Island Park Getaway

On July 17th, Danny and I received the results on Luke's bone marrow aspirate and biopsy.  The nitty-gritty details are on Luke's blog, so luckily I don't have to go through it all again here.  But suffice it to say that receiving a terminal prognosis for our baby boy, and learning that we likely had only 2-6 weeks left with him, was nothing short of terribly, terribly traumatic.  The next morning, as Danny and I were laying in bed trying to figure out how to keep moving when the bottom had just fallen out of our world...again...Danny had a stroke of genius.  "Why don't we head up to the cabin tomorrow and stay the weekend?" he said.  I love that man!  It was the perfect idea.  We desperately needed a distraction.  Adding to the perfection was the fact that Jeff and Jami and the kids were in town, and were in fact heading up to Rexburg, ID (just 45 minutes away from the cabin) to pick up Megan.  We asked if they wanted to extend their trip by a couple of days, and they were all over it!  The plans were made, bags were packed, and we were ready to head out Friday morning.

We had wonderfully optimistic plans of getting out the door first thing in the morning, but between the fact that these were last-minute plans and the fact that Danny and I were a mess...well, we didn't get out quite as early as we had wanted.  BUT, we did get out!  And the kids were thrilled to get going.  Except Luke.  This was his first road trip, and he really wasn't sure what all the fuss was about! :)

The drive there was mostly uneventful, if a bit longer than we had hoped.  We were meeting Jeff, Jami, Megan, and Aven in Rexburg and forming a caravan with us, them, and my Mom.  Getting all of us together in one place and ready to go took a little effort. :)  But finally, at about 5:00 pm, we arrived at the cabin!  The kids fled the vehicles with haste and found themselves around the table with a rousing game of Bocchi.  Oh, to be a kid again!  Parents get stuck unloading cars and putting things away. :)

Our kids were so happy to be back at Great Grandma's cabin.  They love being there almost as much as their Daddy does!  And it was made all the more magical by having cousins there to play with.  They played games of all sorts with Bowen...

...and loved their story time with Lily.  They love doing anything and everything with Lily Mae!

And Danny and I spent every minute we could just holding Luke.  It was Lukey's first trip up to the cabin.  It hurt beyond words to think that it would also be his last.  We did our best to live in the moment, however, and enjoy how happy and healthy he was.  We figured there would be plenty of time to mourn when, and if, that time came.  I'm not saying there weren't plenty of tears.  There were.  But I can honestly say we enjoyed playing with Luke at the cabin!

Because it was basically dinnertime by the time we got there, it didn't take long before it was time to call it a night.  The young adults, teens, and tweens slept outside under the stars.  So cool!  They were excited, and I'm pretty sure we heard them talking and giggling well into the night.

Johnny and Luke slept in our room with us.  But Johnny had a hard time understanding that he was on a little bed on the floor, NOT in our bed!  Or maybe it was me that had a hard time understanding that the only way any of us were going to get any sleep was if we piled Danny, me, and both our boys in a queen bed.  And I use the term "sleep" loosely. :)

Saturday morning dawned, and we were all ready to head into Yellowstone for the day.  No one except Danny and I, Megan, and Aven had been inside the Park before, so everyone was quite excited.  Grandma Call was kind enough to keep Luke at the cabin for us, which was good because I don't think Luke would have cared for that much time in the car.  Plus running his feeds would have been a major pain.  It was hard for Danny and I to leave him there, but once we got on the road we felt better and got in the spirit of the day.  The scenery was amazing!  Yellowstone really is one of the most beautiful parts of the country.

Our first stop was at Firehole Falls.  It was at this scenic outlook that Danny and his cousins would always stop for a picture every time they were in the Park.  Aunt Janet insisted we keep the tradition alive.

We obliged in our own special, silly way. :)

Once we were out of the car, we let the kids and adults alike play around for a while.  After all, most of the Yellowstone experience is spent in the car, driving from place to place.  The kids needed to get their wiggles out!

