Grand Canyon of Yellowstone

The day we drove through Yellowstone, we mapped out three key sights along our path through the park. The main road in the park is a big loop, which was confusing at times because there would be arrows pointing in both directions, informing us that Old Faithful was a either left or right turn. It just depended on how long of a drive we wanted before we arrived. We decided to save Old Faithful for last, even with potential afternoon crowds, because it was the farthest away from our point of entry on the park loop road. Our first sight of the day was the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone. 

This was my first grand canyon! I'm sure it's tiny compared to Arizona's version, but it was still quite rugged and impressive. We parked in a fast-filling lot and walked a mile and a half down a trail to a waterfall viewpoint partway down the canyon wall. Knowing Jay's fear of heights, I asked him how he was feeling regularly throughout our hike. In response to my first inquiry, he said "my fear of heights is in full force." He walked slowly and cautiously the whole way, and never went too close to any ledges, railing or no. 

Cody and beyond

After two weeks in the mile high city, we prepped for our journey home. The plan was to stop one night in Cody, Wyoming, spend the following day in Yellowstone National Park, and then stay in Bozeman, Montana that night before driving the remaining 8.5 hours home the following morning. I find a bullet-point outline to be more straightforward: 

• Day 1: drive 7.5 hours from Denver to Cody, WY
• Day 2: explore Yellowstone, sleep in Bozeman, MT
• Day 3: drive from Bozeman to home (8.5 hours)

Brown Family Pictures

(Dread + Anticipation) x Hope = family pictures

Having a sister who's a professional photographer eases the pressure somewhat. We had a quick backyard family photo shoot on June 30th. Even though it's a hassle getting everyone cleaned up, family pictures are always worth the effort!

Three trails, two sisters

My sister-in-law Dani recently discovered the JOY of trail running, so you'd better believe I capitalized on that shared interest during our Denver visit. We went on three trail runs together in two weeks! It was a pure delight to have a trail running buddy. I love my solitude as much as the next introvert, but I also love running with a friend. Conversation flows most easily when I'm on the move, and like-minded similarly-paced running partners are scarce. I've had less than five in the fifteen years since my college track team. Dani and I preferred to run-hike, running the smooth sections and hiking the steeper/rocky sections. It was an ideal blend. We had a blast absorbing the scenery and sisterhood while we chatted our way around the rocky trails.

Cousin central

The main Brown Family get-together with my parents and all five of their kids plus spouses plus 12 grandchildren lasted for the first week of our stay in Denver. All of my siblings left my parents' house during the second week we were there. Em left her four kids at the house for the second week, and Dani and Alivia (who live near Denver) visited several times during the week, so there was plenty of quality cousin time. As usual, I barely saw my three kids while we were in Denver. Cousin central is their favorite place to be! The stayed at the house the whole time we were there and played every day away: board games, card games, Dungeons and Dragons, videoing skits, swimming, and watching plenty of Studio C comedy sketches together (and then quoting it at anyone with ears). 

Grand Teton National Park

Our one and only summer trip is done. It lasted from June 25th-July 15th: three weeks of family bonding, road trip and reunion style. While we were away, I completely ignored all photo-organization and now, twenty-one days and a thousand pictures later, I am facing a messy mega-sized morass of adventure pictures! This post is my first foray into sorting through the photographic evidence of our three week journey. I love looking at my pictures, but organizing them is a daunting project. As my tenth grade geometry teacher used to say, "How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time!" Here's the first mouthful. Hopefully it's not too chewy.

School's out!

The strangest school year ever is over at last. The official last day of school was Friday, June 19th, but elementary school report card pickup was Tuesday, June 16th. Jay and Rose finished their last assignments on Friday, June 12th. They each had one last class video meeting on Monday, June 15th before they were officially DONE. Confused yet? Welcome to "distance learning!" Hah. These ambiguous end dates wreaked havoc on my traditional "last day of school" pictures and end-of-school survey worksheet, so we decided to call Friday, June 12th our last day of school. We took our front porch pictures and filled out my homemade worksheets a full week before Jeff was officially done with his school year as a teacher. 

Snow Lakes

Last week it was high time for another Shaina trail adventure, but the weather forecasts in the mountains were cold, rainy, and stormy all week. I used the time to research possibilities, scouring maps, trip reports, trail descriptions, and weather forecasts for days before finally choosing my forest. This week the weather cleared. On Tuesday night, I threw together my gear and went to bed looking forward to an early start the next day.

Quarantine Hair

Jay was determined to wait until the school year ended before getting a haircut. Consequently, he grew an impressively luxurious strawberry mop of hair. The last time I trimmed his hair back in February was the best haircut I've ever given. My February fading and layering job on Jay's hair made it grow out in an almost-perfect way. The back didn't look bushy and mullet-long because I layered it so well and because the top was so much longer. It was satisfying to see my quality amateur work grow out so nicely. But the situation was getting intense. Jay developed a head-jerk-side-sweep to swoop the hair out of his eyes every few seconds. He voluntarily wore it in a ponytail on two separate occasions. He was feeling ready to see clearly again.

June Joys

School is winding down down down. There are still a few more things to be done before school is officially out for the summer, but it is rapidly waning. This week we had some oddly cool weather, with some storms and humidity. It made for some dynamic sky views--my favorite. 

On Monday my adult sized scooter came, so Jeff and I were able to enjoy scooter rides together. That same day, our ward primary had a kids' virtual talent show where each child could perform and share a video on our Facebook group or create art and share a picture of it. Jay played one of his favorite piano songs from Lord of the Rings. Rose did a flip on the trampoline. Amber drew a picture of a rainbow. It was fun seeing what talents the other kids in our ward shared, and helped us feel just a little more connected. 

Weird week

It was a weird week. I was in a funk. Intense events were happening nationwide. Social media morphed from a cozy place to touch base with friends to a polarized battleground of guilt trips and calls to arms. Inside my own home, all of my usual activities sounded either difficult or uninteresting in the most irritatingly relentless fashion. 

Just now, as I sat down to type this blog post, Amber destroyed a tree Rose built out of "brain flakes" building discs. Rose screamed and cried and shoved Amber away. Amber cried. As natural consequences, I had Rose apologize to Amber for the shove, and Amber had to clean up the busted pieces. Amber thought this was the most unfair edict ever, and in anger she tornado'd the blocks around the room, scattering them far and wide and making her clean-up job that much harder. For the next fifteen minutes or so, I endured Amber's endless protestations and outright refusal to clean up. Her main argument was she wanted lunch before she cleaned up the mess. I refused. She whined and moaned and kicked more pieces around. I told her whiny kids get naps instead of afternoon screen time. She got more mad. 

Happy Jeff-Day

June 1st was Jeff's birthday! We love him! I gave him an adult sized scooter. He gave himself a new video game controller. The kids made him cards. My mom sent him a book about a French snail named Escargot. Jeff requested Cajun shrimp for dinner and brownies with ice cream for dessert. I made my best batch of Cajun Shrimp ever, and even accessorized with several colorful side dishes. Side dishes are my nemesis, but I managed to slice a watermelon, heat and butter a can of sweet corn, cook the rice, and toss a heart of Romaine lettuce into a bowl. It was such a lovely summery meal, we ate it outside in the front yard. Lighting the birthday candles was a challenge in the breezy outdoors, so we don't have pictures of that portion. We lit a 3 and an 8 shaped candle, and one of them blew out before we could sing Happy Birthday at top speed. Jeff blew out the other one and we called it good. After dinner, Jeff's parents paid us a responsibly distant visit. They sat in our yard while we sat on our porch and chatted for half an hour. Happy birthday to the best husband ever!