I can see clearly now.....

.....the smoke has gone! Thank goodness for the rain, the smoke is now gone! (we'll see how long it lasts!)

This past weekend we were able to go to Idaho to visit our families. Grant's Dad hasn't been feeling well, so we decided to suprise him with a visit. We left Friday afternoon, after a last minute decision to go in the first place. We stayed at Clark's house (even though they weren't home and Zadyn kept asking for Grandma). Then Saturday morning, on our way to Orr's house, Grant called his Dad, just to see if he was up and what he was going to do for the day. Then we parked around back and snuck up to the front door (avoiding walking past the living room window). Grant knocked (still talking to his dad on the phone) and George said there was someone at the door. He opened the door and we all said "Surprise!!!!!" It was fun and a very emotional time. It was good to visit and help with things. They had a very abundant crop of tomatoes, so Grant and I made salsa and pizza sauce (we got to bring home the salsa -- yippee!). It was a good visit and I hope it made him feel a little better.

Sunday night we had dinner at Orr's with all the cousins. That was fun. The kids loved having races around the house and seeing who was the fastest! They played until it was getting dark and then we went back out to Clark's.
We stayed up late visiting (although we still aren't sure who Grant visited with!) and playing Encore. We were all amazed at the talent Collette has of knowing worthless musical knowledge! She is great! Not only can she sing just about any song in the world, she can sing it in a voice that is similar to the original singer! Her Cher impression is better than Cher herself!!!!
The kids are still talking about the root beer floats and those chocolate chip cookies........... mmmmmmmmmmmmmm. Avery loved sleeping on the "high" bed in the basement. He thought that was great.

We got up Monday and had to come home. We were hoping the smoke had cleared out of the valley, but by the time we started climbing the mountain outside of Salmon, it was clear (well it wasn't clear) that the smoke was thicker than ever. So, we decided to turn around and go back to Idaho. Then Grant remembered that he worked for a living and we kept on going. We had stopped in Arco for lunch and barely made it to Hamilton in time for dinner. The kids were so hungry, you could almost see their ribs protruding from lack of food and water over the weekend! We stopped at a Mexican place (must have been all the Mexican places we saw in Jerome that made us stop) and had dinner. They were really slow and the kids didn't like the chips, but we got them fried ice cream to make up for it. They were really impressed (not that it's that hard to impress them).

Now, I'm trying to get caught up on laundry. We had a great time and were glad that we could go visit. It's hard being far from family, but it's nice that we know we always have a place to stay and people to visit with!