Family Reunion

Here's the picture I tried earlier.  I got it from my kids' second cousin's facebook page.  Ha!

It was delightful for me to spend time with Adam’s extended family. I got to meet some of his cousins from Georgia that I’d never met before.

I’ve been missing out.

During the days we would all go about on our various adventures, reporting on our escapades and comparing photos from the day each evening. We did karaoke, introduced our children to each other (who mostly took to each other instantly), ate a lot of good food, talked about old times, missed Linn, and the last night, a few of us sat around the table talking and crying happy and sad tears.

Phew.

There’s just something about family.

And I’m blessed that Adam’s extended family (on both sides) are kind and wonderful people who have taken me in. They include me. They insist I stand in the cousin picture too. They make me laugh. They make me glad I married Adam.

(And I didn’t even need another reason.)

In All Fairness

I should warn you that I am the type of person that really likes to look at other people's vacation pictures.  I would have been very enthusiastic in the days when people showed slide shows in their living rooms after a trip.

Also, this is SUCH an easy way to scrapbook...

Here are some more random pictures from our trip (and not even all of them...I may be back tomorrow with more...will you forgive me?).

Here's Mark in the loft of our cabin.  He was either running around with a stick casting Harry Potter spells on everyone, building forts in the loft, or asleep.  The kid doesn't have many settings.

We saw this waterfall in The Grand Canyon of Yellowstone:

me, Emma and Braeden

Emma and I bought hats to keep our hair from beating us to death in the wind.

We hiked down to the top of the waterfall:

 

It was impressive and terrifying in its power and magnitude (and the fact that the railing stopped a little earlier than I was comfortable with).

Emma looked cuter in her hat than I did:

This is in the beautiful Old Faithful Inn:

It reminded Mark of Hogwarts (he's big into Harry Potter right now).  I captured him for a picture before he could run away into the Chamber of Secrets.

Why, yes, I was tired.  Why do you ask?

And speaking of tired, this was sometime after white water rafting.  A tremendous yawn:

My three babies.

Their smiling in the sunshine faces and melted ice cream dribbled shirts make me happy.

They're all the reason why.

My Mountain Goats

One day we hiked to Mystic Falls.

I got sunburned a little.

It happens when you start out sort of ghostly white and highly reflective.

We hiked up and up and up.  (Huffing and puffing 6000 feet higher in altitude than we're used to.)

Mark asked me,  "Mom?  Am I your little mountain goat?"

I said, "Yes."

At the end of the hike, the aquatic devotees just had to dip their feet in a little river.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhh

The Day I Didn't Die

front row: Jackson, Ahlea, Mark and Talia; middle row: Ashton, Braeden, Geri, Emma, Tice, Jamie, Me and Megan; back row: Kain, Adam and Brian

I was terrified to go white water rafting.  Terrified.  I had trouble sleeping the night before.  I tried to figure out a way to get out of it.  I lamented my lapse in judgment.  Why had I decided to go?


Why?

Among death and dismemberment (and the release they had me sign didn't help much) my fears included being cold.  I don't like to be cold. 


They had wet suits.  Hurray!  I asked if I could wear one. The guide gave me a skeptical/pitying look and said, "If you want to..." 


I did.

 it took all of our best efforts to get me squeezed into the wet suit--and by squeezed, I mean I felt like Scarlet O'Hara

I was the nerd of all four rafts, the only one in a wet suit.  But I was a warm nerd.

 

Emma had a LITTLE more enthusiasm than I did.

Contrary to my fears, I loved white water rafting (granted we had a fairly easy run...nothing over a level 3 which means nothing to me but it's the lingo I picked up).  It was just the right amount of exhilaration and adventure for my cowardly self.

that's me, in the baseball cap

Here's Braeden "riding the bull" with his feet out in front and one hand on the "chicken line".  I didn't ride the bull.  In case you were wondering.

Mark decided he loves to row.  He kept trying to get the guide to have us use the paddles.  The guide (in the purple and yellow hat) let the kids try the big oars at the back of the raft.

