Babysitting Grandma

When my dad decided to take the deployment to Afghanistan and Austin taking that embassy k9 position, it left my mom all alone at her house. Sure she's handled  my dad being gone before numerous times but she had us kids at home to keep her busy. So I recruited the little's to help me "babysit grandma". Elise taking this new job very seriously.. like VERY SERIOUSLY. Ask JeNae. 

So one night we had a sleepover. Derek and Jaxson had just gotten back from backpacking and picked up pizza for us. We watched movies, painted rocks, and built a fort in the tv room.

Elise's pickle. 

Grandma's m&m and eclair. 

Elise painted a purple rock with the poop emoji for her mom. 

My shark eating the eclair. 

Taco.

Madi's shark. It was shark week so we watched some shark shows and painted sharks. 

The next day, Derek took the boys over to our house to play minecraft and us girls took grandma treasure hunting for the first time. It was an excuse to go to Heber and get shakes at the Dairy Keen! We took our rocks to put in the caches we found. 

Careful.. the goats were sick. 

But lots of marmots. 

And a free ride! The worker didn't care that we weren't staying there. 
He was just super nice to let two little girls enjoy a spin. 

Lunch time!!

July 2018

July 2018

Ragnar turned 7!

Breakfast with Sarah!

Peace out BBQ with family. We laughed over this photo cuz it looks like Austin has cleavage. 

Family temple day before dad leaves.

Went to see Dave in Joseph's Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat. 

Elise being a weirdo. 

Austin and Dad left for training before deployments. 

Hiking!

Derek took Jaxson on an overnighter for his birthday. 

Ragnar was the most excited as you can tell. 

There was a porcupine encounter.. she's ok.

Got a lot of stuff cleaned out of the yard.. a lot of stuff left by the previous owners that we finally had a trailer to haul it away. We also got rid of a lot of the junk from updating the house. Enjoy this photo of Derek killing wasps. 

Ragnar Northwest Passage 2018

Ragnar Northwest Passage 2018

It's all on one post so there's a lot of photos.

Flat Head Lake, Montana Tuesday July 10- Thursday July 12

Van 1 from last year had gone up to Brendy's grandparents property at the lake and only had one day. This year Kent and Wendy wanted to spend more time so we left earlier to play at the lake before going to Montana. Plus our car situation made it so we had to pick up Brendy at the lake anyways since we were going to be using her car. 

Huckleberry everything!

At first pass, we thought this was a pro-smoking deal.. but it's more of 'hey you'll die' deal.

More huckleberry food by the lake.

The cabin we stayed at. 

Wednesday morning trail run.

Jumping into the lake right after the run.

Chicken fights!

The local native tribe's mythology says that the mountain is a resting warrior. 

When we were on our run, there was this area that smelled like Arkansas in the summer when we visited my Grandma when we were little. So when we got back, I just wanted to read and enjoy the memories while everyone else played in the lake. Honestly, I was more happy reading than playing in the lake anyways. 

Brendy took us on a tour of her hometown where she grew up. We even went to her childhood home and the couple living there let us in so she could see it.. there was a waterfall inside. 

Kent trying to be the "Deer Whisperer"

More reading.. I dunno what everyone else was doing..

Eating Cali's chocolate cupcakes.

Thursday we headed out to Washington. 

We picked up our other two runners Cali and Al from the airport. 

Pre-race dinner as a team. 

The area was wonderful.. I was tempted to just ditch the race and just go hiking and trail running here!

At our hotel we found a bonus condom! Cali is no longer allowed to book hotels lol

Brendy and I had to share a twin size roll-away-bed.. 

Friday morning.. time to decor the van!

This is from Kent's leg that I ran last year by the lake. 

Yes Brendy jumped into the lake. 

Kent handing off to your truly. 

Al handing off to Cali.

Kent welcoming Brendy back. 

Teasing Kent and Wendy. 

Roadside fruit!!! 

My nut free zone had some perks. 

After everyone's first leg.. Red Robin for dinner. 

Nap time. 

We found van 1 with tromper!

Time to start night legs!

My night leg was under 3 miles, but when you IT band is pulling, it seems like 300 miles. But I got to meet some of the local police and their working dog doing their jobs. They loved the lights on my shoes and gave me a high 5 for it. 

Brendy to Kent. 

Last legs!

We were teasing Kent so when he came in he 'licked' the band when he passed off to me. 

My last leg was an adventure. The IT band was still not happy but more bearable to run with. There were chalk writings along the road that were fun to read. And of course it was times like these I wish I had my phone to take photos of them.. like the one that had a single jelly bean inside a circle that said "free jelly bean". Or the one that said "Your dad is proud of you" (which of course my dad was just about to leave for deployment training, so there I was balling on the course).

Best part was when this young buck came flying out of the woods, we were running through a state park, and almost took out the runner in front of me. 

As soon as I was done I went right to the ocean.

Eagles doing eagles things. Sorry I missed the best part but I was trying to get to a better spot to film it and missed the cool part. We were waiting for Wendy to come in. 

Finishing!

DONE!

No drama this time on the ferry ride. 

At the hotel that night...

Pit stop at Snoqualmie Falls Park on our drive home Sunday. 

Seriously.. the sun and towering plants did all the work on this flower. No filter. Nature doing nature things. Funny part is that this flower was right next to the purple one above. 

I love foot bridges! 

Two Rangar's down.. and one more to go!