Grandma's 90th Birthday

Ryan's Grandma Fooks is turning 90 next month, so we headed up to Alberta, Canada for a celebration in her honor before school starts back up for all the great-grandchildren.

FRIDAY
After Ryan worked in the morning, we drove the 7 hours in the afternoon to Billings, MT to spend the night. It was the first time we've spent the night with all four kids in a traditional hotel room. They've stayed in VRBO homes and condos but never a regular hotel room. It was funny to hear their comments. It was a nice, brand-new hotel, so they still got spoiled. We got it for free on Marriott Rewards points, so SCORE!

The pull-out bed literally touched the queen bed. We have a lot of people in our family now! 

Won't be much longer before Kate doesn't fit on the couch cushions on the floor

   
SATURDAY
We headed to Great Falls, MT (about 3 hours away) where we stopped at the airport to pickup Ryan's youngest sister, Mallory, who had flown in from Atlanta.

There was a little area with old planes to wander around while we waited for her plane. It was a good wiggle spot.

After picking her up, we headed for the border, which went without a hitch, except that at the last minute of packing I'd convinced Ryan to bring our paddle boards, so we had to go to a separate place to have our "watercraft" inspected. It was silly, but we do what we are told.

We got to Lethbridge about 5pm and headed to the home we were staying at. It was owned by Ryan's mom's sister's husband's sister, so of course we totally didn't know them. It was the perfect basement though, with two master bedrooms, a kitchenette, family room and play room. Ryan's mom and sister showed up a bit later (they'd already been in town a few days from Vancouver), and we headed to Grandma's house to see her. When Ryan's older sister from Boise got into town, we all went to a sit-down Chinese restaurant (a tradition, but I think it was about 8pm at this point, so the kids were TIRED) to eat dinner. It was a long, busy day.

SUNDAY
Everyone attended sacrament meeting with Grandma Fooks in her 9 o'clock ward. She bore her testimony and expressed her appreciation to all of us for coming from so far to celebrate with her. It was nice.

After a nice nap, we headed back to the church. There was a nice family dinner, a movie in Grandma's honor and family pictures. At dinner, Collin said he thought it would be nice if they let the family go first to get food from the buffet line. I laughed because the large church cultural hall was half-full, and we were all family! He had no idea he was related to everyone there!

After the family time, there was an open house with cake and punch for all of Grandma's friends. It went flawlessly.

Grandma has always been proud of her iconic red glasses, so Ryan's mom made everyone a pair of their own.

So all the family sported their red glasses all evening. 

MONDAY
We picked up Grandma and headed to Waterton, the Canadian portion of Glacier National Park.

We stopped on the way at the Cardston temple. Ryan's parents and grandparents were both sealed here, so it plays a big role in our eternal family. Ryan and I wanted to do a session during this trip, but it was closed for its annual cleaning. Next time!
Side Note: Grandma Fooks' mother posed as the model for Mary, Mother of Jesus, in the mural at the veil here. 

When we got to Waterton, it was super crowded, and no one really anticipated that. It was their family's tradition to eat meatloaf sandwiches at Pass Creek each summer. So... we had meatloaf sandwiches at Pass Creek!

Ryan's mom Lori, Grandma Fooks, and Ryan's Aunt Shan

The kids waded in the water and threw rocks. They played in the sand and tried to build a rock-bridge. We walked to a waterfall, played on a playground and got ice cream too.

Monday evening we stayed in a VRBO house near Waterton.

TUESDAY
Ryan's immediate family broke off from the Canadians this day, and we headed back to the States this morning. We drove to St Mary's Falls on the east side of Glacier National Park. It was mid-afternoon before we arrived, so we had trouble parking the three cars in our caravan. The sun was also super intense for the 3-mile hike, but the falls were BEAUTIFUL!

Collin, whose natural element is in nature

Ryan's mom broke her wrist at girl's camp just a few weeks earlier (so bad she had to have surgery to have a plate put in), but she was a real trooper. Ethan lost his water bottle down into the rushing river too, but we didn't lose any kids, so I'll call that a win!

After our hike, we headed to Logan Pass, where we again had to search for parking. We checked out the visitor center and nature trails.

Then we headed to Columbia Falls, MT. Ryan's mom's childhood best friend has a vacation home there, and she graciously let us all come and stay with her. When we arrived at 6pm, she had taco salad all ready for dinner. It was perfect.

So I did a fair amount of complaining after we visited Yellowstone last year and didn't see ONE bear. We did the drive-thru bear display near Mt Rushmore just for that reason. BUT, on this day, I saw THREE bears in the wild. We saw a baby and its mom while driving over Logan Pass, AND we saw this bear standing in the front yard of the house we were staying in MT. Win, Win, WIN!

WEDNESDAY
This was our lake day. Ryan's whole family headed to Whitefish Beach, which was only about 1/2 hour from Judy's home. There were 6 adults and 13 kids with us! I'm so glad we had our kayak, paddle boards and sand toys. It was hot, but it was a perfect, relaxing day. We had a great time on the water, and I didn't even get sunburned! The boys collected some beautiful rocks too.

