Idaho Trip and Joe turns 32!

Well, this is sort of an ongoing vacation that started with the Severson Reunion and ended with this trip to Sun Valley, Idaho. There were no breaks in between, just one fun thing after the next. This was a climatic ending for our vacation, however! It was Joe's birthday, and we went river rafting, . . . .even ANSEL!! You can see him sitting next to me. He never cracked a smile the whole time, or talked for that matter. It was so funny! He had such a serious look on his face, trying to figure out WHY we were doing this thing that kept drenching us with freezing water. HE would just look at everyone, screaming and laughing, and just stare, brow furrowed, like he was trying to figure out a very complex puzzle. We kept trying to engage him in the fun, but he wouldn't move. He just sat there staring, holding on to his little strap ( that made him feel a little bit more secure) and would just look at us. He wasn't scared, or excited, just studied. At the end of the rapids (it was 4 hours long) we asked him if he liked it and he said "Yes" Then we asked him if he wanted to go again and he said "No thank you". As you can see Levi was a great help with the oars, and he LOVED, I mean LOVED this rafting trip. He was laughing the whole time.

We also went to another river and the boys had a really great time play with sticks, throwing rocks and wading in the water. I had fun snapping pictures of them, as they played! This did end in tragedy though. SCARY! Calder, while trying to sail a rock far into the river, over Ansel's head, aimed too low and hit ANSEL point blank in the back of the head! I have never seen so much blood! His whole head was bright red. (mom was on the other side and didn't see this whole thing played out, just got the facts from Levi after) My mom and I went running with him to find a bathroom and ice. We found the bathroom, but not the ice. It took forever to get it to stop bleeding, but when it finally, did the cut wasn't too bad, so stitches weren't necessary (thank goodness).

And that was the end of the trip! We went back and spent the night at BJ and Lani's, went to church with them the next day and drove home! What a couple of weeks!!

The McGarry's and Rain

Soon after Matt and JoAnn left, the McGarry's came to visit. They stayed with us for a couple of days, it was really special to have them here. We loved it! The boys loved having their cousins here, especially "big cousins" who play with them! I loved having MY cousins stay with me! It has been such a long time since I have seen them, and when I did in the past it was always with a million other people. It was really nice just to have them all to myself!

What I really love about Uncle Brad is that nothing gets him down. It was raining and pouring at the beach and we went anyway! There was no complaining or whining from anyone, they didn't let a little bit of rain (mixed with ALOT of wind) get in the way of their fun. What a great experience! It did NOt feel like July on that particular day at the beach, in fact, it was warmer in February when we went (and sunny!) than it was that day. But it didn't matter, we still had fun! The boys still played in the sand, jumped down the dunes, and played in the water - even in "horizontal mist" wind! Well, with the exception of Ansel, he could not figure out why we would want to be in such a place, in this kind of weather! He snuggled into, first me, then Aunt Laree as we walked along Cannon Beach. He whimpered the whole way, but he was a good sport about it all! (Or maybe he was just too busy keeping himself warm to voice his complaint!) After that we went to a little cafe and enjoyed some really great clam chowder!

It was really fun to have them with us, Joe was out of town, but Remi flew in while they were here and they got to visit with her for a while before taking off. A couple of weeks after they left, Julia (in blue) got her mission call to Poland! Then a little bit after that I got an e-mail saying Donna (the oldest and married, who didn't come) was expecting their first baby!! Lots of stuff happening in the McGarry household!!

Matt and JoAnn Stay a little Longer

After everyone went home from the reunion, Matt and JoAnn and Kids stayed a couple of days longer. We went up the Columbia Gorge and saw Multnomah Falls, the Bonneville Dam and the fish hatchery.

Multnumah Falls is one of my favorite Falls up here. It is unbelievable how tall and impressive it is. It reminds me of Rivendale in Lord of the Rings. It has an arched bridge that goes across the top of the lower half of the falls. It is so green there, even the ROCKS are green. They seem florescent green to me. I feel like it is a tropical paradise in the Northwest.
After the Falls we went further up the Gorge and saw the Bonneville Dam. It was amazing! So much water. It is really hard to imagine. They had a visitor's center there at the dam that took you down under the water so that you could see the fish swimming upstream. There were TONS of Lamprey stuck to the glass by their mouths. Their mouths are bigger than their bodies, a perfect circle with sharp teeth all around the inside of the circle. The sign next to them talked about how they attach onto the backs of their prey, chew a hole through skin and suck out the insides. YUCK!! There was also a room down there with a woman "fish counter" in it, she sits there all day and counts the different types of fish that come up through the ladders (the only way for the fish to get past the dam).

