Heidi comes to visit!

Heidi is my older sister. She is the oldest in the family. She has 3 kids, Paul Jr, Ryan, and EmmaLynn. She and her husband, Paul, are living in Manassas, VA. Heidi is a school teacher for 6th grade, I think.

Since I moved away from Tennessee, I think I've only seen Heidi three times. Three times in 3 years is just not fair. Especially considering that those 3 times were in the first year and a half. She hadn't met Charlotte yet and had only met Ivan when he was 3 months old. We were far overdue for a visit.

She flew out here on Monday the 19. She lives pretty close to DC, so when she was booking her flight, she chose the option for the computer to find the cheapest airport within a certain radius of where she lives. Instead of that actually being true for where her departure, she had put it for her arrival. Instead of flying into Idaho Falls, she flew into Jackson Hole. That's about a hour and a half difference of drive time. That's ok, we were in Alpine, which was only 30-40 minutes away from Jackson anyway, so it worked out better than I thought. Plus I love Jackson and wanted Heidi to see some of it. We got to see the mountains, which is the best part, and we had dinner at the Blue Lion. We even drove through Teton National Park to show off Jenny Lake. I love that place!

This little guy came right up to my foot. 

At Jenny Lake, Teton National Park

That place was really awesome. We had duck cakes, risotto, fancy salads with weird dressings. There was a guy there playing the guitar for a peaceful ambiance. Ivan did not want to be there though. There was a park across the street, so Michael and I took turns taking him there. The restaurant was a little more fancy than we're used to, so I didn't want to have a crying toddler interrupting everyone else's evening. Ivan had the alfredo pasta for dinner. All he did was play with it. He took handfuls of it off his plate and put it on the table. Apparently that was pretty amusing. There was this older couple sitting at the table next to us that just kept laughing every time they looked over at us. They even complimented us as they left, saying that they had never had such an amusing show with their dinner before. Guess they don't have kids.

The next day, Tuesday, we got a baby sitter and headed north. We stopped at Mesa Falls and saw the falls. Then we went to Big Spring and floated the river. Big Spring is pretty much where the Snake River starts. We get there, inflate the tubes, and put them in the river only to look up and see a moose! I'm pretty sure this is the first time Heidi had ever seen a moose, but it sure wasn't the last. She was pretty nervous, but he was headed in the opposite direction from us. We were thinking the float would take us about 2-2.5 hours. So when we started dragging on the bottom of the river and getting stuck on the grass in the water, we decided we needed some help to get us going a little faster, especially since our baby sitter probably didn't want to watch our kids longer than the 5 hours we told her about. Michael got out and fetched us some sticks to paddle with. This was kinda difficult considering we were in tubes, not a raft. And the water was a little cold.

We ran almost the whole way to the falls and the whole way back cuz we were in such a hurry. 

We put our tubes in at Big Springs, which is here, and this is where we saw our first moose! She was on the other side of the river from us though. 

This moose is actually from the last time we went to Mesa Falls, about 2 weeks earlier, but I thought I'd give proof that moose are really big. 

Further down the river, we saw another moose! This time it was a huge bull moose laying down on the bank of the river. The grass was pretty tall there, so you could only see the top of his head and his huge antlers. Let me tell ya, Heidi was scared! We saw it and immediately got to the opposite side of the river, I figured a little more distance couldn't hurt. I'm pretty sure he was asleep, but there was a group of girls behind us that were making all sorts of noise and didn't see the moose until they were right next to him. That was scary. But the moose never moved.

And again, further down the river, we saw another moose! This time the river was getting pretty curvy so we couldn't see very far down river. All we heard was a bunch of splashing. I thought it might have been the group of people in front of us that were in a canoe. Nope, it was a cow moose. She was huge too! She was just getting out of the river when we floated around the bend. She stopped just before getting onto the bank and had her back to us. She watch us the whole time we floated by her. And what seemed like an hour was only a couple minutes just watching each other. This time Heidi was really afraid. She clung to us and tried to push Michael closer to the moose so she would be farther away. I told Heidi to put her life jacket on so that if the moose tried to attack us, then she'd have more padding! Oh, poor thing. The moose never did move. We floated right by like it was nothing but a thing. We watched birds diving into the river to chase muskrats. And when we finally got to the end it was really starting to get cold. We only had one car, so we dropped Michael's bike off at the take out point and used the car to take the tubes to where we started the float. Then at the end, Michael rode his bike back to get the car and bring it around for the tubes. The float ended up taking us more like 3 and a half hours, but it was so so fun!

