Summer Recap

There are so many family memories I haven´t documented but it would be way too overwhelming to try to catch up now, so I have decided to only do a quick recap of the summer and start fresh now that it is fall with winter fast approaching. Summer for us was pretty much the same old thing: work, work, and more work although we did take advantage of having the beach nearby to cool off in the afternoon on several occassions. The most exciting and enjoyable thing we did as a family was visit family in Utah. Everytime we visit the States it makes coming back even harder. We love going and Charlie especially loves going to have cousins to play with 24/7. We just wish it wasn´t such a long trip and so expensive. The three weeks we spent in Utah and Idaho were jam packed with excursions to experience mother nature, trip to Bear Lake including riding a jet ski for the first time, visit to a dinosaur museum, trip to hospital for a UTI infection, shopping sprees to take advantage of the exchange rate and much much more. The picutres below are just a few examples of the lots and lots of fun we had while we were there.

We went to two family reunions in Idaho and while we were there Charlie was able to get up close and personal with a "caballo" (horse). He was very excited.

Who doesn´t like to throw rocks in the river. Leo and Charlie at the Harris Family Reunion at a campground near Rexburg Idaho.

During one of the first nights after we arrived the cousins prepared a dance for when Grandpa and Grandma Wilcken finally arrived from Oregon. Charlie was so excited to have so many friends to play with although sometimes we did have to break up a few scuffles. Sometimes it was difficult to communicate but the language of play is universal. We laughed a lot when Charlie´s cousin Brock asked me why Charlie speaks so wierd. By the end of the trip though he was definitely picking up some more English.

This picture was taken as Grandpa and Grandma drove up after driving for more than 13 hours from Oregon so that they could visit with ALL their grandchildren. Let´s just say that G & G shed a few tears as they pulled up and they could see all their grandkids lined up on the sidewalk to welcome them.