A month of Freedom! (aka summer vacation)

Stephen finished his summer term the first week of August so we could enjoy a glorious 3 weeks of summer (well at the same time).  So naturally we spent it with awesome family members.

Our FIRST of two vacations was  with Stephen's immediate family.  It was so great.  We spent about 5 days at his house with all of his siblings (and spouses and cute little Lily). 

We went to the Hill AFB Museum one day and Stephen was in heaven, him and Daniel gave us a personal tour and told us neat stories about a lot of the planes :)

Inside, there were SO many neat planes!

Lily LOVED her little cucumber!

That same day we went to the Hogle Zoo which was a lot of fun!

Me, Diana, Christina, and Lily

One of the days we went to the Salt Lake City Temple which was a really neat experience for me.  The grounds as always were gorgeous.

Beautiful Temple through the trees :)

We also went rafting in a big rubber boat (that Stephen's mom owns) down the Provo River.  SO FUN. There were a ton of other people tubing on the river just with single tubes.  

Just floating down the river

The rest of the time we just spent talking and playing games together.  Overall, it was an EXCELLENT vacation.

SECOND vacation in Idaho!

We went camping up by Stanley Lake in Idaho with all of Stephen's extended family and we had a blast! We were right by the lake and so we played out on the lake pretty much everyday.  There was a bear in the area, but thankfully we never encountered him.

Beautiful Sawtooth mountains in the background

There was a very cold stream that ran into the lake and everyone helped build a civilization on the bank with water flowing through the entire thing.  It was really neat and extravagant 

The intricate water civilization (you can only kinda see it..)

Stephen's uncle brought their boat and a tube along with some Kayaks.  We had a good time going tubing and being viciously thrown off!  Kayaking was also a lot of fun, although the kayaks were kind of tipping and at times it was hard to balance in them (it constantly felt like I was going to flip over).

Its a floating train!

We played some beach games in the painfully rocky beach-area.

Running into the cold lake

Take 2

At night we told stories around the campfire.

For sunday, a bunch of the girls washed their hair in the FREEZING cold stream, but hey we wanted to look good (and be semi-clean) when we went to church the next day.

Us girls washing our hair in the oh SO cold stream

We went on a fun hike.  Along the way the kids found sticks that they pretended we guns or other weaponry and then when the adults would come around the corner, they would ambush them!

Stephen with his "Bazooka" on the hike

A  few of the cousins with their weapons

  Man, I am grateful for Stephen's AWESOME extended family, they are all such fun, kind, and wonderful people.