Day 38-46; Idaho, Spokane, and HOME!

I don't know why I got excited about taking pictures of all the "Welcome to ____" signs, but I did. So here is Idaho!

We stopped at the Idaho Falls temple to meet some friends who were visiting Idaho Falls and on their way back to Georgia.

But had to get a cute picture of David first:

Bruce Montgomery was a good friend of Mike's in the Navy and was instrumental in Mike joining the church nearly17 years ago. Bruce and Alison have 5 kids who are all much taller than our 4 kids (who are right in front of Mike and me). In fact, their oldest son will be a senior in high school this year and makes Mike look like a shorty!

Back on the road, heading to western Idaho. We passed the Boise temple:

Next stop was in Nampa to visit my sister for a night before heading on to our family reunion north of Boise in McCall. One of the first things we did was go kayaking down the Payette River. The river was quite calm and the kids could even handle the small kayaks easily:

(Spencer, Megan, and Nicholas)

Zach, David and Mike sharing a kayak:

Rachel, Ben and Eva:
Naomi and LaRene:

Ashley, Anna, and Michelle:

This is Mike and Zach's preferred kayaking method - give David the paddle and kick back!

Brooke was in my front seat:

Adam, Kaylyn, and Anna:

Brooke taking a picture of me:

I was pleasantly surprised at how well Nicholas did in his own kayak for 4 hours:

After kayaking, the kids weren't quite done with the water and so they played on the beach of the lake at Ponderosa State Park.
Brooke, little Spencer, and Naomi:

Zach, big Spencer, and Nicholas:

This is where we encountered "noseeums" for the first time:
Oddly, most of the kids had bloody bites behind their ears and several on their scalps. We were getting concerned by these vampire-looking bites, but found out it's basically a mosquito bite.

David at the beach:

We camped for 2 nights at Ponderosa State Park with my 3 oldest siblings and their kids and then moved 5 miles on to the "real reunion" at a beautiful 5-bedroom home right on the river with a gorgeous view that I did not take a picture of! Two more of my brothers joined us here. Unfortunately, 3 of my siblings and my parents were not able to attend this reunion. So I guess that officially makes it only a semi-reunion.

But it didn't stop the kids from piling in the hot tub!

We didn't get our fill of kayaking so we hit the river again! This time we drove up river about 8 miles and floated down to our rental house in kayaks, rafts, and inner tubes. The chaos getting organized:

Lily, Lauren, and Jon:

I love this picture of everyone just getting into the water and heading downstream:

Mike, Molly, Brooke, and Aaron cruising in the canoe:

That canoe was so tipsy, I was shocked it never flipped on them!
It took us 5 1/2 hours to get back to the house which was much longer than expected and it was a bit rougher of a ride this time due to the very low river. We continuously got stuck on sandbars and rocks. Sometimes the current was quite strong and we had some scary close-calls.

But overall, the time with my family was a lot of fun and before we knew it, it was time to say goodbye to everyone.

We got back on the road and headed to Spokane, WA to visit my nearly 97-year-old Grandad.

By this point, my kids were SO ready to just go home. But they had to tough it out for a few more days.

Grandad still lives on his own even though he has slowed down quite a bit and uses a walker now, but still has a big garden, drives his car, plays the piano and organ, and teaches Priesthood twice a month!

Brooke took this picture of him playing the piano:

We stayed a couple days at Grandad's house and I really enjoyed chatting with him about the trips he took in his camping trailer, gardening, and family. I even joined his Priesthood class at church he was teaching! It's always sad to leave Grandad, but it was time to go and he waved goodbye to us from his front porch.

We took the kids to Spokane's Riverfront Park and they slid down this cool slide:

Rode the carousel:

Zach and Nicholas ramming each other on the bumper cars:

Brooke and me on the Scrambler:

Zach on the Scrambler:

Nicholas on the Scrambler:

David on some blown up toys (he wanted to ride the Scrambler too but wasn't tall enough):

Brooke making Mike take her AGAIN on the Scrambler:

We rode the gondola over the Spokane River too. This looks like a fake picture, but it's not! It's just a cool shot of Brooke in front of the window in our gondola over the river:

Hooray! We are back in Oregon! But the "Welcome to Oregon" sign snuck up on me too fast so these Oregon signs will have to do:

Three hours from home we had our first tire blowout! Look how bad that tire looks:

After switching to the spare and getting a new tire at a nearby Les Schwab, we were back on the road. Mike and I talked about going on to the coast for a couple more days, but the kids really just wanted to get home. So after 46 days we arrived home, but Mike talked Nicholas and David into going with him to the coast for just a couple more nights:

PHEW! We made it home!

Here are some statistics from our Big Trip:

Total miles: 8,000 (Mike drove every one of them!)

Number of family members we visited: 45 (plus one fiance)

Total days: 46

Redbox movies rented: 11

States visited: 15

National Parks/monuments visited: 9

Weddings attended: 1

Number of campgrounds we stayed at other than a KOA: 3

Nicholas' pogo stick record: 300 consecutive jumps

Different states license plates we saw: 43

Left home with 4 bikes

Returned home with 1 bike

Bottles of sunscreen used: 3