We built a fort in the living room for Ivan to play in on Wednesday. He loves Heidi so much! He built a block tower with her, then asked me to take a picture of it. I showed Heidi around town a little bit and we just hung out all day. We did get to go shopping in Idaho Falls. I showed Heidi the miracle of the DI and we found some sweet deals there.

Ivan LOVES Heidi!

They built a block tower together and Ivan asked to take a picture with it. 

Thursday Heidi had to be back at the airport at 2. We got up early and went through part of Yellowstone. We got to see Old Faithful and some of the hot pools of the geyser basin. We saw lots of buffalo, some elk, antelope, and a chipmunk (well, that was technically on Monday, but close enough).

Bacteria mat from the Grand Prismatic Spring.

Fountain Paint Pots

We've seen this steam vent several times and never really looked twice at it. It's pretty much just a hole in the ground. This time, it was whistling like a tea pot, super loud and more like a train whistle. 

Heidi was super excited to see Old Faithful. 

Buffalo

Antelope

The Tetons, with Mt. Moran being the big one in the middle. 

Camping with the Jarquez's

Michael's Aunt Cindy and Uncle Tom have got to be some of my favorite people ever. This year, they invited us to go camping with them in Alpine, WY. I love camping. Michael loves camping. Ivan loves dirt. And Charlotte loves me, so we were all set to spend a couple days in the middle of nowhere.

We had been having some car troubles and didn't get there as early as we hoped. But the drive sure was beautiful. And our campsite was this little spot along a gravel road in the mountains right by a creek.

We hiked up the mountain across from our campsite the first night we were there. Cindy watched Charlotte for us. That white speck in the background is one of the camper trailers of our group.

We were the only ones there in a tent. Everybody else had a camper. It still gets pretty cold at night here, even in the hottest month of the year. Ivan had warm pajamas and plenty of warm blankets, but he was pretty scared to sleep in the tent so that made things a little harder. When we camped with Michael's family, Ivan kept climbing out of his pack and play, so we didn't even bring it this time. He had all sorts of padding on the ground and blankets on top, but he's such a restless sleeper that any time he moved, the blankets would come off and he would wake up from being cold. So that meant he was on the air mattress with me and Michael. He kept laying on my face and pushing me off the bed. Ugh, it was bad. So the second night we tried something new. I slept on the ground with him. That was better, much better. Didn't feel as good on my back in the morning, but at least I got half a good night's sleep which was probably 3 times as much as I had the night before. Charlotte did remarkably well. We doubled her jammies, swaddled her, and covered her with a blanket and she slept til she was hungry.

The view of the drive from Alpine to Jackson. The river down to the right had a ton of people rafting in it. Maybe next time.

So we got there on Friday, later in the evening. Saturday we went as a big group to Yellowstone. We drove in through Jackson Hole, which is always a pleasure, up through the Tetons and through a small part of the park. We saw Old Faithful and some of the geyser basin. On our way to the park we stopped in Jackson to get more walkie talkies. So we could walkie and talkie. Or drive and talk. That made for good fun on the drive. :]

A much needed stop to see the Tetons. 

