Family Reunion 2009

Amanda really liked her bike!!!

Visiting Old Faithful.. with our family and our exchange student from Japan... Yuiko.

We are back from our adventure... in camping. We left Burns Friday morning early for eastern idaho.. and I do mean EASTERN... Our dad Kris packed the U-haul full. (we do need a uhaul to bring tents, gear, sleeping bags, the Costco food, bikes, etc etc).. 10 h0urs or so later we arrived.

Island Park is a beautiful place. We enjoyed visiting the relatives on Kris's side.. cousins, aunts, uncles. The hard part is we don't see our own family enough and we tend to stay with our branch because we love em so much. The older kids really love their cousins, especially Kristina , Logan and Brandon.. We fell asleep after making smores in our tents. Kris, once again, had planned well and we slept on air mattresses.. yeah for him.

....Saturday dawned too early.. and my back really hurt. I missed most of the morning festivities but by afternoon the rain was torrential. (is that a word?) Gma Shirley rescued us and we went to their cabin and I sat in the hot tub)... Amanda loved the hot tub.. i think she went in it the most of anyone. Saturday night we trudged back to camp and sat on rain soaked benches for the family auction.. I bid highest for the tickets to the BYU game.. so we'll be going back to Utah in the fall to let our Cougar Alumni spirit shine through. The auction was fun but the rain put a damper on the talent show and we all fled for the cabin.. (our tents got wet without us) almost 19 of us slept in the cabin that night. I think our exchange student Yuiko was saying prayers of thanks for that.

...Sunday am we cooked everyone breakfast with our Costco stuff. (Thanks for the membership Kev)... and most of the family left.. Then our little crew headed up to beautiful Yellowstone. The weather cleared and we enjoyed seeing Old Faithful. We drove through Montana a few miles and also Wyoming touring through Yellowstone. Old Faithful is great and we walked through the geysers. The girls thought the highlight was when a spectator ran up to the top of Old Faithful and snapped a picture and then was escorted off the property by Park Rangers. They talked about it for hours.

---that night we camped again and had a fire. We played games and had a good time.. The tents were dry and we spent our last night. Yesterday we drove home ... Wiley was so happy to see us..