': July 2022

After landing in Billings, we went one direction and another before finally making our way to Cody. First stop... Zimmerman Park, at the top of the bluff. We had a nice view of the temple

So Jared, of course, had to add another 25 minutes to our drive and drive out to the Billings temple for a quick visit.

We got to Cody and had a GREAT time together with the family. This trip had TONS of highlights, but as always, the highlight was spending time with family. We got a nice family picture in front of the house. The only challenge was keeping Dom in place for the picture!

We were happy to meet baby Camden, Kylie's little baby girl.

We went up to Upper Sunshine Reservoir for a day to play on the lake and go fishing. Tyler Varner, Camden's dad, and his family joined at the lake as well.

Liam, of course, loved the going fishing time. He happily reported that he caught the most fish again.

Jared loved the going on the lake time. He took Dom on the paddle board.

We had some fried chicken and had a great time relaxing by the lake.

One night, the teenagers decided to have a big group date. Brecken, Toby, and Tyler got dates and Breckin arranged a date for Jacob. They went to Cody and went mini golfing and went to Dairy Queen. They kids all had a good time!

We have ridden UTVs twice this year, and we decided we wanted to again in Cody, so we took John and Vicki's and rented one and took them to the mountain. The loading and unloading wasn't without a little bit of drama - the ramps slid off the trailer as Jared loaded the rental, and the workers had to help get it up. We got them loaded with only a broken taillight. Fortunately, those were the last incidents!

Almost immediately, Vicki realized that they hadn't refilled their Ranger, so Claire got pretty nervous about running out of gas.

We went up a beautiful trail on Carter Mountain

up to a little mountain lake, where we ate our lunch.

Kate was happy looking for and finding lots of different types of wild flowers.

We passed a few cattle on the trail in a few different places.

We gave Jacob a turn driving, but Claire chose not to.

Dani and John spent most of the ride on seats on the back side of the Ranger. They had a very different view from everyone else!

One afternoon, we went shooting down by the river behind the Robertson's home with grandpa, Heath, and the cousins. This furthered our thought that maybe Liam was born into the wrong family - the one that lives in the suburbs and doesn't go fishing or hunting!

Even Torin got to shoot!

We set up a target and took turns shooting at it.

Not pictured was the shotgun that we got to shoot - it was a bigger gun that the boys like shooting.

You can take the girl out of Wyoming... but you can't take the Wyoming out of the girl!

Then Jared stepped up and hit the target with his first shot. He thought he was pretty hot stuff!

John and Vicki were Elder and Sister Streeter this summer, working giving mural tours. We went over to have our own guided tour with our own special missionaries. It was fun to hear the full history of the murals and to hear about the early pioneers that settled in the Big Horn basin. I loved that our kids got to see and experience their grandparents serving.

We decided to climb Hart Mountain, and we went with Kaci and most of the cousins.

Liam wasn't the happiest of hikers ... but he made it, and was thrilled to have made it to the top! Also funny - he wore his Nepal shirt to climb a mountain.

The whole group at the top of the mountain.

As we went up, there were unique and different views of the topography of Hart Mountain, like this view of the sheer cliff on one side.

The views from the top were beautiful on a clear day. We were able to barely make out John and Vicki's house.

We saw some relatively fresh grizzly bear poop and kept our eyes open for snakes, which of COURSE Kaci was the one to see. Her reaction had Dani rolling with laughter (once she, too, got clear of the snake).