House Pictures

We had Faith and the Lord Blessed us!!

Our Front door

That is a mirror over the table reflecting a DARK blue wall across the room, it is getting painted.

Kitchen is off to the right

Master bedroom with door out on left

Guest Bedroom/temp baby room. Closet door on the left

Master bedroom going in

Coming out of the master bedroom, children's book shelf

closet door 1st right, bathroom next door, master bedroom straight back

children's bookshelf on right boys room straight back

Kitchen, laundry room/BIG pantry in straight back

our favorite room in the house! :)

boys in their pool, in their HUGE sandbox!

We live on a corner, our garage is on Canyon road

Our house is on Morningside

garage

backdoor and our main entrance and exit

Side view, Kitchen is the small window, dining room is the larger

Morningside to the left and front door to the right

We have been blessed with our new home. The landlords are super sweet and very helpful! She loves to garden and is going to help me learn how. We are thrilled to be settled down here and so far are enjoying Yakima. While the temps have been relatively low for this time of year, it is beginning to slowly rise into the high 90s. Popsicle and water wars are a common occurrence now and I have a feeling it will stay that way for a little while. We have met some wonderful people since moving here and are excited as we build relationships that will stay in our hearts forever.

YAKIMA!!

That's a wrap! 13,450 miles, 105 days, 27 states 2 van repairs, 1 flat tire and lots of great memories! July 11, 2011 we arrived in Yakima, Washington our new home for a few years!

Huntington, Oregon

For reasons I am not sure,  after we left Uncle Bobs cabin I put my camera away and did not very many pictures. I think the excitement was building so intensely of us getting to Yakima, taking pictures did not cross my mind.

After we left Uncle Bobs we drove down through Twin Falls, ID to meet up with Dave's cousin Drew. Drew is the last person to meet in Dave's entire family. The only person who I was not able to meet was Grandpa Breckenridge who died when Dave was in his late teens.
We met Drew at McDonalds and while the kids played Dave and Drew had a chance to catch up. Drew is currently going to college in Twin Falls and also works for the local fire department as  an EMT. He is working on getting accepted to a Parametric school.



We headed out to Huntington, Oregon after that for our LAST night of camping!! I was so excited!

A little background: We had NEVER seen the house waiting for us in Yakima. We saw a couple of pictures over email and we had been communicating with the Landlords over email. They were sweet and held the place for us over the summer while we traveled and overall we had a really nice experience with them. We really felt the Lord asking us to lean into him on this and trust him. He gave us a supernatural peace and in faith we took the step and made the deposit on the house. Knowing full well the possibility of it being a total dump. But we had faith.

We found our campsite in Farewell Bend State Park and set up camp. The boys played football while I made dinner. We ate, took showers and were off to bed. While the campground was really nice, the bathrooms were full of NASTY creepy crawlers! I put on a brave face for the kiddos and dealt with it but I was glad we were only there for ONE night.

Morning came early, we were up by 8am but nobody was complaining. We wanted to get home!!!!! (I can not help but put tons of exclamations marks. We were so excited!)
We packed up and were out in record time. We decided that breakfast out was a necessary treat, kind of like an end of trip celebration.

When we arrived at Oregon Trail Diner in Baker City, OR for breakfast we were please to notice that we jumped back another hour. So we got up by 8am and were seated at our breakfast table at 8:30am. How is that for fast. WAHOO! :)

The Oregon Trail Diner was amazing! The TWO waitresses were SUPER friendly and the food was amazing! It was the best breakfast we had devoured on the whole road trip. The coffee was YUM and my cup was never empty. The meals were filling and delicious and the price was cheap! Just the way we like it. 

The boys polished off their entire breakfast of pancakes, bacon, eggs, chocolate milk and apple juice. That says a lot since our boys are not big breakfast eaters.

After breakfast we said Thank You and were on our way. . .our way home. I can believe I am typing that. 

HOME!!!

Uncle Bobs Cabin

 We left Yellow Stone and cruised up to Ashton, Idaho to spend time with Dave's Uncle Bob at his cabin. It is a BEAUTIFUL cabin tucked away in the woods. It was refreshing to spend a few days with no cell phone reception, no internet and no TV.  The boys had a fun time playing with the toys that Uncle Bobs kids use to play with many years ago.

 The hammock was everyone's favorite place to hang out up in the loft.

 We also played cards. Benn can whip up with some Uno or slap jack! That kids is amazing and loves to play cards.

 Dave has fond memories of going out to the cabin with his family when he was young. Dave has helped work on different areas of the cabin and left his "signature" of craftsmanship.  

 Uncle Bob has a four wheeler and we rode and rode!! Not with the helmets above, Uncle Bob had some kiddie size ones just for our boys.

 Caleb enjoyed his knew found freedom of scooting around while we were at the cabin and he also sat up for short periods. I can not believe how big baby is getting!

Visitor Center

 We took a day trip out to Mesa Falls. The water fall was beautiful and we enjoyed hiking around taking in God's creation.

We had a wonderful time at the Cabin and we all look forward to go back very soon!

Grand Teton National Park and Yellow Stone

 After Mount Rushmore we drove over to Grand Teton National park to camp. It was more like Alaska then any of our other camping experiences. There was warnings of bears and boxes to keep food in at night. We felt right at home. We had a fire and enjoyed the evening with little to no bugs.

 Poor JJ. There were signs posted everywhere warning people not to leave food out because of bears. Josiah got in the tent while I was putting baby to bed and sat in the corner quietly. When I asked him what was wrong he said: "I saw a sign with a bear on it, I do not want bears here" It was so sad. I explain to him everything was okay. He snuggled down into his sleeping bag and fell asleep still a little fearful. Josiah is normally the last little boys in the tent. He enjoys being out in the wild and he definitely does not sit quietly in a tent. I think he may have been a little tired as well.

 The boys loved washing the dishes while we were camping. Here they are washing breakfast dishes.

 We had already been to Yellow Stone in April but did not get to see Old Faithful go off. We drove up and through the park and stopped at the Yellow Stone Falls to make the hike down the many stairs to view the upper falls. Gorgeous!

 And of course we stopped in to see Old Faithful! In a down pour rain, lightening touching down in the park and thunder pounding through the sky we sat and wait for an hour and eventually saw this amazing sight.

We are thankful we drove through in April. We saw MANY animals last time. Not so much this time. We saw a couple bison and that was it. Yellow Stone is still a beautiful park and we enjoyed viewing it.