Cle Elum

Cle Elum was so much fun.  None of Brian's immediate family ended up going to the reunion, so I didn't know a soul there.  It little mattered though because I instantly met so many wonderful people from his side of the family.  We stayed up late playing cards, eating copious amounts of candy, watching torrential rain storms, riding a million little scooters, spending hours on the slip n slide, and a very eventful (and scary) two hour trip down the river with too many babies, not enough rafts, and zero method to the madness.  Still, the river rafting trip ended up being the favorite part for all of us us. The facility, the company, and the food made this a trip worth repeating!

Klammath Falls

For the Andersen family reunion we went to Washington.  Fortunately, Larissa had just moved into her beautiful new home in Klammath Falls (which I somehow failed to take pictures of). So, we got to spend the night on our way out there, and a night on our way home there.  We eagerly took the kids to one of the most beautiful places on earth: Crater Lake.  Unfortunately, it was so overcast and smoky from fires that it was nowhere near the blue majestic scene we remembered from our honeymoon.  No worries though, since Larissa lives there, my kids with undoubtedly get to see this beautiful lake again.  Our first day there was this beautiful rainbow.  Kolton convinced himself that it lived there, so every time we passed this spot he asked, "where rainbow at? put it back up there!" It was too cold for most, so we sent our little kids with Larissa and took Ekco and Conner down to the water.  It was a nice hike despite the chilly temperatures.  Larissa has a hot tub on her deck which might have been my kids' favorite part!

Family Reunion

 We had planned on going camping for our family reunion, but with heavy hearts in July, we cancelled our campgrounds for August assuming all had taken off the extent of work which they'd be able to for some time to come. Surprisingly, almost everybody was able to return in August, so we did things around town like go to Wild Waters where we had so much fun.  Garrett and I both talked about how it felt so hard, so impossible so very very sad to go to the water park without dad.  Waterparks are his absolute favorite.  But, we forced ourselves to go and then honored him greatly as we, in his footsteps, raced the kids to every slide, nearly drowned Garrett in the wave pool, and, for the first time since dad's accident laughed.  Like true deep belly tears coming out of our eyes laughed.  Our hearts truly started to heal with each escape of laughter.  We giggled with reckless abandon-deep from the belly chuckles that subtly reminded us, we were still here.  As a result, the rest of the reunion felt lighter hearted than we had experienced in months.  We had a wonderful time eating together, cooking together, going to Lake Tahoe, afternoon movies, BBQs at the park, late night performances by the kids (mostly singling One Direction songs), pizza dinners, yogurt beach, and enjoying one another.  It was not a reunion without heartache, and we certainly felt a pressing absence as I'm sure we always will at family functions in this life.  But still, it felt as if it was the very start of our hearts beginning to remember that we. are. still. here.