Summer Vacation: July 2015

Boy oh boy. This is a long overdue post. But even though it was like nine months ago (same length as a pregnancy - coincidence? I think not)... we had so much fun I couldn't just forget about it or squeeze it into another post! And well, ...life...you know? Of course you do. But with no further delays, I present to you the great happenings of our 2015 vacation!

The trek to Colorado is a good 14 hour drive so we were looking forward to splitting that between two days instead of making it the longest, most  miserable day of our children's existence (one of the great perks of traveling camper style...just pull over and sleep when you're tired!). So we loaded up the truck and camper and headed out as soon as Ammon got off work.

We made the somewhat scary drive through the Arizona mountains, in the dark, in the rain, and landed in Grants, New Mexico a little after midnight where we unloaded the girls for our first night sleeping in "Ammely's house."

How did it go? Weeeellllllllllll, Ammely was just SO excited that she didn't sleep...until 5:00 in the morning. Instead she talked to us about dinosaurs and all other matters of nonsense, repeatedly watching us drift off to sleep so she could promptly wake us up again.

Thankfully, it was just a first night fluke. The rest of the trip the camper experience was a smashing success. See?

By late afternoon the next day we pulled into Grandma and Grandpa's house in Colorado. They wasted no time in showering us in love, food and beautiful Colorado weather (and my Dad even promptly put a stove in our camper!). Of course, the bulk of their time was spent showing the grandkids a good time. Grandparents live for that, or so I'm told.

Both of my girls really enjoyed motorcycle rides with Grandpa. Ammely was constantly begging Grandpa for another ride. We'd often go "Where's Ammely? Where's Dad?" Just to hear the motorcycle start up and watch them cruise around the property looking for "Robbie Rabbit."

(They would go looking for rabbits on the property - all of them named "Robbie Rabbit." Ammely still talks about this regularly. "And we went looking for Robbie Rabbit with grandpa. But Robbie Rabbit was too fast and too shy.")

A lot of the family made it out for Sunday dinner which was so nice. I miss ALL of these people and I'm so glad when we're all able to be together and catch up and reminisce about the good ol' days.

My FAVORITE part of this day though was when my Grandma Breakall gathered us around and shared with us their story of heeding the call to move out West when they were a young little family.

 It filled my heart with so much love and admiration to hear the tale of my granparents as a young family - a little scared, a little unprepared but doing what they had to do to follow the promptings of their hearts. I'm ETERNALLY grateful for their many choices and sacrifices to raise a good family and to do it out West. What a different world it would have been had they stayed back East with their families. I got the majority of Grandma's tales on video and I look forward to uploading them so I can listen to my history over and over again.

Do you see what I mean about Grandpa and Ammely sneaking away for motorcycle rides? Even with a house full of guests, Ammely could still get Grandpa on the motorcycle looking for Robbie Rabbit.

A few days in we all packed up and headed North again...adventuring from Colorado up to Wyoming. It was a trip of reminiscing for Ammon and me. We passed our old friend "Buford the Buffalo" (that is what we named him when we lived in Wyoming). - he sits up on the hill off the interstate on your way across the Wyoming/Colorado border.

It wasn't long after we crossed the border that we were promptly reminded of the true nature of Wyoming - terrifying driving conditions. Thankfully, it was summer and this was rain and not snow. But STILL. It was crazy. And scary. And yet, oddly familiar.

We finally made it over the pass and down into Laramie where we were able to stop and tour around for a couple of hours. It felt so good and so odd to be on campus again. It's weird how a place can become such a large part of you and then realize that YOU were such a small part of IT. Everything was there, carrying on as if we had never been there. So strange. 

We really wished we had more time to spend in Laramie. We look back on our time in Laramie with so much love and fondness. It was our first year - filled with so little in the way of money and stuff but filled with SO MUCH in the way of love and learning and coming together as a married couple all on our own. It was a precious time.

But we had to be going so we could get to our destination before dark. Mission accomplished.
The Miracle Mile, Wyoming. At Sunset.

And of course there was enough light and time for a motorcycle ride with Grandpa.

Our days at the Mile were just perfect - they were full and varied without being stressful or over-scheduled.

We sat next to the lake.

We caught frogs.

We hung out in the truck while the men-folk did some riverside fishing.

Of course, we got out to do some riverside fishing too!

And Grandpa helped Ammely catch her very first fishie!

We also spent time just enjoying the river without worrying about catching a fish.

We went for motorcycle rides.

Lots of them.

People have been etching their names and the date into this pole next to the dam for years. We can even find my Dad's name up there from when he was a little boy (and many other trips through the years). My name is up there many times. Mine and Ammon's names are there from our first trip up a few years ago. It's tradition!

This pipe is in the mountain and fresh, clean water just consistently runs out of it. Ammely was thrilled to have Grandpa take her to get a drink out of "the pipe."

Jared and Ammon took a couple bikes out for a couple hours and had their own adventures. 

I don't have any pictures but Dad took me out for a ride that lasted for hours. It was one of the highlights of my trip to have so much time with just me and my Daddy. To listen to his testimony. To feel of his love for this Earth and it's Creator and this particular place. To watch the birds fly and ride alongside a running antelope. To hear about his many years of adventuring along every spot of that river and those lakes. To just be his little girl again for a little while. I love my Dad!

We enjoyed the luxuries of Jeremy's "house" and Uncle Jeff's "house."

This is my cousin Jeremy and his wife Kara's place up at the Mile. It really is beautiful. Kara has so many talents and making things beautiful is definitely one of them. Ammely was always happy to watch a show in their place in the evening.

We went for walks around the camp.

The boys went lake fishing on Jeremy's boat.

We enjoyed the cool shade, the view and the local wildlife.

We ate like kings. 

I don't have pictures of any of the prepared food, but here are the boys preparing the food. 

We hit up the local tourist attractions - on Pioneer Day! That was not planned but totally awesome.

We got some coolant on our way back to camp from the sites.

We had a campfire down by the river!

So, obviously, we had roasted marshmallows.

All this came to an end quickly though and before we knew it it was time to say goodbye. We said farewell to the river.

We took one last cruise around the camp.

And then we said goodbye to Grandma, Grandpa, Uncle Jared and waved goodbye to the camp on the hill.

We stopped along the way out to say goodbye to one of the lakes too.

From there we were on another two-day journey home!
Even though we left behind some family we still had a few more adventures awaiting us.

With a little bit of arm-twisting, I convinced Ammon to stop at a place called Rifle Falls in the Colorado mountains on our way home. It was only like a ten minute detour.

We were SO glad we did that. Seriously. It was amazing. And breathtaking. And so much fun. SEE?

It's like a two-minute walk to the base of the falls, but then you can take a little longer hike around and up to the top of the falls. Which we did. And again, were SO glad that we did. Look at all the fun things along the way!

Such different vegetation than back in our desert home!

There were these cool little caves along the way.

The view from the top.

We hadn't come prepared to get in the water at the base of the falls but we were still anxious to cool off a little. So we did.

Yup...we give Rifle Falls a big thumbs up.

The next day we could tell we were getting closer to home...

But we still weren't quite ready to call it quits on the whole "vacation" thing. So took another small detour and checked out Canyon de Chelly. It really was beautiful. Again, we were glad we took the extra hour or two and made the stop.

It was just the stop we needed to make our vacation feel complete.

I can't believe that all happened nine months ago! It really still feels like we just got home but that is probably just because it was such a fantastic trip. And now maybe you can see why I couldn't just sweep this under the rug! I love my family. I love this Earth. I love making memories with the people I love. I'm so grateful for the ease with which we can document our lives these days.