Our next stop?  None other than Old Faithful!  We had packed a lunch, which worked perfectly since we arrived at the geyser right after it had gone off.  So we had an hour or so to eat and play before the big show.

When the time was getting close, we gathered with a few other people to see Yellowstone's major attraction.

Ok, more than a few other people. :)  Old Faithful is a dramatic geyser, and insists on making an entrance.  When it seemed like the eruption was imminent, we waited...and waited...and seriously waited for about another half hour.  We occupied ourselves with the camera. :)

Then, finally, Old Faithful did her thing!!  Almost on time. :)  Can't blame her really, she's getting old.  But she's still every bit as magnificent!

Once the geyser had faded away, we decided to check out the gift shops before getting in the car again.  Plus Jeff and Jami had to find a Yellowstone sticker for their roof-top carrier (affectionately referred to as "The Sarcophagus", a nod to SG-1), and everyone wanted to try some Huckleberry Ice Cream.  We did our shopping and goofed around a bit more before piling back in the cars.

Unfortunately, time is no respecter of fun.  We were running out of day, and we knew that it would take hours to go any further into the park and still get home for dinner.  So we reluctantly began to make our way back toward the cabin.  We were enjoying the beautiful scenery when the traffic began to slow.  Always a good sign in Yellowstone!

Traffic stops for wildlife.  And sure enough, we spotted this mama elk with her calfs.  It was a total "Bambi" moment, sans the shotgun and childhood trauma. :)

Unfortunately for the other kids, Sophie was the only one awake to see the elk.  So, being the awesome parents we are, we parked the car with the A/C on, left the sleeping babes, and went to take pictures!  

When we arrived back at the cabin, everyone was pretty tired out from our long adventure.  The kids quickly found themselves comatose in front of a movie.

While the big kids got going on dinner!

We ate our dinners outside, which was awesome.  What I love about the cabin is you get all the outdoorsiness (yes, that's a word) of camping, with all the at-home amenities like flushing toilets, hot showers, gorgeous kitchens, and KitchenAids. :)

No camping, or cabining, experience is complete without laughing by the fire.  The funny part is I had to stage this picture because the first one I took showed everyone staring blankly into the fire as if no one was home.  The adults were pretty tired after our adventures, too!  Even though this photo was staged, there was plenty of genuine laughing, I assure you. :)

The kids had fun creating mythical Yellowstone creatures, like the Double-Bunny-Eared Mooseling...

...and Claire got to try her hand at roasting marshmallows.  Her 'mallows turned out beautifully!

And Danny held a sleeping Lukey by the fire.  I love the funny face!

But not as much as this furry little face. :)

Once Luke realized he was missing all the fun, he woke right up and was ready to join in!  You can tell in the picture that he's not quite awake yet. :)

It is so beautiful during the summer evenings in Island Park.  It's sad that the camera can't make the moon look as big as it does with the naked eye, cause it was huge!  It was incredible.  The perfect end to a magical day in some of the most beautiful nature a person can find.

With Sunday came church.  Sacrament Meeting in Island Park is always cool, but this particular Sunday was extra special for us.  Since Luke was five months old, pre-cancer diagnosis, he hadn't been to church with us.  We've had the opportunity, thanks to Danny's amazing Dad, to be in church almost every week as a family (all but Luke).  This special Sunday in Island Park will always be just that...special.  My little Luke looked so handsome in his white shirt and tie!  And while most of my tender feelings about that meeting are documented in Luke's blog, I will say that somehow my heart was healed and torn apart simultaneously.  To get to hold my baby boy in church, like I should, healed an empty place in my heart that I scarcely knew I had.  I didn't realize how much I missed Luke during church!  But to think that again, it may be the last time, was so incredibly painful.  Like I said before, we did our best not to let our mind go there.  Plenty of time to cry about that later...if we had to.

