What a wild few months it has been. The events during this period were what everything these last few years have been leading up to. Brent graduated, he took the PANCE, he passed the PANCE, and we moved our family to the coast of Oregon. It's all so crazy and surreal. It's been fun having him around ever since he took the test at the end of May. It's sad to think that is coming to an end really soon and he will have to start working again.
My instagram account has pretty well documented all of that leading up to now. There are a few events however that we used our real camera at and here are those pictures:
We don't have any graduation pictures because we were in Utah and graduation was in Tennessee BUT we planned a celebratory couple getaway to....
THE ZION NARROWS
We delayed our moving date a few days so we could go on this hike. We drove down and got the permit for the next day. Then we went and got ready for everything, and then went to Wonder Woman. It was SO awesome! Then we went and parked on some BLM land and slept in our van on an air mattress. It was pretty hot when we first laid down, such that we couldn't fall asleep so we turned on the car to watch Star Wars The Force Awakens. We fell asleep during the movie but luckily I woke back up near the end of the movie and was able to turn off the van.
Woke up early to catch our shuttle which took us on a winding ride up to the top of the trail. I was pretty cold at the beginning of the hike and then we had to start walking through water which was FREEZING cold on my feet. After a while it was giving me the pins and needles feeling. It made it really hard to walk. Brent fashioned me a walking stick which helped immensely. And finally it started warming up and my body finally warmed up too and I was able to hike normally, happy day!
My neck was starting to get sore at this point of the hike ;)... posing for all of these pictures was hard work. Ha ha.
The farther into the hike we got, the deeper the water crossings got. It was pretty fun in places like this when the current wasn't too strong.
We were coming up to another deep water crossing. I went one way and Brent went the other. I ended up having to swim and got around this big boulder only to see our dry bag being held by Brent, but he was completely submerged underwater with his arms fully extended above his head trying to get through. Turns out Brent had been carrying the pack above his head so that it wouldn't get wet walking deeper and deeper down the slope (just imagine it like a cartoon character, it was totally like that) but before he knew it he was bouncing off the bottom trying to get air and then before long it was so deep that he couldn't even find the bottom so he came up for air and saw me and hucked the bag which held our camera (and everything else) over to me and swam until he could touch the bottom again. Luckily the camera bag didn't sink before I could grab it and it only got minimal water inside. Brent was laughing his head off about the whole thing while I was frantically pulling the camera out to make sure it wasn't soaked. I was glad to see it wasn't wet (except a few spots of water, as you can see) and so I grabbed a quick pic of Brent.
Since he was already soaked he decided to take a swim.
My posture in the picture above shows how I was struggling near the end of the hike. I was starting to get cold again, my muscles were sore, and I was just tired darn it! The river was starting to get harder to trek through, the current was strong and there were less side areas to hike on out of the water. We both fell a bunch of different times when the current grabbed us wrong or we slipped on a rock. Just imagine hiking on bowling balls cut in half lining the bottom of a river (This picture is before it even got harder, we stopped pulling out the camera at that point) It's a darn good thing that it is SO beautiful, it makes up for the difficulty, that's for sure! I'm so glad Brent was able to capture the beauty.
After 16 miles of walking through the slot canyon called the Narrows, we finally made it.
Near the bottom, when we were finally out of the river, we saw another couple who had started the same time as us. We talked with them all the way to the shuttle and on the shuttle back to the visitors center. It was fun to be able to talk to them because first off it distracted from the exhaustion and it was fun to complain together about how hard the hike was. I say complain but really it was an awesome hike. Just like after you've finished a marathon... or given birth... it's like, dang that was awful but SO AMAZING!
When we got back to the parking lot the setting sun light was gorgeous and Brent got some good pictures.
