Tuesday, August 21, 2012

June brings fond memories of family outings

June is set to be an exciting month.  The long anticipated family reunion at Yellowstone National Park is coming up which we planned back in October of last year.  We look forward to be with the family for a family vacation.

But first, since we've been called to go on a family history mission, we thought it would be beneficial for us to get some training before we leave.  We were very blessed to be included in the St. George Family History Center's "mini MTC" on Monday and Tuesday of each week in June for 3 weeks.  Through the help of Sister Bryant, we were also invited to attend the family history training for 4 days in Salt Lake, from June 18-21.  Again, another excellent training.  Below are details of each event in which we participated in June:

June 2:  Red Cliffs Stake BBQ at the Ivin's park.  Cami and kids came with us to the event.  It was so much fun with many activities planned for the children.  The first picture is of Morgan Rei Davis who was born while we were in Hong Kong.






June 9 - Caleb and Kai played their final soccer games.  Caleb is a head taller than the other kids.  Amazing!  Kai is a big boy too.  They did well.
 

June 4/5, 11/12, 18/19; 8 AM to 5 PM - attend Mini-MTC at the St. George Family History Library
This Library is the best kept secret in Utah.  The workshop was well organized to give us broad training to become instructors in Family History.  We enjoyed the learning and felt a lot more prepared to go to Taiwan to do family history work.

June 18-21:  4 days of intensive training at the Family HistoryTraining Center in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building in Salt Lake City.  It was one-on-one training so was even more meaningful.  We stayed at the Garden Apartments just west of the Church Conference Center.  It was a very nice; a 1-bedroom apartment within walking distance to the Joseph Smith Memorial Building where the training took place.  The cost was minimal.  Thanks to Sister Ann Bryant for making the arrangement for us to stay there.

June 22-26:  Stayed at Nelson's.  Enjoyed visiting with Elaine and family.  Sister Kelley, Asia Area missionary from Hong Kong brought my Android phone when she came back.  So we went to visit her and picked up my phone.  One June 24, we picked up my sister Alice Chiu Hui Feng from the Salt Lake airport.  She'll go to Yellowstone for the family reunion with us.

June 26-30:  the long awaited family vacation finally got here.  My sister Alice and I drove to the Salt Lake airport to pick up Ethan and Abby.  Nelson, Hilary and their 3 children spent the last week in Indiana at the Kiser family reunion.  Hilary and Madisen stayed behind to take care of family business and also for them to attend a youth conference.  Hilary was just called to be the Young Women's advisor in the ward.  Elwin and Nelson drove Nelson's new Dodge pickup to catch up with us.  They didn't catch us until we got to the Idaho border.  In the meantime, Elaine and her family left at noon and met us at our destination, Island Park, Idaho, where we rented a summer home.  I-Shuan, Ryan and their boys vacationed at Glacier National Park prior to everyone converging at Island Park at about 5 PM.

The Willow Inn is a beautiful vacation home.  It has 7 bedroom suites, 2 family rooms, a large kitchen, and a dining room to accommodate our large family. http://www.islandparkidaho.com/WillowInn/WILLOW.html

I-Shuan and Ryan planned the activities for us for the 4 days we spent there.  The meals, activities, were all well-planned making it really fun.


Yellowstone National Park - World's Largest Collection of Geysers

It's wonderland. Old Faithful and the majority of the world's geysers are preserved here. They are the main reason the park was established in 1872 as America's first national park—an idea that spread worldwide. A mountain wildland, home to grizzly bears, wolves, and herds of bison and elk, the park is the core of one of the last, nearly intact, natural ecosystems in the Earth’s temperate zone.

Here is a copy of the map:



Wednesday (Old Faithful areas):   Going in from the west entrance, we drove around the southern loop and saw Old Faithful and other interesting geysers

Thursday:  We did canoeing most of the day.  What a fun activity.  We could have also gone to the the following, like Big Springs, (http://www.westyellowstonenet.com/lakes_rivers_falls/island_park_big_springs.php), or one of the state parks, Harriman State Park and Railroad Ranch (http://www.westyellowstonenet.com/history_museums/island_park_railroad_ranch.php); or Henry's Lake State Park (they have a Jr. Ranger program there).  But we were too tired, so we just went home and relaxed.

Friday:  We went to the upper loop and visited the Mammoth Hot Springs areas



Thanks to everyone for a fun filled vacation/Grandma's Camp.  Elaine and I-Shuan did the camp shirts for everyone.  They are beautiful and made it a lot easier for us to spot our group, especially when the little ones strayed away.

After Yellowstone, Elaine, Nelson and I'Shuan's families drove down to Provo to prepare for the July 4th celebrations.  Elwin, Alice (my sister) and I went up to Spokane to visit my other sister, Ling Winters and her family.  It was an 8-hour drive up there, but northern Idaho was so beautiful.  We enjoyed it very much.  The Spokane trip will be covered in the July blog.

No comments:

Post a Comment