Sunday was a hang out day. We rode the four wheelers around, and took Ivan with us, cuz he loves the four wheelers. He had a little helmet on him. We debated for a bit whether to let him wear it or not because it was really heavy. But he liked it, so he wore it. Ivan sat in front with Michael driving and me riding on back. About ten minutes into the ride, Michael slows down a bit and tells me Ivan's helmet must be too heavy because his head keeps dropping. So I look around at Ivan and he's fast asleep. Silly kid. He fell asleep riding a four wheeler. So I put him between me and Michael and we kept riding! I figured this was the only way we would get Ivan to take a nap while we were camping without driving in the car somewhere. We had a pretty good time too. Ivan stayed asleep for almost the whole drive, which was a little over an hour. And any nap is better than no nap at all in my book. We had a nice little Sunday get together with those who wanted to be there and talked about our Savior. It was nice to know you can feel like you're at church when you add the Spirit and witnesses of the gospel anywhere.

This is the first time Ivan has actually paid any attention to Old Faithful going off. He thought it was really cool and kept saying "water, water, whoa!"

He thought the steam coming off the hot pools was cool, but climbing on the railing was much more fun. 

Grand Canyon of Yellowstone

On our way out of the park we saw evidence of a fire! Must have been a big one. 

Ivan and his cousin, or some kind of cousin ish relative, Carson. They had a blast together! Carson is about 4 and he is such a sweetheart. They played well, shared, and dug in the dirt a whole awful lot. 

The whole camping gang. 

Monday we packed up and headed out. We went to Jackson to pick up my sister, Heidi from the airport, but that's a whole different story!

The O'Neils

Brenda and Gavin got married last week, on the 3rd! Congrats you guys! The ceremony was beautiful and the sealer said some really amazing things. I think that's the best wedding I've ever been to!

We had a reception for them on Saturday in Aberdeen. They had an outdoor set up at Janet and Craig's house and I thought it turned out really well.

Janet has a tradition where she makes quilts for each of her children when they get married. The blue one is what Janet made for Brenda and Gavin. I think the red, black, and white one was made by Brenda's grandma, Janet's mom. 

This is the cake Janet decorated, she was going to make a cake, but ended up doing a fake cake and simply decorating it. That way Brenda could have the raspberry cake and the nice decorated cake could be made way in advance. 

Ivan got to play with his cousins, or second cousins? or maybe second cousins once removed? Whatever. They are related somehow. Michael's cousin (Kimberly) has kids (Kambree and Hunter) and Ivan loves them!

Dance party!

Ivan saw Kambree pushing the wooden swing and thought he might have a try. Guess pulling is harder than pushing. Kambree did end up pushing the swing right when Ivan walked by and he got hit in the face with the corner of the swing. That blood curdling cry will never leave my memory. He got his in the eye and cheek and was pretty bruised the next day. But a popsicle and some ice cubes made him all better. He had fun putting the ice on his face and kept putting it on other people's faces too. Then he just ate the ice.  

Apparently headbands make for good eye masks.

 I love this little girl!

Michael showing Ivan how to have a good time.

Michael showing Ivan how to have a good time upside down.

Brenda and Craig.

Woo-hoo! Congrats you guys!

A Day with the Quirl's

I work on campus as an adjunct faculty member with BYU-Idaho. I have been working with the Animal Science department at the livestock center which is a few miles out of town. I mainly work with the animal anatomy and physiology classes and the teacher for that is Dr Zeph Quirl. He was a veterinarian at Upper Valley, a clinic here in town. He's a pretty cool guy, most teachers in the animal science dept are. He has a couple horses and told us we were welcome to come visit him over the summer break. So we did.

We rode his horses for a bit and the four wheelers. Then we had an awesome lunch, burgers, salad, fruit, brownies. Yup, it was awesome.

Michael and Dr Quirl took the horses out first. And a dog came chasing after them.

It's nice working for someone that's easy to get along with. And easy to pick on, especially since he picks on all of his TAs all the time!

Ivan really loved being on the horse. 

And he really loved the dogs too.

He was as still as could be up there by himself. He thought he might fall off, but he wouldn't let me take him off.

And he loved the four wheelers! He kept saying whoa, whoa, whoa, repeatedly for 5 minutes at a time. Super excited. And he ate grapes while we drove.

Ivan wasn't entertained enough by us eating lunch, so he played Uno Attack. And every time the thing spit cards out at him, he jumped, and laughed, and did it again.