After that we went to the fish hatchery near the dam. It was amazing! I have never seen a fish hatchery like this one. They had a underwater viewing area, in one part of the fish hatchery, which the kids just LOVED. The fish there were huge! They even had STURGEON, and a couple of them were 9ft long!! (You've got to click on this picture to really see this fish!)

They also had beautiful fish ponds where they kept the big spawning fish. The kids were able to feed these fish and loved every minute of it. Ansel tried to feed the fish rocks a couple of times, but soon gave up on that because the fish were smarter than he thought!!

The 2006 Severson Family Reunion

The Severson Family reunion was, as always, held up on Mt. Hood in Oregon at Camp Arawannah. But there was a big difference this year. . . . We live in OREGON!!! Mt. Hood is only 40 minutes away from us, an iconic volcanic mountain that dominates over the surrounding terrain. It is just beautiful.

Because we live up here we got the opportunity to host our immediate family before and after the reunion. It was so much fun. There were 14 adult and 12 kids -26 total- all under one roof! All the little cousins had so much fun! We went to Silver Falls, the pool, the park, and totally dominated our ward primary on sunday! The cousins even got to spend one night together, in a tent in the back yard! They watched movies, and in general jabbered the night away.

When we got to the Reunion we (Larry and Cheryl's Family) all got to stay together in the Judson lodge. (Except Ben, Sarah, Danielle and Jon- who all got to stay in the fancy bluff units) Because the Judson Lodge was the evening snack and game center we were always where the action was. Every night all of the adult cousins played Mafia until 3am, yes, even I did. It was fun just being able to socialize and get to know everyone better.

The highlights of the reunion were: the Fourth of July Parade- in which all the kids got to make hats and decorate their bikes and Ansel got to play the drums and Levi and Calder rode their bikes (Ansel was a little perturbed that he didn't have a bike to ride), the fireworks that night- we bought a lot of sparklers and shared them with everyone- you wouldn't believe how much smoke was in the air with so many fireworks going off everywhich way and all of the kids (big and little) running around sparklers in hand (they loved drawing on the asphalt with the sparklers) , and of course our boys "Jedi duel" entry in the talent show- in which Levi and Calder where Jedi knights and Ansel was Darth Vader. It was really great, I laughed so hard. Levi and Calder really know some great light saber moves! Unfortunately it was cut short because Darth Vader accidentally got hit with a light saber and ran, crying, to mommy!

On the last day of the Reunion all of the Larry/Cheryl Family went to Frog Lake. It is called that for a very specific reason!! There are thousands of frogs! This time of year, however, they were all tadpoles -thousands and thousands of tadpoles! We had cups and all the kids used them to catch tadpoles with. In some places in the water the tadpoles were so thick they were black swarms in the water. They are so docile and cute that the kids didn't have any qualms with touching them or picking them up. It was really neat. They didn't want to leave.

In short the reunion was really great, and we can't wait until the next one in 2008!!

A Peacock?!

We had a very interesting experience this summer. A peacock decided to be our pet (for a day and a night). We were in the middle of a nice family home evening lesson, when, we got a knock on the door. It was a grandchild of our next door neighbor asking us if we had a pet peacock. I think, that by the look on our faces, she knew that the answer was no. "well" she said. "I didn't think so, but there is a peacock on your playstructure in your backyard"

Needless to say, FHE was over at that point as we all went out to see what in the world she was talking about. Sure enough, there was a peacock on the very top of our playstructure- 12 ft up in the air! All of our neighbors extended family were out on their upper floor deck checking it out too. I mean, of all things. . . . A peacock? How in the world did it get up there? I didn't think peacocks, or peahens (this one was a girl) could fly. It did not want to move at all, anyway. Apparently our neighbors had been throwing tennis balls at it, because there were tennis balls all over our lawn. The boys even climbed up their playstructure and stood directly under the peacock jumping and yelling, and she didn't even do so much as bat an eye.

I wasn't going to miss this opportunity for a great photo, so I ran inside and grabbed our camera. Here are the resulting photos.

By the way, the next morning she was gone, just as mysteriously as she came.