More Traveling and Vacations

Welcome, welcome, Sabbath morning! Everyone is back from rafting, they arrived at 2:30 am, and they got out their bags and started a bit of laundry and airing things out - we were in bed around 3:30. We slept in a bit, then church at 11:30, and then it was still busy, so not the best day of rest for us. After church we had to hurry and get Melodie to the airport for her flight to Chicago - which left at 3:45. We got to the airport at 2:50 - Go go go!

She is staying in Chicago tonight, and then tomorrow has a flight to Vienna! 

She is going there with a BYU group for something, I don't know, Corey does (feel free to put it in the comments, sweetie.) I came back and did a better job helping with the clean up than I did with the trip prep. Corey took Abi and Wes to return the raft and coolers they rented. Still more to clean up here, plus we're packing again - we're heading up to Park City for another fun week. Ethan and a van full of kids just left around 8pm, picking up cousin Alix on their way. Dinner was at 6. They were late and thus we did not provide our contribution for the potato bar. Doh. Corey, Natalie, Katharine and I are going to be even more late, cause we've been home finishing cleaning up stuff from the rafting trip and loading bikes and helmets and stuff for Park City. We also had to stay because Wesley had a YMAD thing tonight, so he has Corey's car. Natalie volunteered to stay cause there wasn't room in the car, and cause I offered her a $10 towards legos incentive. She was such a great helper with Katharine this week, I am really glad she stayed home with me. So after Wes gets back, we'll hopefully load up the bikes and then go. His YMAD thing should be over at 9. It was a busy week for all of us with company and the rafting trip. It will be fun to be in Park City and kinda have a break? I plan to get in lots of biking. 

Salmon River & First Monarch

Corey and the kids have been in Idaho on the Salmon River on a rafting trip all week, off the grid and on the water. They said they would be back today/Saturday, so I have been checking life 360 throughout the morning to see when they happen to show up. Nothing.... until around 5:50 pm when they showed up near McCall Idaho, yay! ...and then darn - they're 7+ hours away! When they lost network on Monday they were 5 and a half hours away. I'm sure they've had fun but are also exhausted, so that's probably a bummer to have a long drive ahead of them. I don't know the details of their adventures this past week. I will have to ask them to each give me details when they get home. Actually tomorrow, cause they are going to arrive around 2 am. Corey texted that they are driving a little slower than normal and with the windows open and the heater on again, cause the transmission was overheating with the trailer they were pulling. We have texted a little bit during their drive. Corey has sent me some pictures. He said Wes was amazing help -

Without Wes, Corey might not have made it back alive. Wesley inflating the raft - 

And it's good to see he delegated the manual labor out to his sisters a little bit. 

Sophi above, Abi below with Wesley in the background, still working. 

Corey: "Wes was amazing. He rowed basically the entire river. He worked his butt off the entire time - and I let him. I would have been hating the trip without him."

"Rafting is a lot of fun - but it is a ton of work. The work is constant."

I asked him if the trip was worth all the work he put in: "I don’t think the juice is worth the squeeze. The first couple of days I could see ourselves trying to do a trip like this every year. But now I see it as more of a really good thing for the kids - Wes especially. It was magical and very fun - but nearly constant work....and a lot of work/cleanup remains..."

Enjoying a moment to sit down and relax!

Wes the worker - 

Lily with camper braids ~

Sophi getting out tangles - 

Half of the group taking a selfie - 

The scenery looked beautiful!

Work work work - 

Pack and unpack - 

Load and unload - 

There were four families in the group. 

I'm sure there are more pictures and videos, but this will do for now. They exist, so to future family historians who might be reading this: you might have to go in search of more pictures yourself. But as of July 2022, they are out there somewhere. 

Go as descendants of the Morgans, Felixes, or Jones'.

Wesley - the worthy captain of their Wride raft. 

I'll update this part below later with each of their favorite parts: 

Wesley - favorite part was the rapids "cause they were fun and were lot bigger than the ones we had on Desolation. Salmon had class 4 rapids, on Desolation the highest was a class 3 and we only had two of those, and I wasn't allowed to row the class 3s on Deso, but I rode the whole time on Salmon." 

Abi - 

Lily - She said it's hard to decided. The rapids were fun, she's glad she didn't have to steer any of them. Mr. President was fun. She also liked when they'd set up and just hang out at the campsite. Everyone was really funny. 

Sophi - her favorite part was the rapids too, "cause it was exciting. I also liked playing Mr. President." I asked Sophi how to play that game... She said they'd be sitting on the raft rowing and then whoever decides they want to play it, puts their finger to their ear, another person notices and puts fingers to their ear... 

As if they are trying to listen to their spy earpiece, Sophi: "So the last person to put their fingers to their ears, like they are the Secret Service, the last person to do that is the president and everyone has to yell "Mr. President" and shove them in the water, as if someone was going to shoot them." Corey said the girls played that with each other the WHOLE time that Wes was working and rowing, and that it was a lot of fun. They were the party raft. Corey brought along water guns too, so they had battles with the other boats. I'm glad they were all safe and had a good experience. We'll be glad when they get home!

Here at home, we had a fun week with cousins. 

They left around 10. Here they are getting their last bits of exercise before spending the day in the car. They are driving straight home, all day and all night. They've got it down to a system from driving non stop home in years past, so they're pros. I was hoping they'd be here to see our first monarch emerge, but the butterfly was taking it's time and it eclosed an hour after they left. 

Yay! Our first monarch of the season! 

We were glad that we saw it emerge!

I called the kids over to see. It's amazing!

This one was a male, so cool! We love it! I'm looking forward to an amazing butterfly summer!

