Visiting Hometown America

Aly..As soon as I got home from the river trip, I was on a plane bound for Cleveland, Ohio. I remember as we flew into the city, I turned to the guy next to me and asked him what the big body of water was. He looked at me kind of funny and said Lake Erie! I know they call them the Great Lakes, but I really had no idea how big they really were.
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I rented a car and drove up to Erie from Cleveland and was happy to see Mom and Dad and Dave, Cicely and of course of Miles! Here is the morning after I arrived. Miles having a rare, happy moment. I think the move along with the fact that we were all busy working on the house caused him to be a bit grumpy.

This was a vacation of work and a little fun. It felt good to help Dave and Cic get settled. Their house is great, truly they live on what I like to think of Hometown America street. Tree lined streets with very cute houses. Before I got there, Mom and Dad and David had refinished the wood floors. More work than I think they realized it would be. Dad worked hard on sanding the kitchen cabinets before Cic and I painted them. I still have paint in my hair!

Here the cabinets are all painted and we are working to put the kitchen back together.
Three generations concentrating on putting the dishwasher back.
Lots of little jobs like making shelfing for a big pantry!



We did take a little break and drove up to Palmyra for a day. We visited the Grandin Press buliding where the Book of Mormon was published, the Joseph Smith farm home and the Sacred Grove. I was so happy to finally visit the Sacred Grove after studying and hearing about it for so long. Emotions just swell as you walk toward the grove and are able to walk on the many trails that are throughout the grove.

We visited the temple and later that night watched the pagent which was great. I didn't have super high expectations because all I could think of was Manti, but it was a really great production.

We visited Dave and Cic's ward on Sunday. There are a lot of LECOM students in the ward so that will be nice. This is kind of a close picture but I wanted you to see the missionary tag that you sent. By the way he is saying "cheeeeese".

Sunday night and Monday were spent and Presque Isle State Park. The shores of Lake Erie are like going to the beach. You would think it was the Ocean but it was warmer and not salty. Beautiful, and it was about 5 minutes from Dave and Cic's house.

By the time we were ready to leave I think Miles was adjusting to his new surroundings. Here he is just lounging on the front porch.

This was the morning we had to say goodbye. This little family is going to do great in Erie, Pennsylvania. We will sure miss them though. Just like we miss you Aly-boo. Loves.

Running Middle Fork

Aly..I have fallen off the blogging wagon but I am back on. So I will work on recapping the goings on in July and August. First.. the river trip. After 3 years we finally got a permit to run the Middle Fork of the Salmon River up in Idaho. We all applied for the lottery and lucky Brett got a permit for July 1st.

There were 20 of us total and we all gathered at Brad and Libs before taking off. Brad did so much work to get ready for this trip. It is so nice to be able to take private trips and not pay a commercial outfit to take us down the river. Thanks to Brad..this wouldn't be possible without him every year.

It started to lightly rain as we made our way up to Stanley, Idaho. We think this Acura was going too fast and slipped on the soft dirt road as it turned a corner on the way to the put it. Of course we all had to stop and check it out and we think it probably happened not too far before we got there, the lights were still on but no one was in the car.

We also got a flat once we made it to the put- in that became a group effort to fix.

Look at this put-in for the river..it was a bit nerve racking getting the boats down this ramp. We had 9 kayaks, 3 oar rigs and 1 paddle boat. It didn't help that it had rained off and on all night and was pouring as we tried to launch. All of us were cold and the idea of getting in the raft into the cold water was not exciting to me. We lowered all of our oar rigs and gear along with the paddle boat by a rope to the river.

Our fearless leader, Sadie. This is how she rode most of the rapids. Everyone loved having her around.

It was still cold once we got on the river, we were still in our long pants and jackets. Chad was our steller captain, no Mark on the paddle boat this year, he was banished to one of the oar rigs with Sadie. he he.

As you can see below, the sun came out and life got better and warmer. We had a fun paddle raft crew, Kaje and Sally (friends of Brets from Junction), Lib, me, Chad, Shaun and Stacie from Island View. We hit some big rapids and only got dumped a couple of times. Like I said, Chad did a good job guiding the paddle raft.

One of the biggest rapids that we ran..

Our first night into camp it rained a bit more but for the most part we were able to dry out and look forward to a sunny week on the river. During the night Lib heard a funny sound and Brad knew we had a bear in our camp even though we were careful and locked our food away and put the garbage high in the air out of reach.

The next morning we awake to Brett yelling that we have a bear in our camp and of course Brad joined him in chasing the bear out of our camp for the next couple of hours. It wasn't until later that we realized the reason this bear wouldn't leave our camp was because two of her little cubs were way up in a tree next to our camp. So as we ate breakfast and just watched her and the cubs as she kind of hung around moving from tree to tree until we packed up our boats and got closer to shore. As we were leaving she came down from one tree and her cubs from another and they were reunited! Then, better than something straight out of National Geographic she sat down and nursed her babes right in front of us. It was amazing.

Here is most of the group on the 4th night of camping..It made for a great 4th of July!

This was a group of us who hiked to a bridge by this pretty waterfall on Sunday, while a group of the boys kayaked a side creek.

Here is Boo-Radley skirting up to get into his kayak. This trip was possible because of his hard work and dedication to having fun! (And it helped that Brett won the lottery and got a permit). Aly you will be back with us next summer, whether we do Gates or somehow get another permit for the Middle Fork. I can't wait.