June Family Trip

With the twins' work schedule this summer, it was a little harder than years past to schedule a vacation. We finally took our first family trip of the summer the last weekend in June. We left Salmon in the early afternoon of Friday June 28 and drove to Mud Lake in our truck, pulling the cargo trailer full of 4-wheelers and motorcycles that Josh had packed in tetris-style the evening before. 

He fit in 3 motorcycles & 2 four wheelers

There's a motorcross track down the road from my rental home there, so we took advantage of the course and rode around for a while. Some of the jumps are steep, but it was fun to watch everyone's different comfort levels for the speed and size of the jumps they attempted. Josh and the twins each ride motorcycles, and Kanyon and I ride 4-wheelers. Kanyon specifically loved speeding around on the 4-wheeler, and it was fun to watch him ride, because he rarely rides it when we are at home.

Josh

Kanyon

Micah

Jonah

Kala

We stayed for about an hour, then headed back to my rental for dinner and card games. Terreton was hosting an outdoor movie night at the park, so we went to that at dark, too. It was "How to Train Your Dragon 3", and they also had free popcorn and sodas, which was awesome. We sat by the Babcock's and had a nice time.

We accidentally wore the same shirt!! 

I secretly love when that happens!

On Saturday morning, we drove to Howell Utah for the Benjamin Hewitt Tolman reunion, hosted by Uncle Gerald's family this year. They had it at the Howell school. We ate, talked, played games, and there was music and trivia, too. It was short (basically just the lunch meal and afternoon activities), but nice to see family. Jonah and Micah hung out with cousin Rachel's daughters, Josh caught up with Glade and Adrain, and I talked to Larry Forsgren's wife for a bit, who surprisingly came although he had just passed away. We stopped at Glade and Debbie's house in Thatcher on the way back to the freeway in Tremonton, and had a short visit with them, too. I sure love Josh's extended family! I'm glad we go to reunions.

This was a cool idea--a family tree with each of the branches

being one of the 10 kids in Josh's Grandpa's family. Since

Gerald's family hosted, they had the largest representation. 

I liked the visual aspect of it!

Gerald's son Floyd and his wife provided entertainment

Geneology Bingo

We left Howell late that afternoon, and headed back to Idaho. We stopped in Pocatello that evening, and went swimming/soaking at the Portneuf Complex. It wasn't too crowded, and the boys went off on their own, playing pool basketball and Kanyon went down the waterslide about 100 times since there wasn't a line. Josh and I mostly hung out in the lazy river, which was relaxing! We got pizza for dinner after the water park closed, and headed back to my rental home in Mud Lake to spend the night again.

On Sunday morning, we took the trailer of ATV's to the St. Anthony sand dunes. We hadn't taken the kids there since Kanyon was a baby! We figured since the twins ride their motorcycles a lot, that they'd be ready to ride the dunes. When Josh and I were newlyweds, we went there every year with the Corbett's for several years, and we always enjoyed it, so we thought our boys would love it, too. But...they didn't love it as much as Josh and I do. It's a lot harder to ride in sand than packed dirt and gravel, so it was a lot more work than enjoyment for the boys! We stayed for several hours, riding and taking breaks, and ate food by one of the little lakes. Jonah's bike was too high-powered, and he struggled as a result. He cut open his leg trying to start it once, and then later, when he was riding Micah's bike (getting a break from his), he went straight over the top of a dune (which we told them NOT to do repeatedly beforehand), and he had an accident. He hadn't strapped on his helmet (which I didn't realize when they left), and when he landed the jump, his front tire hit the sand first, his head hit the handlebars, and his helmet, glasses, and him all went flying. Micah, Kanyon, and I witnessed the accident from below. It was very surreal! Josh was on the backside, and had seen Jonah go over the top of the dune, and saw how high his motorcycle's back end was when he was in the air, and knew he'd crash when he landed. He drove over the top, parked his bike, gathered up Jonah's helmet and glasses, and drove him back to where we were. Jonah's upper lip was split open. Josh thought quickly, and grabbed an ice pack from the lunch cooler. Then he took Micah out on my 4-wheeler to bring Jonah's bike back, and then my 4-wheeler blew a gasket and oil was leaking everywhere.  It was a bit stressful after that, but we made it all back to the truck & trailer (very slowly!), and got it all loaded up. We headed in to Rexburg to get a few medical supplies for Jonah, and then headed back to Salmon.   

 

 

 

 

Poor Jonah! Within a month, he'd cut off part of his finger, his leg now had a gash in it, and his upper lip was split open!! We put some super glue on it when we got home in Salmon and used some terry strips to hold it in place for a few days. There's a small scare there now. What an adventure!!! The vacation had gone well until the end of the last day; the boys were happy to be home when we got to Salmon!