July 2024

 We had a fun 4th of July celebration with games, a BBQ and fireworks with Devin, Levi, Nora, Kassie, Autumn and Teddy joining us. 

The next day, Megan and Mitch came and left Evan with us for the next several days while they took a trip to Iceland with some friends. They had a really good time with their friends in Iceland and we had an even better time with Evan.

After Megan and Mitch were back, we went to Bear Lake for our first ever family reunion with just our own kids, their spouses/significant others and children, and our "adopted" daughter, Crystal Oliverson. We had a great week together! The first night, we had family photos taken at the lake, Here are just a few of our favorites:

The next day, we drove to and toured through Minnetonka caves. We had a great time seeing all of the cave formations and got some good exercise going up and down so many stairs. 

Wednesday was lake day!! We rented a couple of Sea doos and had so much fun playing and floating on the gorgeous lake - the water there is crazy beautiful!! We all had a really great day, especially Evan who couldn't get enough of the sand and water.

We also drove the slightly sketchy unmaintained dirt road to the trailhead for Bloomington Lake and then hiked to this beautiful lake. The bravest of us did the rope swing into the lake and some hiked around the like to be able to jump off of some rock cliffs into the lake. So fun!

In the evenings, we shared individual power point presentations on a great variety of topics, did an ABBA trivia game (courtesy of Levi) and also a family trivia night. We also played a lot of games and ate a lot of really good food, and of course ate a lot of raspberry shakes. And on the last morning, Nora, Kassie and I got up super early to watch the sunrise over the lake. Totally worth the early wake up call. :) It was a really good week!

After our Bear Lake trip, Bryce and I took Devin and Levi to "The Nutty Professor" at Hale Center Theater, which was so good. We also took Evan to the zoo for the first time and he loved seeing all of the animals, but wanted to know why he couldn't go in the enclosures with them. :)

That's it for our July. After being here for nearly a month, Megan, Mitch and Evan have returned to their own home in Boise and it is tidy, quiet and a little sad at our house.