Idaho Weekend

Beware of many photos to follow. I can't narrow it down...super sorry.

After Linda's funeral in Logan on Friday, we all drove up to Idaho, where she was laid to rest in the Ashton Cemetery. Though her funeral and burial was of course hard, it was also good because it helped with a little bit of closure on that end. We also found out the other day that Linda's death certificate named Amniotic Fluid Embolism as her cause of death, which has also helped bring a little bit of closure, knowing it was a completely rare and horrible thing that really could not have been prevented. It has still been very, very hard. What else is there to say?

{By the way, anyone who would like to see Linda's obituary can do so HERE}

The rest of the weekend, we all attempted to have some semblance of normalcy in celebrating the Fourth of July.

We spent a lot of time at Grandma's house, sitting around, hanging out on the porch, and playing in the yard in the sprinklers and kiddie pool. We also had a water balloon volleyball game, which was great fun (though sadly, Carlie and I lost. Next time, next time.)
One night, we made the trek to the sand dunes. This is always a fun thing to do and we did have a good time, though sort of in a redneck way... somehow we managed to only bring one package of hotdogs for the whole lot of us, no napkins, no cups, and no silverware. Pretty awesome. We made it work though and Carlie was kind enough to run back to get more hot dogs for the die hards who insist upon eating them (not me.)
Mari Ann and Grandma
Dev and Jacer
Cortney and Max
Sue and Devin showed up wearing the same shirt. Classy. I love it. I won't say who is cross-dressing....
A bunch of the crowd at the top of one of the dunes: Steve, Jen, Dev, Sue, Nort, Hallie, Jack, and Brad
Che' and little Hudson. Yes, I mean little. Jace clearly outweighs him now. It's getting ridiculous.
Jack

Landon, Che', and Hudson
Races to the top of the dunes? Yes, please.
Grandpa Doyle
Mari Ann and Jack roasting some dogs
Oh yep, I was there too. Evidence is here.
Yes, this scares me. Ryen, Mason, Carter, and Avery all took turns driving the four-wheelers around despite none of them being older than 10. We have a bunch of little dare-devils on our hands! (This is Ryen taking her turn.)
Hallie LOVES hot dogs- which she did not get from me. She was one of the lucky ones who got a dog from the one package that showed up before Carlie ran to get more. She doesn't care for the bun, oddly enough.

I think this thing is called a Razor? Fun little machine. Judd took my mom for a really crazy ride. You can see he is quite proud of himself. I took the machine for a ride and made it about 10 feet before I got it stuck. A little cautious? YES. Don't worry, I put the pedal to the metal after that and was more successful.
Remember how we didn't bring cups? We DID have water bottles, so after emptying those, they became our "cups" for the pop. Remember, I did say redneck!
Sadie and Jen

Judd back for another round of scaring innocent people- this time Hailie.


Continuing with the redneck theme, that night, Devin and I went to sit in Judd and Sue's "Redneck hot-tub." It's an animal trough sitting out in the middle of their farm that they fill up with 120 degree mineral water straight from the ground. Let me tell you, it was AMAZING! It was dark so we had a great view of the entire area, plus a lot of people were lighting fireworks, so that was really cool to watch. I think we will be hitting that up again at some point.

Monday, we were able to go to a parade and have lunch at Grandma's before we needed to head back to Utah. We hit the Rexburg parade with Mike and Lara, Che', Landon, and Hudson, Mari Ann, Jennifer, Steve, and Sadie. It was fun, though not the best parade I have ever seen. Hallie got a TON of candy though, and that is all that matters to a 2 year old.

Hallie loves Che'. She sat with her the whole time and had her help get her candy and such.
Cute Hudson
Dev and Jace
My favorite "float". They didn't really have floats, more like a lot of tractors. But this sort of counts.`
Devin and Jace. I looked over and saw that Dev had him sitting on the curb and had his arm around him and thought it was pretty cute.
Landon and Hudson. Hudson is obviously enthralled with whatever Landon is pointing at!
Oh- this is a picture of Houston for Mari Ann. He got to ride this cart in the parade as part of the "hydration committee". Apparently someone passed out last year, so he rode around looking for people who might need water to try to prevent that sort of thing. Very useful, very useful.
Mari Ann got a FREE car wash after she yelled the loudest (don't worry, we helped!) when the car wash people came by. Yay for her! She was sure excited.

Of course, on the way home I wanted to stop and see sweet Charlie. She seems to be making great progress. Every little thing she does, I consider a miracle. She continues to amaze.
I loved this little message they had up for the weekend while everyone was in Idaho. The NICU nurses take good care of her and send lots of cute pictures to Brad. Ryen turned 7 the day before her mom's funeral and some nurses took pictures of Charlie dressed up in a birthday hat and made a scrap book page to send to Ryen for her big day, which I thought was really sweet.

Anyway- it has been a crazy, crazy few weeks. It seems unfair that life has to continue on despite the fact that it will never be the same for us, and especially not for Brad and the kids. However, I know that Linda would never want us to sit around and mope all our lives. I know she would want us to continue to have family get togethers and to enjoy life, which is what we are trying to do. We are trying to get back into the routine of things- work, cleaning the house, etc. but it has been hard. I still think about her nearly constantly. The pain has eased some, though, and I know it will continue to do so.

I hope you all had a wonderful and safe Independence Day!