Our Summer Vacation

Okay since Savannah is playing at a friends house, Charlotte is sleeping and the house is 'mostly' clean, I guess I will write about our great trip we had. I need to put a disclaimer in here that this will probably be a long post. We were gone for 2 weeks.

We started off a little, shall we say LATE. We left Friday June 27th at 10:30 PM. I were trying to leave at around 8 but that obviously didn't happen. All was going well and the girls were sleeping, until we got to Kingman were we saw that gas was $3.99 a gallon so we thought we had better top off here. Since the car stopped moving the girls woke up. Charlotte wanted to eat and Savannah was rested from her power nap and wanted to watch a show. Once we hit the dam they were both out again. We switched drivers somewhere in Vegas and we were off again. Chad was sleeping and I was trying to drive awake. About 30 miles north of Mesquite I had to pull over. It was 4:45am and I was sooo tired. But the car stopped so Charlotte woke up. I nursed her and calmed her down until about 5:15. I then laid down on the back seat. But then the sun comes up at the crack of dawn and I look at the clock and it is 6:45 AZ time so I needed hit the road. I am good with an hour and a half of sleep right. Once I start into the gorge Chad wakes up. I was indeed envious of his 4 hours of sleep. We get to St. George to pick up our hitch hikers and Dave said we could sleep if we wanted. Nope we were blazing through to Idaho. We had some breakfast and we were off.

I didn't sleep on the way to Pocatello, because lets face it I cannot sleep in a car when Chad is driving. We get in to Pokie around 6:30pm and have an enjoyable time with my dad and Theresa. The kids had fun on the swing and we just enjoyed being out of the car. Dad made us stay up until 12:30am watch these shows he had recorded about this castle they saw while in France. Don't get me wrong I love history and thought they were great, but I was sooo tired since I had only slept for an hour and a half the past 48 hours. We enjoyed our brief stay in ID and would have loved to stay for church but his church was at 1 pm so we hit the road up to Montana.

We finally got there and we were greated by man-eating mosquitos. These things were on steriods. They would leave HUGE welts. We had such a great time in Montana visiting with the Ludvigsons and the Carrolls. Savannah loved being able to actually go outside and play without worrying about cars flying through the neighborhood or melting in the heat.

We went fishing at the McCaymies Ranch. While driving out to the pond, I asked Les how many acres he owned, he said 'Oh last time we checked around 8,000.' How would that be? When we reached the pond/lake Savannah said 'Look its Swan Lake!!' Can you tell we watch the Barbie movies at our house. It was great. On Savannah's second cast she caught the biggest fish of the day and we grilled it up right then and there. Chad kept trying to get her to hold it after he had gutted it. You know in the gills. He finally bribed her with something to do it and as soon as Chad let go she let out a blood curling scream and dropped it. We had to laugh, she is so girly.

We went to the Great Falls Parade on the 4th of July. It was fun, but wow there are a lot of interesting people in Great Falls to put it nicely. Kandra said all the 'Carnies' moved into town and are kind of taking over. Chad and his brother Kevin said if they ever move back they are opening a tatoo parlor since everyone seems to have on up there.

We then decided to float the Smith River. We had so much fun. Since we were kind of short on tubes we had the 'mega chicks' take some of the younger ones with them. Savannah was with Chessa (15) and she was so funny. Savannah kept saying she was cold so Chessa had her hang part of her legs in the water then hang onto her. But Savannah was hanging on to her boob half the time. Chessa was such a great sport (We call them the Mega Chicks cause Chessa is 5'8", and Jennika (16) is 6' not for other reasons). I had Charlotte with me in a little raft and she loved that there was a little bit of water in it. She splashed in it and kept squaking with delight. Chad on the other hand, walk/swam most of it. He was helping out his dad and everyone else who seemed to get in trouble and was without a tube. Tenella about drown the newest addition to the Wright clan Cache (5 wks) when her tube flipped and the two of them went under. He was attached to her in a snugglie. Thankfully he was okay. We all had fun and it was great weather. At $800 an acre (by Chad's sisters 450+ acre ranch) we may buy a bit of land and build a cabin one day.

After a week of fun in Montana we journeyed down to Salt Lake. We had fun going to see Kung Fu Panda and Wall-E. We also spent and afternoon with Melanie and the kids at Thanksgiving Point. Mom and Marianne were there as well playing hookie from work. The kids had a great time feeding the animals, especially the donkey then he started to bray at them when they started to walk away. Savannah had a great time riding the ponies too. It was such an ordeal since we didn't ride them at that moment. Patience my young patawan. I did really feel for one of the little nanny goats. Her udders were so full they were almost touching the ground.

Notice how I am just now showing up in the pictures? I was on camera duty the whole time in Montana so according to pictures I was not on the trip.

We took one afternoon and went to up to the cemetary to see Chad's moms grave. It has been a while since Chad has been there. It is so quiet and beautiful. It was nice to finally see the headstone complete with all the pictures on it. Larry did a great job. The deer herd had quite a few new additions. We saw 4 fawns there.

We also stopped by to Jeremy and Britany's to see their latest addition Jensen. Savannah had fun walking around there house snapping pictures. It sure was a great perspective of the house through a 4 year olds eyes. We wished we had more time to play while in Salt Lake but we had to get going back down to St. George. Our next trip we will try to spend more time in Salt Lake. Savannah loves playing at Grandma's house but doesn't too much like the kitties.

We arrived back down in St. George on Friday and just relaxed at Dave's house. Savannah was excited to go swimming but I think she completely forgot all that she learned at swimming lessons. I think Charlotte was happy to be in a quieter home so she was finally able to get real naps. I was happy about that too. Saturday night we left the kids in Dave and Kiera's care while Chad and I went out to Tuachan to see Les Mìserables. We were on the front row. Wow!! It was great. It was cool how they were able to use all sorts of animals and fireworks since it was outdoors. Javier was really good. I think he did the best. We really felt like we were 'in' the play since we were so close. If you happen to be in St. George now through October I highly recommend going to it. We couldn't have asked for a better night. It was around 75 degrees with a light breeze and had just rained about a hour before it started.

We then journeyed home Sunday and arrived home far too late. 2:30am Monday morning. I think we have all been trying to catch up on sleep ever since then. We had a great time and wished we could have spent more time with everyone that we saw and also to spent time with those we didn't get a chance to see.