food, crochet, merriment
Ok, this is my LEAST favorite thing about roadtrips….
having to say good-bye to a big chunk of my heart.
Ooooh, I’m going to miss this sweet guy…
and his family….SO, so much.
The cousins will miss each other too. It was just all so dang FUN!!
It’s so strange to drive away from these guys who just lived down the road a few months ago. Kind of awful, actually. Feels like we should all be going “home” together.
Deep breaths. Deep breaths.
Good-bye sweet family—I love you!!
Most of the kids and grown ups were feeling very adventurous today so Dane and Kortney found the perfect place to take a family friendly hike into the local forest.
I say, “most” because it was going to be farther than I could walk, so I opted to stay in the car and mind my own business…meaning…I was going to stare out at a pretty little empty field…
and crochet. It was perfect!!
Here is what the more active folks saw…
Thanks guys for sharing the pictures with me! It was almost like being there …without the hiking.
Heh, heh.
After a quick little breakfast–thanks hotel…
of anything and everything you can think of…
we’re back in the car…
and off again.
We had more of this…
and these…
and even this to let us know that we were still in Colorado.
Or is it Colopado?
Have we been saying it wrong all these years?!
Whatever. We were here in Colorado, until we weren’t.
Welcome to Kansas!!
We noticed immediately that they had waaaay more land that looked like this.
Lots of hay and tons of corn…no picture though. I must have been too stunned at the shere volumn of the corn to focus. Sorry man.
Pretend you can see us driving allllll through Kansas and allllll that corn, until at last, at LAST we got to Arkansas and…
found my cute long, lost boy!!! Ooooh I’ve missed those big, strong arms.
April’s family beat us here by a day because they drove straight through without stopping. Yikes.
We got in so late that Dane’s family were already in bed.
The kids still loved meeting up with their cousins that they hadn’t seen…
in a whopping 3 days!
They live down the street from us in Utah. Haha.
It was good to get a little piece of our Daney-boy before he went off to bed.
We finally made it!!
The yearly event formerly known as Summerfest has changed it’s name…
to Oremfest for some silly reason.
I’m an old duck and I guess I resist change that seems to happen just for the heck of it. Hmph.
I didn’t get as many pictures this year, because I was a little distracted.
See, this was the first time in a lonnnng time that Dane and Kortney were here for it…
but they were also leaving before the fireworks to go home…
and head out to Arkansas.
Whew…that was a tough one, watching them all walk off into the sunset.
I cried for an hour.
We have our new sweet girl this year–who makes that cute boy so, SO happy.
Poor L was still sad about Uncle Dane leaving. I hear you, buddy.
We’ve been coming to this event since my girls were babies…
back when it was called the Glow in the Dark Festival.
Changes. Changes.
Even if I’m a sappy cry baby, I do love the progression and the growth and the joy and the adventure and all the good things that surround me and my sweet family…year after year.
We are blessed and I am truly grateful.
My boy Dane and his boy Merrick went on a road trip to Fayetteville, Arkansas.
They camped a bit on the road and had a lovely time.
Even had a little rain. But who’s afraid of a little rain–right?
Ummmmm….until it changes to a bunch of this nasty looking stuff and we get this text from Dane:
Next I get a scary, very emotional call from Kortney, at home, saying that the guys are in the hotel and the sirens are blaring, the power is off and they’ve been evacuated to a lower hallway. They are crouched on the floor, in the dark with their heads against the wall…praying.
Sent the message out to the ENTIRE family to please, PLEASE, PRAY!
We watched the weather service and it was not looking good. They were expecting the tornado to rip the roof off of the hotel.
Praying. Praying. Praying. Praying. Praying. Praying. Praying. Praying.
Dane is comforting his terrified 7 year old saying, “Be brave, Merrick. Heavenly Father will protect us.”
Then, the miracle happened.
The weatherman said, “Well, would you look at that?! Sometimes a tornado will take a sharp turn and go the other way, for no reason at all. We call that a hook.”
A hook that completely went around Fayetteville.
We call that...a miracle.
Our boys are safe.
Thank you Heavenly Father for being so good to us.
Prayers work.
