Covid regulations - only half the plane was filled so Carly got a whole row to herself!

We had some pretty amazing photos of flying right by Mount Rainier when we got back in to Washington - but the pictures must still be on Matt's phone - it was on his side of the plane.  

It was crazy cool.

We loved our Wyoming Adventures.

That was just the first week of August - here is what went on the rest of the month...

I got some happy news on my side of the family - 2 of my nieces had babies and a nephew got married!

Alissa and her friends made a welcome home banner for her friend's dad who was in the hospital and Matt's niece Kierra returned from her mission and joined the Army!

We took a couple trips up to Mount Rainier.  One was just to be in the majesty of God's creations on a Sunday evening.  The other was a trip at the end of the month we'd hoped could be one last summer adventure before school starts.  We wanted to camp for the weekend but Covid restrictions had closed half the camping spots so they were all unavailable.  So we ended up taking our camping gear for a ride and just spent one day hiking and enjoying the incredible views and friendly wildlife and gorgeous mountain meadows full of wildflowers.  

We hiked on a Glacier View trail up the back of Mount Rainier.  We hiked high enough that we were able to play in the snow at the end of the summer!  

Very friendly wildlife looking for snacks - look at how chubby that one is on Trevor's leg!!

   

It is blackberry season!  These kiddos came with me one morning on my walk and helped pick a good supply of berries to keep in our freezer all winter to enjoy in shakes and such.  

There are blackberry bushes EVERYWHERE around here.

Carly has had aching joints for a full year and we were finally able to get her in to see a rheumatologist at Seattle Children's Hospital.  They determined she has Psoriatic Arthritis (Psoriasis being the main culprit - a type of skin condition that is thought to be an immune system problem).  She now gets to give herself a shot once a week and take some medications that will hopefully ease up the symptoms and make the joint problems go into remission - very high success rate we're told of it doing just that.

Also - Jacie finally got her wish - we got a guest bed and put it in my office so now Jacie has her own room!  She just has to share it with me during the day while I work - haha.  The treadmill ended up in Carly's room so she now can enjoy exercising in her own room.

A random little puppy came wandering up to our house one Saturday morning - the boys fell in love.  They got to play with her for a good 10 minutes before a frantic neighbor came searching for her lost puppy!  

And, finally, this was our second trip to Mount Rainier.  What a gorgeous place we live in.

   

Our epic summer adventures finally came to a close.  Great memories made this year.  We are happy to be able to see the blessings and silver linings that come along with the Covid cloud this year.  Our school year will start with all online learning in September - no physically going back to school yet and we're still not allowed to go to our church either.  

So we get plenty of quality family time and life really is good for us.