Family reunions 2018- Part 1

This summer ended up being a big one for family vacations. It’s a good thing because next year it’s going to be a lot harder to travel. We had the Anderson reunion in Coeur D’Alene, ID planned for at least 3 years but we decided to also make some stops along the way.

We took the South Dakota route driving on our way to Idaho so that we could check it off more states and so that we could see Mount Rushmore. We drove all day and ended up at Mount Rushmore on July 3rd at 8:00pm. There was supposed to be a special 4th if July lighting presentation that night, but the weather shortened the program and we just caught a small portion of it. Basically, we were there long enough to change the kids into their PJ’s, take a picture, and buy a Christmas ornament in the gift shop.

It’s a good thing we got out of there quick because the storm we went through afterward was insane. So much lightning. I was driving and whenever there was a flash of light I had to readjust my eyes as it was like having a camera flash in front of me. The kids slept through the whole thing and did great driving in the car all night. They woke up when we got to Montana.

We spent 4th of July morning at Shad’s aunt Gloria’s house. She has horses and the kids each had a little ride. I also had my first ride ever on a horse. It was a pretty exciting morning, especially for Benny as this was the main thing he would talk about when anticipating our trip. His death grip around the horse’s saddle was pretty funny. He loved it, despite his scared looking face.

Since Annie loves horses Brandon and Megan decided to stop by and have some horse rides too. They showed up around lunchtime and everyone got another little ride.

Gloria was so great to let us come to her little ranch. They fed us fried chicken for lunch and the kids loved the fresh air and the Montana mountains.

Once we were done there we checked into our house at Flathead Lake with the Evans side of the family. We found a perfect little place on the West side of the lake in Elmo, MT. It was a 2 bedroom 1 bath house, but there was a nice little bunkhouse just feet away with another 2 bedrooms and a bathroom. It was right on the lake and had its own dock. It was perfect! Unfortunately, Cam and Lisa weren't able to make it up. We missed having all of the cousins there together but we knew we also had plans to be together in Utah in August.

The kids mainly just played on the dock all day. We were there for 3 days and although we looked into things that we could go do, in the end the kids just wanted to be there playing in the water, playing games, and hanging out. So that is what we did. I got a few runs in down the dirt road and Shad and Haken went on some bike rides with uncle B. It really was a perfect relaxing week.

One of the best parts was sitting out at our dock watching all of the fireworks go off around the lake. It was a great time to be at Flathead.

Uncle B did rent a boat for an afternoon but that kind of ended in a disaster which is a story for another day. In short, the kids got about a 15-minute boat ride in choppy water. It was really a bummer.

 We also had a little surprise for everyone. Grandma Lori knew that I was pregnant since we sent her some flowers with a little poem for mother's day, but she didn't know that it was twins yet. Brandon and Megan didn't know at all (although Megan totally figured it out pretty much the minute she saw me). So we gave grandma a wrapped up present with one of these peanut ornaments in it. Then we had her unwrap the other one to reveal that we were having twins. The reaction was so great from everyone! I love telling people that knew we were pregnant because they get to be shocked again. Unfortunately, Shad was filming her reaction on his phone and it died right before she opened the second present so we didn't get it on camera.

Also on the reveal night, Shad jumped in the lake to save Gracie who had fallen off the dock with his phone in his pocket (super dad right?). Although the phone was dead from filming grandma's reaction it still had problems. None of the buttons worked. So, Shad found a guy on Craig's list that said he could fix any iPhone for $43 and he was only an hour north. Shad was skeptical as it seemed like this guy barely spoke English and he met him at some corner in a little town instead of in a shop or something. But, he did give Shad a loaner iPhone to use for a day and when he got it back the next day everything worked perfectly. Crisis averted.

Our original plan was to head into Glacier National Park for a day and then up to Cardston, Canada to see some of the places that Shad's ancestors were from (and to check a place off of Haken's list.) But when I couldn't find Ruby's birth certificate the day before we left we had to adjust our plans. Instead, we hung out with my family for a little longer. Down in St. Ignatius where Shad's dad is from there is a National Bison range that you can drive through with your car. The kids loved it! We spent about 2 hours driving around the range. At first, we didn't see very many, but on the second trail, we saw a whole bunch. They loved sticking their heads out the sunroof to spot the Bison.

On the way out of the bison range, we saved a cute little red-eared slider from the road. That little guy did not want to be held and scratched me up pretty good before I could get him to safety. 

After the Bison range, we had to get some Huckleberry ice cream and shakes. We headed into St. Ignatius and met Shad's dad at a place that he grew up going to all of the time.

While we were there we called my Grandma Mildred and Grandpa Ray. I had sent them the same packages as my mom with the little peanut ornaments and an ultrasound picture. I told them they were late mother and father's day presents. They were really surprised.

I'll never forget the look on my grandma's face when I told her that if one of them is a girl we would like to name her Mildred. She burst into tears and said, "that's ok, as long as you call her silly Millie." I wasn't sure if she would like the idea or not because she always said she didn't like her name. 

When we were at the Bison range we noticed that our bike rack (that was packed with 5 heavy bikes for the Hiawatha trail) was starting to fail. The welds were breaking and needed to be fixed or the bikes would fall off. Brandon helped to secure the rack with some straps but we needed a more permanent fix. I think it was really a blessing that we didn't go up into Canada because the bike rack probably would have failed somewhere along the way.

We were also being watched over since we were in St. Ignatius where Shad just happens to have an uncle (Roy) who has a dairy farm and a welder. We went over there and said goodbye to my family as they headed back home. We stayed at Uncle Roy's house for a few hours while they finished the milking and welded the bike rack. The kids had homemade snow cones, played on the huge swing set, and checked out the baby deer that had been abandoned by its mom on the farm. Benny's shoe even had a great encounter with a real live cow pie so we had the whole dairy farm experience.

By the time we finished getting it fixed it was about 7:30. The kids were exhausted and hungry so we grabbed some burgers and ate them on the grass at the church in St. Ignatius and then went to his Aunt Janelle's house where we stayed the night and went to church the next day.