When church was over, we decided to take a quick trip by Big Springs, which feeds into the Henry's Fork River.  It was a nice family photo op, with some breathtakingly beautiful water views.

Everyone loved watching the water.  Because it's a spring, the water is perfectly clean and pure.  You can put your face right in the water and drink if you want to!  We may or may not have partaken of it's crystal clear and wonderfully cold goodness. :)  But what the kids loved best was watching all the rainbow trout swimming around.  

We spotted this little friend in the water.  A muskrat!  He blends in quite well, don't you think?

We could only keep the kids toes out of that beautiful water for so long.  We let them stick their little toes in, but just for a minute.  Then it was back to the cabin for lunch and Sunday naps!

Sunday evening was our last evening together at the cabin.  Jeff, Jami, and their family would be heading on the next leg of their super-vacation early Monday morning (they were making a cross-country road trip to take Rose and Tali to EFY in Palmyra, NY and so that Megan could receive her endowment in the Palmyra Temple prior to her mission), Grandma Candy had to get back to work, and we needed to go home and face our life.  With the time we had left, we knew we could only fit in one more excursion.  The choice was between Mesa Falls or Mount Sawtelle.  Mount Sawtelle won.  What that meant is that we piled in the cars and drove to the top of the mount.  It was super pretty for the first three-quarters of the trip or so.  But then the ascent became rather, well, terrifying!  Unless you were born to be a fighter jet pilot, that is.  So Danny and Jeff were just fine.  The rest of us girls?  We were crying.  I'm not even lying.  Jami was NOT happy at all!  But we made it up in one piece, and once we were up there and out of the cars we figured we may as well enjoy the scenery!  It was breathtaking...and not only because we were scared to death. :)  It felt like we were literally on top of the world!

Luke was having the time of his life.  He loved feeling the wind across his face, and he loved seeing so much.  This poor kid hasn't been outside much in his life.  And we got one of our favorite pictures of Luke.  And that's saying something, because we have literally hundreds of pictures of this kid...and almost all of them are good! :)

It got kind of chilly up there on top of the world, so it wasn't long before we all took a deep breath and made our way down.  The men drove nice and slow, so everyone made it down to the cabin tear-free. :)  Then it was time for baths and packing.  Luke got a super cool mohawk after his bath, and so it was photo op time for the boys!

Things quieted down for the evening, and while parents packed and readied for bed the kids found things to do.  Claire and Sophie looked through a Yellowstone Wildlife book with Great Grandma, which Great Grandma loved!

There was time for another rousing game of Bocchi or two...

...and our girls soaked up every last minute they could with Lily.

None of us wanted it to come, but Monday morning came anyway.  Jeff and Jami left before the sun came up, and Grandma Candy left shortly after.  After saying goodbye and seeing everyone off, Danny and I let the kids sleep, and we caught a few extra minutes of sleep ourselves.  Then we helped get the cabin put back together and cleaned, but mostly because we were delaying our departure by any means possible, not because anyone expected anything from us. :)  But not even cleaning could delay the inevitable.  Before we left, we had to get some pictures with Great Grandma.  If it wasn't for her, we wouldn't have the cabin to make all these precious memories in.  The family Danny and I have together literally started at the cabin!  Grandma wanted a three generation picture before we left, and we were happy to oblige!  Danny has so many wonderful memories of his time at the cabin, just him and his grandparents.  It's because of those time together that the cabin is his most favorite place in the whole world.

Then, of course, we needed a family shot with Great Grandma!

And because we knew there was a very real chance that this may be our last trip to the cabin as a family, we wanted a picture of the six of us.  Our happy forever family.

This trip to the cabin was incredible.  It was a tender mercy to have someplace beautiful and peaceful to go, and it was so much fun to have our family with us.  There was time for talking, and laughing, and crying too.  We made memories that will be treasured forever.  What an incredible blessing this weekend was!  It reminded Danny and I that even when the bottom falls out, there is still a foundation beneath you.  A foundation of faith and family.