Island Park - The Family Together Again, July 6 - 12

 Last year, during the pandemic, our entire family gathered at Rich Poll's cabin in Island Park, Idaho, and had a tremendous time.  They all wanted to gather there again this year.  Last year it was the first of June and lots of mosquitos; this year it was July and hot weather with lots of horseflies.  Only the triplets got bad bites that bled; they looked like they had chicken pox.  I guess they must be sweet little morsels.

Each year, Rich has had a project for the family.  This year it was taking down a 1/2 mile of pole fencing so the people who lease the property for cattle could put up new barbed wire fencing.  What they anticipated to take 2 days only took a few hours.  Our family is a great work crew.

No one went to Yellowstone this year because we had lots of other activities such as shooting, feeding the fish in Rich's fish pond and riding motorcycles and side-by-sides.  Sometimes, the activity was just sitting around.

Grandma and grandpa planned a t-shirt activity this year to tie-dye shirts.  We all had a great time designing our shirts and loading them up with lots of color.  We hung them out on the branches of the pines for the initial dry and the next day, grandma made the mistake of taking them to Simonsen's and drying them in a dryer.  I've got to think of a good parable for this mistake - all the shirts turned out with a gray tone.  The wet shirts in the dryer all hit against each other and transferred some bluish gray overtones to the white parts of the shirt.  Next time, just rinse them out and line dry them for nice white color!  BUT - it was a great family activity for everyone!

This will be our Christmas card picture for 2021!!!

Let me tell you, that water was cold.  I had to keep taking my feet out so they wouldn't freeze.

Perhaps the best activity was the day we went down the Buffalo River.  Rich and Brett loaned us kayaks and Brett had a five-man raft.  We thought that would be best for the four five-year olds and smaller children - but, they all ended up double in a kayak and Curt and Marc paddled the raft.  We saw four moose that just watched us float by.  The river was very calm and slow.  A great day.

The best part of  this whole trip was just being together.  I love watching our children be parents, our grandchildren learn and talk to us about stories we remember and the joy of being with each other and having fun!

And sometimes you just fall asleep from all the fun!