Wide Open Spaces

The Family Reunions--

It's that time of year again--family reunion time. Every year Marc's extended family holds family reunions up in the Bear Lake Valley in the south east corner of Idaho. His mom's side of the family has their reunion on the last Saturday of July, his dad's side on the first Saturday of August. It works out perfectly since both of his parents grew up in the same small town and their parents--all still alive and in good humor--are still living there now. Last year we didn't make the trip because I was 7 1/2 months preggo, so this year, even though Marc is in the middle of his internship and studying for his boards, we took the 8 hour (10 hours with kids) drive through the wide open spaces of Wyoming into the wide open spaces of south eastern Idaho. Both reunions were held at Bear Lake with the highlights being a fried chicken lunch complete with homemade root beer and lots of cookies to which Carter helped himself to lots, a "guess how many candies are in the jar" game, (this year between the two reunions, we won 4 jars of candy which makes up for not ever winning in the previous 5 years. Carter was lucky enough to win the exact jar he had been eyeing!), and kayaking in the lake. Yes, the reunions were practically identical this year, though we usually have the first one at the lake and the second one at the cabins--Marc's family and his aunt and uncles family have cabins practically next to each other near Emigration Canyon. Yes, these were family reunions, but unfortunately we didn't get to see much of Carter's cousins. I guess with growing families and busy schedules, it is getting more difficult to get everyone together at the same time. We did enjoy the few minutes we had to see them, though.

A Visit to Grandma & Grandpa's

We spent the week that was flanked by the reunions at Grandma and Grandpa's house doing what there is to do in a small farming town of 2500. (Picture it, looking out the window and seeing your cousin driving a big old tractor down the highway that runs through town--that's one thing that happened this week. We're definitely not in Kansas anymore, Toto!) Every time I'm in Montpelier, I think of the movie Cars and every time I see Cars I think of Montpelier. The town is small and though many of the businesses on Main Street seem to be flourishing, there are also a lot of boarded up brick buildings and I, like Sally, try to imagine it when it was in its prime, though I'm not sure any of the businesses ever had neon signs. Pretty much what is to be done is done outside. Carter spent time with Dad and Grandpa four wheeling, shooting BB guns (I just found that out this morning when we were looking at our pictures from last week!), riding a peddle boat around a reservoir, riding around the back yard on a riding lawn mower and trying to feed the horse in G & G's back yard, only to find out after many days of trying--the silly horse didn't eat carrots or sugar cubes, only grass. What horse won't eat a carrot? On Tuesday we made a quick trip to Rexburg to see Aunt Allison who is going to BYU-I up there. I'd never been to Rexburg so I wanted to see it before she graduates next year and I'd never have a good excuse to go there again. While there, G & G Baer were driving through on their way to a family reunion in Washington so we all had a pizza picnic in the park before heading back down to Montpelier. Carter also got to play around in Marc's uncles tractor collection--he has like 30 or something--while he cleaned out his barns and see some cool caves. Carter came down with croup midway through the week which thwarted a few of the other plans we had made. He moped around and wheezed and coughed while we tried to make him comfortable. Grandpa finally called the local doc to see if we could make a visit. He kindly just called in a prescription which saved us a lot of money. I guess small town kindness is definitely a perk. The highlight of my week was learning a new knit stitch which will help me along with one of my projects I have on a back burner--knitting Christmas stockings like the ones I grew up having. It might sound lame, but I'm super excited about that! We headed back last night and got in super late. Unfortunately Anderson came down with croup during the trip but it seems to be a more mild case so we're spending th

e day trying to recoup and get ready for a few more long weeks of internship before Marc gets his first paycheck. (yea!) Despite bad sunburns and the croup we really had a great vacation--we feel like we've been gone for months in just one week.