There were heroics:  Adam pulled Talia out of the roiling water when she fell off the raft while "riding the bull".


There was teasing:  Braeden let this little bug that landed crawl all over him.  Mostly because it had made his cousins squeal in horror.  Braeden named the bug Sterence...then it flew away.

There was plenty of water for Braeden and Emma:  they swam the last mile, bobbing over the rapids while my heart palpitated and I worried for their safety.

Here's Emma:  diving in, unable to resist all that water.

Mark did his best to terrify me by standing on the edge of the raft while the water was calm.  I knew he can (sorta) swim.  I knew Adam would reach in and save him.  Still.  I've spent a lot of time and energy in keeping my kids alive.  It's hard to abandon those instincts even when Mark thought he was terribly clever.

That's Adam's hand.  I kept saying, "Grab him Adam."  Adam kept disobeying but he did keep his hand there for my benefit.

I have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened.

Mark Twain

I spend way too much of my life worrying about what might happen when it usually turns out just fine.


Someday I'll learn my lesson but in the meantime, it's nice to be surprised when I don't suffer a watery death with my head bashed in from a sharp rock.

I made it!

America the Beautiful

Maybe nothing like visiting an iconic national park makes you appreciate your country.  It’s famous for a reason.  Bee-yoo-ti-ful.

America’s not without it’s problems though.

Take American cheese for example. What an embarrassment.

Then there're those hand dryers in public restrooms.  Is that the best we can do?  Really?

When we visited Old Faithful, there were droves of people.  Diverse people.  And if there's a fashion police, they don't know about the crowds at Old Faithful.

Yikes.

Talk about ugly Americans.

I saw hosts of socks and sandals, some just-because-they-make-it-in-your-size-doesn't-mean-you-should-wear-it, and determined looking souls with big floppy hats and fanny packs.

The winner was a man with flip flops, camo cropped cargo pants, a jacket with buckskin looking trim, a plastic bead necklace and a mullet.

Awesome.

Just when I was starting to despair about my country, I joined the line for the ladies room that formed as soon as Old Faithful worked its magic.  There was a little girl--about 4 or 5 years old-- that seriously needed to go to the bathroom.  She was dancing around in a panic.  The women in front of her said, "Oh, honey, you go ahead of us."  The little girl looked at her mom who gave her the go-ahead and all up the line, women hustled the little girl along.  She needed to go.

The good women of America understood.

I also noticed that wherever we were, if there was a family assembled with a camera, at least ten people would stop and ask, "Can I take your family's picture?"

Americans are generally a very kind group.

I'm proud to be one of them.

Grandma Geri

Every trip has a hero.  Every family has a hero.

I really can't say much about our trip (and remember how narcissistic and a-lot-to-say I am?) without first giving a nod to Grandma Geri.

Adam's mom.

She treated us all to a fabulous cabin with beds and rooms for everyone.

She organized and planned and shopped for and transported all the food.

(And we had good food.)

And most nights, we had a lot of people...extended family gathering in our cabin, bringing their offerings to share.  Because everyone knows a great hostess when they see one.  Everyone wanted to be in the sunshine of Geri's welcoming greeting and accommodating here's-a-plate-here's-the-line-get-some-food.

That's not all though.  Geri made sure everyone had a good time.  It's exhausting to have that much fun and when edges got frayed, she smoothed them.

One night she knocked softly on my bedroom door and hugged me and comforted me.  My edges were sorely frayed.

I don't know how she does all that she does.  What I do know is that I'm grateful.  And I love her.

Mother love is the fuel that enables a normal human being to do the impossible.  

~Marion C. Garretty

Back Online

I've come full circle to the same hotel I wrote from last Saturday.  Our trip is drawing to a close (we'll be home tomorrow) and we are happy and sunburned and exhausted.

I'm brimming with pictures to post and words to write.  I'm narcissistic like that.

For now, I feel kind of like this guy.

Rough around the edges.  (My hair may or may not resemble his too.)