july 24-august 3.2008
We made our trek out to Utah/Idaho/Montana, which we haven’t been back to visit in six years, for two family reunions on the Olson side. We eventually got out there after a day full of plane delays, and drove up to Inkom, Idaho the first night. Wow, how beautiful. We enjoyed two days with Mike and Bev, and their sweet kids, riding horses, holding puppies, four wheeling, going on walks, watching movies, playing games, cooking, eating, and having just some plain good ‘ol fun! An old high school friend, Becky Christensen, was able to come over and visit with her kids too, it was so great to see all these friends on this trip!
We then stayed in a hotel with Jarom’s immediate family for two days, and in there was Jarom’s mother’s side(McNabb) family reunion, a baby blessing for Jarom’s brother and wife, swimming, and a pizza party. We then headed on Monday to Island Park for Jarom’s father’s side family reunion in Idaho, and stayed there until Friday. What did we do, well, boating, swimming, went to a play, went to Yellowstone and saw ‘Old Faithful’, me and Madison and Alex did a five mile float down the Snake River which was awesome, and saw lots of moose!, fishing, marshmallow fights, and other stuff, not including the stressful stuff! Don’t want to whine, it’s vacation, right?
Friday we headed back down to Utah, and visited lots of good old friends. Rachael Ford and her family(we were out in Massachusetts at the same time, we moved to California together, and grew up in neighboring towns), and Cathy Tolman and her family(we went to high school together). We were in Utah of course, so had to squeeze in between visits Deseret Book, where we got fresh white garments, needed, and the little girls their full set of scriptures. I heard someone say, why wait until they are eight, they need to be learning how to use and read out of them now, so we did it, and Madison just carries and reads those things almost as much as she eats food, which is a lot! We stayed the weekend with Jarom’s sister Julie and her family.
Saturday, we enjoyed a nice french toast breakfast, and the girls loved playing with Tucker. We got ready, and Jarom took the girls and Tucker to the BYU bookstore, which is the only thing he really wanted to get to, and Julie and I took the babies and went shopping, to some really cute boutiques I might add. Utah really has great shopping, with all the very talented people there! We then headed to visit a couple more friends, Anne-Marie Bishop(she and I were nannies in Boston and met there, and she gave us a tour of Rome last year, she was living there and we were on a cruise porting there), the Wilkey’s, (who were in our ward in WV, and moved to Utah a year ago) and had an amazing, I would say, gourmet dinner with creme broule and enjoyed the beautiful scenery from their house high on the mountain top!, and then Linda Rigg’s, who was also in our ward and moved a year ago to Utah and is currently serving a mission in Salt Lake. We then headed back and got to visit with Daniel and Julie for awhile, went to bed, packed for the fifth time in a week, payed $240 dollars because we had three bags over the weight limit(dang money grabbers-delta-you stink!), and headed home! What a whirlwind, fun, stressful adventure. We made some fun memories!