Friday morning we started our travels with a drive to Missoula Montana. That went really well and only took a little over 5 hours. Some of our friends from Oklahoma (the Allreds) now live in Missoula. He works for the University of Montana so it was fun to talk to him about the goods and bads of a professor life. It was fun catching up with them and their children and our children loved playing together. Julia had been friends with their oldest daughter when they were young and they seemed to pick up right where they left off almost immediately. All of the children ended up sleeping out in the yard under the stars - actually under the smoke since there had been a lot of wildfires in that area.
When Julia was two, playing with her friend in Oklahoma.
Trying to recreate the picture, this time with Legos instead of a puzzle.
On Saturday we woke up early and drove a couple hours to the Hiawatha bike trail. We were meeting Tianna's family up there, but we forgot to account for the time zone differences. We ended up starting without them, but they were able to catch up to us not too far into the trail. The Hiawatha trail was amazing and I would strongly recommend it to anyone. The first part of the trail is a 2 mile tunnel. It was the coolest experience riding in the darkness that seemed to never end and realizing that you were riding underneath a mountain. I had fun thinking of Frodo and Bilbo. About halfway through my tunnel I got off my bike, got together a bunch of our bikes, stood in the middle of the trail, and started yelling "thou shall not pass" at the groups behind us. Just kidding, but that would have been cool. We did have some complications in the tunnels when some of the children lost their lights or crashed and got off their bikes. Still a really fun adventure though. The trail was a very gradual slope down hill that went through 8 different tunnels and over a few high bridges. It is a little over 15 miles long and then at the bottom you can catch a shuttle back to the top. We didn't want to pay the extra $10 per person to take the shuttle and we didn't want to have everyone wait for me to drive back to get the car and then drive down to the bottom (about an hour drive). So instead, we biked about 2/3 of the way down and then turned around and biked the 10 miles back up. That was hard and there were tears and people saying they were going to give up, but everyone did it. And we got to go through the big 2 mile tunnel a second time. With all of the breaks that we took I think it took us about 4.5 hours to do the round trip.
That night we drove a couple more hours to Tianna's house. They brought home some pizzas which our children just loved. They got to do a little more playing with their cousins, but then it was bedtime.
The first day of the reunion was Sunday. After going to church with Tianna's family we drove 2 more hours to the reunion site. Talitha and David found an awesome place about 30 minutes southwest of the Grand Coulee Dam. It was beautiful there. The campground was at the bottom of a canyon. There was a lake, hiking trails, and then spaces for tents, RVs, and cabins. The first day was birthday themed. It was really Doranda's birthday, but we were celebrating everyone's birthday for the whole year. Everyone brought finger foods to share for dinner. And then after dinner there was a white elephant gift exchange. We ended up with beanboozled, a book and some homemade trading cards, a heart tin with jewelry in it, a hotdog cooker and fidget spinner, some toy airplanes, sandals, and a book. Talitha and David also brought a big birthday cake for everyone to share.
After that it was off to bed. We brought our tent which still sleeps all of us, even with the pack and play set up in it for Asher. It was super windy all night long. The whole night it sounded like ten or so people were outside our tent grabbing hold of the poles and shaking them down. At first it was hard to go to sleep because I was sure that the tent would blow over. However, after about 30 minutes of strong wind and the tent still standing I figured we were probably safe for the night. After that, the wind would wake me up every 15 or 30 minutes, but then I would fall back asleep. At 1:00 am though the winds got strong enough to pull up one of the tent stakes and one side of the tent fell over. I was able to get out though, pull it back up and stake it in really well. I put our heavy stuff all along the inside bottom of the tent on the side that was facing the wind to give the stakes some more stability. That worked good until 4:00 am. That was when the wind blew hard enough that it broke all four of our thick metal tent poles. These were the 1/2 inch thick hollow kind that don't bend at all. Anyway, one broke in half and three others were bent completely down. The tent and poles were laying right on top of us and the wind was still blowing like crazy. Julia was already up, but the rest of the children were sleeping right through it. I knocked on the doors of Talitha's and Tianna's RVs and they were kind enough to wake up and help us all get places to sleep for the rest of the night. Ethan and I just slept under the stars in our sleeping bags. Since we were low to the ground if we stayed tucked into the sleeping bags the wind really wasn't too bad.
Here is our tent in the middle of the night.
And here it is the next morning.
Since our tent was ruined, Monday started with us getting packed up and moving in to the larger cabin that my parents were staying in. Caleb was nice enough to let us sleep in the main room for the rest of the reunion while he slept out in a different tent. The winds weren't nearly as bad for the rest of the trip though.
We had a really nice hike later that morning. In addition to the pretty scenery we say a bald eagle, wild horses, and some other birds. That afternoon we hit the lake.
Monday was Hawaiian day. We had lots of yummy Hawaiian type food and Talitha and David went all out with the Hawaiian decorations. We had a limbo challenge that night and of the grownups Isaac came in first. We also had my parents tell us all about their experiences on their mission. After the kids went to bed, many of the grown ups were able to get together to play games at my parents cabin. We did a few rounds of Mafia, catch phrase, and a Mario matching game. It was so nice to actually get some sleep that night.
Tuesday morning we had a game of kickball. Then after an early lunch we were off to the lake again. The theme for Tuesday was patriotic and everyone wore red, white, or blue. We had a bunch of yummy bbq type food for dinner and then games like a three-legged race, a potato sack race, and giant tic tac toe. After dinner I told all of the kids about the swamp monster that tried to kidnap me the previous day. That night some people drove up to the Grand Coulee Dam to see the light show and others stuck around to play more games at my parent's cabin.
Elliott with toilet paper around his ankles. He was told that the swamp monster wouldn't be able to grab him if they were wrapped.
Wednesday was pretty much just packing up and going. Talitha and David made a great breakfast of biscuits and gravy. Then we hit the road. We had a 10 hour drive, but we decided to do a stop at the Grand Coulee Dam which added about 30 minutes to the trip. The trip was long, but everyone did really well. There were a few times where Asher cried a lot, but luckily that didn't carry over to the other children. We made it home just after 11pm.
It was a wonderful reunion and it was so much fun seeing everyone there. We are already counting down the days until the next one.
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