I'm so glad we got to go on that hike. I was so tired after the hike I wanted to just go to sleep same place as the night before but we grabbed a bite to eat and Brent wanted to try to drive home that same night. He only made it past Cedar City and we had to pull off the side of the road. I slept in the back on the air mattress but Brent was too sore and tired to even get out of the drivers seat so he just laid back his seat and slept for a few hours. We got a really early start and got to get home right when the kids were waking up... not that they even cared... but I'm sure they did in their heart of hearts.
I forgot to mention that we also got to go to the Morgan's cabin finally! It was a really great time and really impressive all they have done down there. There was a bit of a breeze outside perfect weather for flying kites. Boy did they have fun! Hours of kite flying! I had a really good time, haven't flown kites in years but my endurance wasn't quite as good as the kids and the dads.
After kite flying they filled up water balloons and had a funny water balloon fight. I wasn't planning to join in but Sanna had other plans and threw one at me. Instead of dodging it (which I easily could have done) I decided to catch the balloon. It totally popped right in my hands right on my chest. So I thought, what the heck and I joined in. I got Brent pretty good by dumping the bucket of water down his back. ;)
That Sunday we had a great time visiting with the Hatch Family and catching up with the Mike Hatch clan. When Brent and Mike get together it is funny hearing their banter. The kids had a great time playing with their fifth cousins... or however we're all related.
Later that night we met up with Brent's childhood friends and their families. It was fun until Sanna went and walked off of a fully enclosed with a safety net trampoline and broke her wrist (the second time in fact that she had fallen off that night). As she continued to cry and whimper in pain and wasn't able to use that hand we decided to take her into the InstaCare. They got us in and out pretty fast and we were able to even make it back to visit with Brent's friends a little longer. She was adorable to see in the doctor's office. When the doc was examining her wrist she noticed a cut on his hand and said he needed a bandaid. She was completely obedient during the xray. She was so brave about it all. It was so cute.
Here are some random (but beautiful) Pictures in the yard:
Sanna must have had an accident earlier at my Mom's house, hence why she was in that too big shirt.
Griz and John sure have gotten close to each other in the time we've lived here. They're always doing top 10 lists and talking about animals and playing war or uno.
We picked up the moving truck bright and early at 7:00 am. My brother Nate, and best friend Kimee, and Matt helped us so much that morning. It went so much faster than Brent had anticipated.
The Maynes came over to say goodbye and we had some fried chicken, donuts, and the kids played basketball while we kept finding random things in the house we needed to pack.
I stole a few of these cute pictures from Christa she took at that time.
I love the look on Chico's face in this picture...
I can't tell you how much I love this next one of Brent.
Griz acting out how I felt...
We had been taking pictures with all the cousins and then they wanted one of just our family... it was just the 5 of us standing there and I felt like it was wrong like there was this emptiness like someone was missing. It made me sad.
Whenever Brent sees this shirt on himself he says "Super Bad Dad". Which is so far from the opposite. This man is the bestest-looking-most-super-dad-and-husband the world could ask for.
Sanna saw this and said, "Oh that's when I was pulling Griz out the window".
The move went pretty well. Day two of driving we were in the middle of nowhere and we saw a woman my age with two children hitchhiking on the side of the road. We stopped to see what was up and they had been camping out in the middle of nowhere and she had dropped her keys in the river and gotten locked out of her car that had everything important she owned inside of it. Luckily there was a town nearby and we were able to get out a phone call to AAA and get her taken care of. I sent Brent and Chico on ahead with the moving truck so they could stay on schedule with the drive while I waited with them for the tow truck. I figured I would catch up since I could drive faster than the moving truck. Waiting with the woman for the AAA tow truck took 2 or 3 hours. Once she was taken care of, I left and I was able to drive at faster speeds the rest of the day and arrived only 30 minutes behind Brent to our new home. Worked out well in my book! That meant I spent 2 or 3 hours less driving than I would have had to AND I got to help someone out who was in a pretty tough situation!
Arriving at our house was so exciting. It was so beautiful. The kitchen... oh the kitchen... I could have just cried. It was so beautiful.
We spent the next few days unpacking but still left time for some play!
