End of the Road...4th of July in Utah

The end of our grand summer adventure was a week in Utah with family. We love the 4th of July in Utah, and we try to make it as often as we can. We were lucky that it worked out for another year to be in Provo for the 4th this year.

This is the night we arrived and the boys were HUNGRY!!! This is a picture of what we call "the process".

Ages ago, Matt and I had our first real date hiking the Y in Provo , UT. We have always wanted to take the kids hiking up to the Y on the mountain, but hadn't done it. We decided this was the year, and we ALL made it! Here is our little Cori at the trail head.

Here we are, the girls and I with Hunter making our way up the trail.
WE DID IT!

Hunter wasn't very impressed, he napped in the baby pack most of the way.

Dad and Jack on the Y.

Jack and Hunter
There first 4th of July BBQ

The Crew kids

Uncle John multi-tasking

You are the master!!

All the cousins doing poppers.

It was a popper mine field after they were done, but they all sure did have fun. Even the "big" kids got into it!

4th of July was weird this year, with the actual holiday falling on a Sunday. We did our big celebration/BBQ/fireworks on Saturday, and then we had a smaller indoor "picnic" at my Uncle Val's on Monday. It was great, and we appreciated all the time we had to spend with family. I think by the end of the trip the boys were just plain tuckered out.

Here is Hunter with grandpa Overton

Here is Jack with Uncle Todd...I think Uncle Todd was tuckered out too!

The 4th of July in Utah ended our summer adventure. After our picnic on the 5th we loaded up the Crew van and headed back to our home in California. We didn't stay put for long though...after a week of being home we packed up again for 2 1/2 weeks in Virginia...but more on that later!

Our Grand summer Adventure 2010

Since we are pretty sure that we will be moving away from California next summer, we wanted to do a grand summer adventure for our last summer here. There are many things we wanted to see, so we did a big loop. We stopped in the Sequoia National Park, Yosemite National Park and the Redwoods. These pictures are out of order, and I am too lazy to fix it...but you'll get the idea.

Here we are in Fern Canyon in the Redwoods. The kids loved this hike, because you have to hike through creeks and riverbeds...very high adventure. The creek is in this steep ravine and ferns have grown all up the walls. It was breathtaking.



This is "Big" tree. Supposedly it is the biggest Redwood in Prairie Creek state park


Here is the Ranger post where we checked in at our campsite. We camped in the middle of all those trees. I have always wanted to camp in the Redwoods. It was a bit rocky with two 8 month baby boys, but well worth it.





We saw lots of big trees!!!

Our humble campsite. We had a bear box (big metal box on the side) where we had to stow all our food. Up to this point we had already seen three black bears at various places....so we took the bear box seriously!

The boys in the "pit"

Juggling the boys...didn't realize how close I was to the fire at the time...

There were lots of trees hollowed out by fire, the amazing thing is, it doesn't kill them. They just keep on growing

This is a Redwood that was right next to our campsite.

Silly girls! They LOVE to be outside!

General Sherman tree in the Sequoia National Park.

Cora holding down the campsite with the boys!

The girls on the Northern Pacific Coast...it was cold!

Not what we expected in the end of June!

Jack Jack

Anya off on an adventure ...

The girls love the ocean as well.

Dad with Hunter

Getting ready to go down to the Northern California Coast

The Jeppson Crew in front of Yosemite's Lower Falls

The girls with Yosemite's Upper Falls in the background

El Capitan and Ribbon Falls

The girls really wanted to paint Yosemite Valley too, after watching this artist

As close as we get to a painting of Yosemite Valley.

A walk through tree at the Mariposa Sequoia grove.

The girls at Glacier Point overlooking Half Dome.

My efficient rock climbers! Give 'em a rock and they'll climb it!

The girls and Jack in front of Bridalveil Falls. We hiked up to the falls, but there was so much run off and mist from the spring thaws that we got completely drenched! We came back down looking like we had just come out of a shower!

If I wasn't so lazy this would have been the first picture of the group :)

The kids (all 5 of them!) at the Giant Sequoia National Park

General Sherman Tree. The biggest tree in the U.S., maybe even world?

Again, if I wasn't so lazy, this would have been the first picture of the group!

It was a grand summer adventure, doing our little "tour de California". As you can probably imagine, there were "bumps" in the road. You get 5 kids on a road trip in a mini-van there are going to be "bumps". But, we love road trips, and we love to travel, so it wasn't anything we couldn't handle. Hannah put it best when the trip was done and she asked Matt " So, dad, when are we going on our next adventure?"

That pretty much sums it up.

Ode to Good Friends

We are a military family...what does this mean? Well, mainly for my kids it means that more often then not, we move or some really good friends move. This summer it was some really good friends. We fell in friendship with the Throcks. They moved in about the same time we did two years ago, and they just happened to have three girls the same ages as our three girls. A match made in Irwin!

Here is Anya with her BFF to date. They had the same teachers at school, were in the same class at church, and the Throcks lived right across the park from us. These girls have been joined at the hip since they met...



Goofy Hannah and silly Em. These girls are hilarious. Sometimes I think they were too much alike so there were some bumps...but they still LOVED to get together and play, for hours!! They always sat next to each other on the bus, and would walk home together.

Cora and her gal. These girls were always dressing up. As soon as little miss Throck would come through the door, clothes would be flying as the perfect princess ensemble was found. They were a pair!


The night before the Throcks moved we had one last sleepover at Irwin. Here are all the girls during the movie in our front room.

This is how I found them the next morning...All playing their D.S.'s!

One last walk across the park, to take our friends home for the last time.

This is our Ode to good friends. They are not always easily found, but when you do find them you are friends forever. So everyone out there...be a good friend!