Kate LOVES water, sand and rocks. 

She couldn't have been any happier! 

THURSDAY
Ryan really wanted to go back into Glacier, so our family got up early and left by 6am to make the one-hour drive back to the west-side of the park. The parking lot was filling up already by 7am, but we found a spot to hike Avalanche Lake.

"Avalanche Lake Falls"

This hike left me speechless! It starts with a nature trail on a boardwalk with the most amazing waterfall I've ever seen. I don't even think it has its own name, but we decided to call it Avalanche Falls because it was fed by the lake of the same name. 

After leaving the 1-mile boardwalk, the trail gets harder. (It's rated Moderate in my AllTrails app.) It follows along the river for a while, and it laces through dense forest of TALL trees. The wildflowers are amazing. The layer upon layer of mountain-walls off in the distance were awesome, and the variety of shades in green can't be described.

I LOVED this hike. It ends at a pristine mountain lake.

All told, we hiked 7-1/2 miles. I was so proud of my kids. Kate basically rode in the backpack, but Ethan (still only 4yo) walked 99% of it. It was a great morning.

We were already headed back to the house by 10am, so we met Ryan's family for lunch at a burger place. Then we headed to the Whitefish Mountain Resort. We rode the HOT gondola up to the top of the mountain and checked out the nature center up there. Then we came back down on the open ski-benches (much cooler).

We all rode the alpine slide, which would have been fun if Brennan hadn't taken the "slow" signs so literally. :-) We'll have to try that activity again in Park City next summer.
                            
By this point, our kiddos were REALLY dragging (and let's be honest - so was I!), so we stopped at a grocery store to grab hot dogs for dinner and headed back to the house. We tried to head to bed early.

FRIDAY
Our drive home started at 4:15am. Originally, we were going to split the drive in half - like on the way up - but then I was invited to attended a leadership conference with Elder Uchtdorf on Saturday, and I didn't want to miss it. So, we knew we had 14 hours ahead of us, and we wanted to be on the rode at 5am.

Everything was going fine, and all four kids were even asleep, when a deer rammed into our van about 6:15am. We fared better than the deer did, since we saw her lying in the road with our side-view mirror at her side.

We were uninjured, but the windshield was another story. It was SHATTERED.

We didn't have a cell signal, so we drove another hour until we got to a small town. Ryan had to hang his head over the center console to see out, and left bends in the road were pretty scary. Each time we hit a little bump in the road, tiny shards of glass tinkled down into his lap and on the dash. When the sun came up, it was all sparkly, like a firework. It could have been pretty, but it wasn't. We tried to joke that our van was now bedazzled, but it was really very scary and stressful.

When we finally talked to the insurance company, we decided that we could drive the car home (without a side mirror and with a bashed-in driver-side sliding door), but we knew we needed a new windshield ASAP. The only company with same-day service available was another hour away IN THE WRONG DIRECTION. So... we headed to Missoula, MT.

When we arrived at the glass place at 9:30am, they told us it'd take until 11:30 to get the work done. As I unpacked the kids, I asked directions to the waiting area, but he told me they didn't have one. I about died. Luckily, another employee pointed us in the direction of an elementary school playground, so we spent the next two hours fooling around there. Three hundred dollars and a piece of tape over the whistling hole created by the missing mirror later, and we finally got back on the road at 12 noon. We'd been awake for 8 hours, and we still had 12 hours of more travel ahead of us.

All went well until about 7pm. The kids were done. Ryan and I were DONE, and we still had FIVE hours to go. There was some screaming, hitting and definitely some crying. We got home 2 minutes before midnight (remember that we'd woken up at 4am?!), and we were asleep by 12:30. I only unpacked enough to hang up my wrinkled, most-comfy dress for my morning meeting, and we were all out.

CONCLUSION
The training with Elder Uchtdorf was AMAZING! Seeing Grandma and Ryan's family was WONDERFUL as well. Glacier National Park is BEAUTIFUL too. We had a great trip, minus all the hassle with the deer and the van. This week we are haggling with the insurance company about getting the van fixed (they say it isn't totalled, but we think they are underestimating the repair costs, so we are getting independent quotes. It's fun, lol). But we are safe, happy and home, and school starts Tuesday. Yikes!

Mount Rushmore

Happy 4th of July from Sylvan Lake - Custer State Park, SD! 

* * *

Our week of tent-camping in Yellowstone went so well last year, we decided to try another location for this summer.

Six people, 5 days. That's a lot of stuff! But my Tetris-super-hero got it all in or on top. 

TUESDAY
We drove 4 hours to the Mammoth Site at Hot Springs, SD.

Basically a long time ago, there was a sink hole here filled with water. The young, adolescent males used to go and drink at the edge, and many fell in and drowned. They've found the remains of 61 so far, and not a single female among them.

