Handi-Kappy Family

Favorite Quote

"I don't want to drive up to the pearly gates in a shiny sports car, wearing beautifully, tailored clothes, my hair expertly coiffed, and with long, perfectly manicured fingernails.

I want to drive up in a station wagon that has mud on the wheels from taking kids to scout camp.

I want to be there with a smudge of peanut butter on my shirt from making sandwiches for a sick neighbors children.

I want to be there with a little dirt under my fingernails from helping to weed someone's garden.

I want to be there with children's sticky kisses on my cheeks and the tears of a friend on my shoulder.

I want the Lord to know I was really here and that I really lived."

-Marjorie Pay Hinkley

Saturday, August 6, 2011

JACKSON HOLE

Jackson Hole Wyoming is my favorite place in the world. I have always loved Jackson, and loved it even more after Steve proposed to me there in October of 2005. Steve took a trip down to Idaho Falls to visit us for his 10 days off. The next day, we headed to Jackson for some family camping time. We always stay at the Gros Ventre campground. The foreigners living with my sister have never been to the mountains, never had a smore, never stayed in a tent and never hiked. We had to break them in!

The first day we had dinner at our favorite Mexican restaurant, Merry Piglets, watched the shoot out they have in the middle of town, window shopped, and then went back to set up camp and teach the girls some smore making skills. Steve surprised Maddie with her very own, Tinkerbell, sleeping bag in the hopes that she would sleep on her own bed. Things were going well until a storm came and the thunder was too frightening for her so she slept in the middle of our double sleeping bag. I am not sure she will ever feel safe enough in her own room or her own bed.

We got up and had our favorite bacon, eggs, pop tarts and hot chocolate. Then packed lunches and headed to hike Jenny Lake. We bought a backpack that held 50 lbs so I could carry Maddie on my back because we knew she would never make the whole hike. It came in handy, even though she looked like she was a giant riding in a baby carrier. The hike was beautiful and we did some sightseeing, and saw a few bears! We headed back to camp and made tin foil dinners and smores and enjoyed our last night by the fire.

Our last day we just had breakfast and packed up to head home. The foreigners hated every second of the trip and couldn't get home to a shower and bed fast enough. They think we are crazy for liking any of it. I guess you have to grow up around the mountains to appreciate them! All I know is they are missing out. Camping, especially camping in Jackson Hole, is hands down, my favorite thing in the world to do!