Quick summer update

This summer is going by in a flash. We have not moved into our house yet and we are still staying in my parent’s basement, but we have rarely been there!

This past year we saved up most of our vacation time for this summer (it resets September 1st) and now we are enjoying using that time to reconnect with our families.

In July we enjoyed a wonderful day celebrating the anniversary of Paul’s grandparents and the legacy of a long and strong marriage they have modeled for all their children and grandchildren. We love you Grandma and Grandpa!

Directly after this party we hit the road and started headed towards the USA. First we spent 4 days in Sandpoint, Idaho with Chantelle’s parents. Growing up, Chantelle spent 13 of her summers enjoying several weeks down in Sandpoint each y ear with a variety of aunts, uncles, cousins and friends. There are so many memories in this place of growing up and camping and family time that it was special to take my own kids there and show them around!

 

After these fun days in Sandpoint, we headed down towards the Tetons (South east Idaho) to meet up with my brother Chad and his family. They live in Denver and drove to meet us for another week of awesome fun! We rented a little log cabin outside a tiny town called Victor, Idaho and enjoyed lots of meals around the table, hiking, biking, laughing and exploring. It is so good to reconnect, to meet my nephew Luke for the first time and to enjoy family time. It was so good just to be outside so much in the fresh air and green and mountains and the wild. We have missed that so much!

An amazing high altitude hike above the Tetons. I love the fields of wildflowers

Our first sight of snow in 4 years!

The cousins so enjoyed spending time playing together.

 

Hiking the Jenny lake loop near Jackson, Wyoming

I was so excited to see a bear! This cinnamon/brown bear was eating berries in a little gully about 30 feet away from us. He was so quiet and we watched him for about 20 minutes. I was so thrilled to see him, it has been a really long time since I have seen a bear.

We lucked out that the Jackson carnival was in town!

My Mom had asked ahead of time for us to plan to take a family photo so I brought my gear down (so did my sister Michelle who is an awesome photographer as well) and we got an updated family photo). So here we all are – The McIver/Hebert side of the family!

This is just a smattering of the photos I took. If you would like to see more you can go see the album on Chantelle’s facebook profile.

Now we are off to Calgary for work for 4 days and then we are headed off on the second half of our vacation, this time with Paul’s side of the family! We are so excited! Stay tuned for photos of that to come next!