In the 1970s, a developer wanted to build a neighborhood here and as they started digging, bones were found. They stopped, and years later decided to build this structure on top of the dig site to protect the remains. And so they can offer expensive year-round tours to people coming to the area to see Mount Rushmore. ;-) 

Miss Kate, ready for office work like all her Morello aunts

We drove the rest of the way to our campsite in Custer State Park. After setting up on new 12-man tent (it's as huge as you are imagining and totally awesome!), we took our new-to-us paddle boards down to the lake and played in the sand and water.

Dinner was roasting hot dogs over the fire, but as the thunder rolled in and the lightning neared, we shoved all the dogs into the flames really quick and took cover in the tent. As we ate dinner, the rain, HAIL and lightning shook everything around us. Good thing our tent was big enough for us to eat inside!

WEDNESDAY - Fourth of July
After pancakes, sausage & bacon for breakfast, we headed to the Cathedral Spires trailhead. To get there, we drove down the Needles Highway, which was scary and beautiful all at once. The hike wast 3 miles among beautiful landscape.

All was fine and dandy, until...

...disaster struck (or a teeny, tiny scrap on the knee).

After the hike, we headed to Mount Rushmore. It was crowded, but not as bad as we expected. I find this particular landmark a bit disappointing, but we got ice cream and walked around awhile.

After resting back at the campground, we headed to Custer for dinner and fireworks. It is such a small town, but the kids had never seen a firework show before, so it was perfect for us. Kate curled up on my chest with noise-cancelling headphones on, but she didn't cry at all.

THURSDAY
After breakfast burritos warmed over the fire, and then we were off to Bear Country USA. So neat!

The Three Billy Goats Gruff with their Three Trolls
Collin started feeling sick in the car, so we pulled over to get him some fresh air, and there were all these mountain goats playing on the mountain-side.

Bear Country USA is a drive-thru zoo, so all our pictures are taken through the car windows, which were up and locked. ;-)  

After the driving portion, there's a portion where you can get out and walk-around. That's where all the babies were. 

While we were there, the weather turned cool and cloudy, so we decided to head straight to Jewel Cave instead of going swimming. All the tours were full though, so we got tickets for later and headed back to the campground for naps. Then we drove back to Jewel Cave for the world's most disappointing "tour." Mommy-planning fail.

Dinner was spaghetti & meatballs followed by banana boats.

FRIDAY
Breakfast today was granola and yogurt. We hiked 3-mile Horse thief Lake. So pretty! Lots of waterfalls and neat rock features.

After resting, we headed to the lake for paddle boarding, swimming and sand castle building. It was hot, so it was the perfect thing. Dinner was chicken quesadillas followed by smores.

SATURDAY
We were up about 6:30am tearing down camp. Six people worth of mats, cots, sleeping bags, etc is a lot of clean up! We had the tent down and were on the road about 9:30am. Breakfast was poptarts while in motion, lol. We were trying to hurry back for Collin to go to a good friend's birthday party at 3:30, and we made it with even enough time for him to shower the camping grit off. :-)

All in all, we had our horrible, awful, terrible melt-downs and fighting mingled with the beauty and awesomeness of family time in nature. I guess that's just real-life.

We are already choosing our camping destination for next year. We are thinking we should stay "home" and do Rocky Mountain National Park the right way, instead of always only doing random Saturdays there scattered throughout the year. Stay tuned!

Spring Break '18 - St George

We left Saturday morning at 4am - Ryan and I woke up at 3am! We wanted to beat the ski traffic at Vail, and we were successful. We also knew the forecast for snow starting in Vail at 5am, so it was coming down when we got there, but the roads weren't covered yet.

Because we had left so early (even though we were wasted tired!), we decided this was a good chance to swing by Bryce. We didn't hike or stay long, but we got to walk the Sunset Overlook to the Sunrise Overlook. What an amazing place. We'll have to camp and hike another time.

Sunday we attended my parents Over-55 Branch for Church. Kate and the boys all attended a mini-primary (they were the only kids and all in one group), but they did great and everyone loved them.

Monday we headed to Red Cliffs for some sand-hiking. The kids got to scramble around on some rocks and through some holes. They loved it!

Tuesday we hiked to some petroglyphs in Santa Clara. It was a mile walk through some ugly desert-scape, but the ancient drawing were fun to look at. We were glad it wasn't hotter.

Tuesday afternoon Ryan and I headed to Las Vegas to get some alone time. We had dinner (we always do Italian when we are being reminiscent) in the New York, New York and saw Ka at the MGM Grand. We love Cirque du Soliel shows. Afterwards, we grabbed some yummy mini-cakes. It was warm, and we sat in the hot tub for a while too. We watched the lights over the Strip while eating our treats in the Grand Chateau hotel.

Wednesday morning my parents took the kids to the best park (Thunder Junction). We had breakfast at the Bellagio, checked out the current garden exhibit and blown glass. We also grabbed Krispy Kremes to bring back and hopped in the car to return. It was a perfect 24-hours away.

We sprinkled in golf cart time, picnics at playgrounds, and walks around the neighborhood too. It was a great trip. The kids did awesome, and I don't even think Grandma & Grandpa wanted to kill them when we left! Win-win.