A new, old tradition...

So a week or so ago we participated in a family tradition that was new to us, but apparently has been around for over 100 years. On my mom's side of the family, the Dowdle's, it has been a tradition to go and pick huckleberries every year for generations. When my Great Uncle Bob mentioned that they were heading up to Idaho for some berry picking my mom told him we were interested in coming along. He was so excited to have others who were interested in coming along. While we were picking he told us how the tradition had been around for so long, which was news to us, and it was fun to be a part of it. It was a beautiful, if chilly day, and it was so nice to be outside. For those who don't know (because I had no idea) a huckleberry looks like a blue berry but is about a third the size. Needless to say it takes a lot of picking to get enough berries to do anything with (but it's worth it because they are tasty!). We were pretty proud of our berries....

A visit from the poppa

So a side benefit from Jason's wedding was that my dad came into town. The question always is what to do with him wants he's here, I'm no good at entertaining people. Because of that I impose on Greg and Leigh and we go up and stay at their house, aren't you guys lucky? We thought we may be doomed again with bad weather (it poured the whole time he was here last fall) as Saturday was rather yucky, but finally the weather pulled through for us on Sunday. It called for a nice leisurly drive through Logan canyon and a stop for a burger and raspberry shake at Bear Lake....


Mac's cave












Nice glasses!








Bear Lake...

Jason & Melissa's Wedding

So the past few weeks have been incredibly busy, and it's been hard to stay caught up on the blog side of things. Because of that I thought I'd just touch on the wedding briefly and do a slide show since I've had some real difficulties lately adding pictures etc. Due to some crazy circumstances they decided to get married one day and then have the reception the next. Being in the beginning of August, in Utah, one would think that they would be pretty safe on expecting good weather. Unfortunately it didn't quite pan out that way (according to Melissa there is some family curse when it comes to wedding day weather). Anyway, the day of the wedding dawned as a hot and blustery one...ok it was just blustery, sometimes the gusts were so strong they blew us over a few steps. Since there is so much construction going on in downtown SLC there was just dirt flying. Sounds horrible huh? Well it wasn't the most pleasant experience, but overall it was a great day and I think the pictures turned out great despite the chaos in the weather. Flash forward to the next day, the day of the reception. It dawns absolutely beautiful, looks like the cold front has blown in and we'll be safe for the night. Guess again, just as we start driving un to Salt Lake big black clouds start oozing in from the west and here comes that dastardly wind. Waiting for disaster to strick we walk into the back yard and helped move a few things around so that they wouldn't blow away and waited. By the time the reception started the wind had stopped and although the sky had it's black spots no rain fell. It turned out absolutely gorgeous! Only one vase of flowers turned suicidal in the wind and took a dive bomb off their pedestal. Here are just a few of the pictures:

White Water, the final edition...

So I finally got our official pictures from the rafting trip, notice all the screaming....

Wonderful Wild Wyoming Part II

For some reason my blog was all screwed up and I couldn't get this part where I wanted it so here we go with the rest of the trip

On Pioneer Day we broke camp early and headed to Jackson Hole. We had a full day planned starting with a white water raft trip down the Snake River and ending with a Bar J Wrangler's show. Because the day before was sweltering while we tried to hike, the weather of course decided to rain and be cold while we rode down the river. It meant we got to wear these ultra sexy wet suits though :0 These are just some of the snap shots we took, but the good pictures are coming in the mail and I will post them when they arrive. The river was a little wild with due to all the water we'd gotten this past winter and spring, made it all the more fun...

In the thick of the action...

Wonderful Wild Wyoming

So I'm a little late getting this post up, there's been a lot going on. Anyway, I wanted to post some pictures from our family vacation this year. We originally were going to go back East to Cape Cod, but, things didn't line up right and in the long run that was a good thing as everyone was too poor anyway. Instead we chose to do some camping in Wyoming. Most of the state is not all that pretty but the northwest area is beautiful. We picked the Wind Rivers mountains as our destination, and then proceeded to pick the most out of the way campground...the Green River Lakes area. It is where the Green River originates, and it's beautiful as you can see above. Because Jason and Melissa were getting married in two weeks they opted to not join us for the Pioneer Day weekend campout but the rest of us all went. We met up with Greg & Leigh in Kemerer, WY and then headed out. Of course we were dumb enough to rely on Google Maps directions to get us to our campground, and after an hour wasted stopped and asked the locals. They got us on the right, very long road. The last 20 miles into the campground is just a dirt road. Because of all of our problems getting together the sun was just starting to set when we got there. We hurried and laid out the tents and got one up before it was dark, of course the bigger, more challenging tent we put up by lantern light. Mom started making our dutch oven as soon as we pulled up and we were finally sitting down to eat chicken cordon bleu at 11:15PM! Then it was off to bed, and by that time it was absolutely freezing. I don't think I ever got completely warm even though I had two shirts and a sweat shirt on and was rolled up in a mummy sleeping bag. Our tent (Greg, Leigh, and I) woke up by 6:00 to discover that it had even frosted slightly on the stuff left in the tent. Well I wanted to find this lake so I headed out and was greeted by the beauty of the area. Here are just some of the pictures I took.

Now, despite the cold of the morning the day continued to get hotter and hotter and hotter. The guys were out on there float tubes fishing and we women tried to go for a hike but the bugs were incredible. The mosquitos didn't realize that it was daytime or something, and the flies were so annoying. I finally started to feel a bit insane and we headed back to camp, not that that was any better so eventually we all ended up in our 100 degree tents, wearing practically nothing, just to escape from the bugs. It sounds like we must of had a miserable time, but really it was fun...once the sun went down that is...