Lisa Falls & Baptism

Grant and Steph have been staying with us since last Saturday, but their schedule has been booked and today was the first time they had a little bit of down time (90 minutes) and we could all do something together! Grant was hoping for time in the mountains, and we did do Bridal Veil Falls yesterday and decided to do another mountain walk today at Lisa Falls. 

I'm impressed that, almost every time that Corey's gone on a ride, he bikes all the way up here! Wow

The kids found a nice dirt hill to climb and roll down and get dirty in, yay

Peter found a stick! And was killing bad guys. 

Grant going up to rescue some kids that were stuck up the dirt hill - 

Lisa Falls is beautiful.

Peter and Caleb hiked up over some rocks, and then when they came back, Peter proudly told me he found a rock!! I would have said that we were surrounded by rocks, I perhaps Peter was looking for a particular kind of rock. 

We just stayed for a little bit up in the mountains, and then the Hibberts came back home to prepare for Edmund's baptism. The kids all wanted to go in my car (I've got the kid magnet Katharine), but Grant told his kids that they were going over early to practice a song that they were going to sing. At home, Ethan didn't have work this morning, so he was able to come to the baptism with us. He was also doing laundry or something in the laundry room and saw a paper where Mel had been doing some pencil sketches... and thought he'd give it a go. 

Hilarious!!!

Katharine looks like a little Frankenstein, and Natalie doesn't look right either. 

I laughed at Ethan being silly, but he said "I was honestly trying my best!" Well that is good! Your best is good enough! We all left to go to Edmunds baptism at 5. Cute group of little boys!

Ok, girls can join too... and big boys...

It was a picture taken in a small hallway, hence the wide angle from the phone camera. My brother Neil is a bishop up in Layton and Grant had asked him to come conduct, so it was a really special service, small and intimate. Stephanie and Taden gave the talks. Grant baptized Edmund, my mom played the piano and led the music, and there was a sweet testimony meeting after. It was a lovely service. They all went out to eat after, but we didn't join them for that cause Ethan had to work at 5. They are heading back to Texas tomorrow morning. It's been really great having them here and getting to spend time with them and getting to know their boys better. I only wish that Corey and the girls would have been around too, but that's ok. They are hopefully coming home tomorrow too. Life is good.

Bridal Veil & Creamery

Grant and I got to hang out today with all of our little boys (and Natalie) (...and Katharine, but mostly little boys...) One of his "to-do's" while he was in Utah was to go by the BYU Creamery for some Graham Canyon ice cream. Since we were going down to Provo, we thought it would be fun to go on a little hike, so we went to Bridal Veil Falls - 

Everyone hiking up - 

Grant was on "active kids" duty (hiking back down with a toddler in each hand)

and I watched the kids as they decided to stay put in the wagon, the pool, or on the side walk. Peter enjoyed picking up rocks and throwing them in the bushes - 

Caleb joined us. Soon there were more of them gathering at the street - Owen and Daniel throwing rocks down into the river - 

O and D left for a moment to conquer greater mountains, and Peter kept on his little shelf throwing rocks into the river - 

His brothers and cousins soon joined him again - I thought this photo was precious - 

Life doesn't get much better than that for little boys - just sitting by a river and throwing rocks. Grant and the older kids were trying to build a dam/fortress - 

I thought it was very hot. I hugged the shade, Peter stayed close to me most of the time. Peter showing me a rock - 

Peter and Caleb squabbled with each other as if they were family. Baby Katharine slept through the whole thing. 

I knew she's be hungry before we'd be able to get back home, so we went by the creamery and I fed her there. Guess who else was at the creamery - two of our favorite big kids! Joseph and Ethan!

Ethan had to hurry back to the MTC for work, but we enjoyed saying hi.

We tried to look for shade, it was hot, we went inside for ice cream. The little boys wanted more cold ice cream relief and attacked Joseph - 

So I fed Katharine a little bit, but after we were back in the car, she was crying for more. Most of the kids wanted to go in my car with me, since I had Katharine. Daniel and Caleb went in Grant's car, and I had the rest, It was a bit crazy cause now I had a few more kids "calling" who go to sit by K and making each other mad over who already had a turn or who sat by her last time. I can't keep track of it all. Kids are arguing, K is crying, so I came up with a quick plan - let's go by the Roots of Knowledge exhibit! Hallelujah it was open. I sat on the floor and fed Katharine, the kids looked at the windows. 

I was very proud of myself for knowing about this gem of a place. 

It was perfect. 

I told them of a few of the "easter eggs' that I knew about, like the Millenium Falcon star, and the Piano guys in a Mozart duet.

They stayed busy and relatively quiet and under control while I nursed Katharine.

Then bathroom break and back to the car. Grant picked up Stephanie and they got home before I did. They had dinner ready by the time we were back, and the kids ate and I ran upstairs to feed Katharine again. We watched a few videos of the day's activities and I was ready for bed. 

It's been a fun day, but I'm spent. I don't get a break with all the big kids gone. Joseph is on his way back from Puerto Rico. They were flying towards the sun, so he got to enjoy 3 hours of sunset light, pretty fun. All of his sunset photos here. Even though J is coming back to Utah, he'll be headed to Provo. I miss having all of my older helpers! I have been leaving K with Natalie to babysit almost every day this week when I leave to take Ethan to frontrunner. She's been a lifesaver. I'm glad I've had one daughter here while the others abandoned me to go rafting. It's ok, N, K and I will go next time. Normally E could take a car to work or to frontrunner, but the fiesta was being weird on him last week. He just left the car there in the frontrunner parking lot, but on Tues took it to a shop in Provo. Found out yesterday that the clutch needs to be replaced. $1800, yay.