Summer Road Trip

Austin was in charge of his mission reunion this summer. We picked a date a year ago and then Jill qualified for Canadian high school rodeo finals which was the same day.  So Austin, Hanna, Lucy and Carly left on Friday. 

The reunion was a success even though there wasn't quite as many missionaries as he had hoped. They had it in Huntsville, Utah with President Marlin and Kathy Jensen.

Jill and I  left Cardston at 7 pm on Saturday and got to Idaho Falls at 2:30 am. We slept until 6 am and left at 7 am to go to Bennington, Idaho to listen to Kade Pitchford's mission homecoming talk.  He gave an awesome talk. He served in Oaxaca, Mexico. He wore out his shoes in the service of God. He is definitely the kind of young man you hope your daughters will marry. 

We stayed over night with the Pitchfords. We visited, ate fresh raspberries, Carly played a dozen games of pool, and team roped in the morning. 

We did some successful school clothes shopping in Logan. We enjoyed pizza and ice cream cones with Steve and Karma Albiston.  Steve turned 80 this year and in a couple weeks they are going to celebrate their 60th wedding anniversary.

Jill and Hanna took a campus tour of Utah State University. 

Austin and I did our own tour with Lucy and Carly. We relived some of our Aggie moments! 

There is a story that on our second date we were walking around campus and we were standing by a bike rack talking. I put my hand down and Austin's hand was there and I didn't move mine and so we start holding hands for the first time. Austin likes to tell people that I was the mover in the relationship.

After Logan we went to Salt Lake, and we stopped to see Austin's cousin Bobby Depoe at the Huntsman Cancer Institute. He is fighting liver cancer and it's not going well. He was flying home the next day after we were there. He had on a Do Not Resuscitate  band. It was humbling and puts life in perspective.

The last stop of our trip was visiting Doug, Rachelle, Jeanette and Diana. We stay with Doug and Emily in their new house in Cedar Hills. It is an awesome house. We are so happy for them. We still pray every day that they will get a baby. 

Austin I went with Jill and Hanna on the campus tour of Utah Valley University in Orem. It was impressive. It would be fun to go to school there.

Then our girls went to see Hailey Bennett in The Little Mermaid play. Austin I went to the court to be there when Rachelle and Nathan adopted Brooklyn (which I wrote about in another blog post)!

We had a fun celebration that night! 

Grandpa Reeve even came for a few minutes.

Diana has a special place in heaven for all that she's done to care for Grandpa Reeve.

W liked to give Hailey a bad time about her new driving skills.

Now that all the adventures were over, we had to drive home. We drove all the way from Cedar Hills to Cardston. It was a long day. Especially because we had to take two cars back. Jill and I spent a lot of time together in the car. We bonded!