Gunnar's t-ball team pic

Coaching Gunnar's T-ball team, last game...

The kids had fun and I enjoyed coaching them.

Sabbath dinner at the Holloway house.

For the pilot

Grandpa is arriving today to help Nick replace our 40 year old single pane windows in our house (hurray!!). Since he will be staying in Signe's room, she drew him a picture to make him feel welcome.

Celebrating the 4th

Karsten admires his sparkler at the water's edge.

Huckleberries!

We found a treasure trove. We picked them as snacks all day and ate them in our oatmeal for breakfast. Daddy made huckleberry milkshakes when we got home (he was inspired by Mike's Ice Cream back home in HR).

Soggy Karsten post-river walk

He is standing near the top of the staircase down to our campsite. The bathroom is in the background on the left, also very handy.

Teaching Signe new songs

We roasted marshmallows and sang songs, and Daddy told Bible stories around the campfire. First night's dinner proved disastrous after the kids started crying and scraping their tongues; Nick had accidentally bought "hot" hot dogs that were intolerably spicy. We ended up toasting hot dog buns over the fire and slapping pb&j on them. It was pretty hilarious.

Sleeping children - a beautiful sight.

The first night was rough. Karsten woke up crying at least 5 times, either searching for his bibi (blanket) or because it was dark. Having a remote controlled lantern on the picnic table helped a bit, but we still didn't get much sleep and Nick got up at least 5 times. The best solution proved to be stuffing him in the same sleeping bag as his sister. The second night everyone slept great, aside from one fussy cry out from Zane.

Nick's "selfie" with the fam

Me and my crazy kids

Waiting for Daddy...

...on a big rock in the river.

Nick's ferry service

Nick hauled the three older kids across the river. The older two had fun jumping into waist-deep water from a small rock.

The North Fork of the St. Joe River

Much of our time was spent in the water wading, swimming, and fishing (Nick caught several little brook trout he threw back in) because it was very hot during the day. I think the boys spent hours throwing rocks and giggling at the rewarding splashes.

Ready to cool off in the river

We set up two tents, one for the kids to share and one for Nick and I.

The perfect spot

We had our choice of about a dozen sites in the empty campground, and this one was amazing; it struck me like light streaming down from heaven and angels singing (kinda like Chevy Chase's Christmas tree in Christmas Vacation). We had to carry our gear down this hewn stone stairway from the car, to a very shady area surrounded by delicious huckleberries with a short path to a rocky beach.
On Thursday (July 4th) another family from Moscow showed up with a tent trailer, but they set up on the far side of the campground so we still felt blessed with amazing privacy. Which is nice when there are little boys peeing in the woods and changing clothes wherever the inclination strikes them.

Mariposas

These butterflies were all along the river bank, and would rather not move out of the way.

The St. Joe River in northern Idaho

For three days this week the Holloways ventured out on our first camping trip since we went to the Wallowas when I was pregnant with Zane. The weather was gorgeous. We didn't know what we would find during a busy holiday week, but leaving Wednesday and driving enough off the beaten path led us to an empty campground right next to the river.