Time to catch up.

Wow, I can't believe how much time has passed since I told you I would post about our summer. Oops. Well, I'm motivated today because we started sending our Christmas cards out with our blog address. We couldn't decide what to put in our Christmas so we just told people to go to our blog. Now, I want to let you know, I did write a Christmas letter and it was awful. LT even said it was too dry. He rarely ever criticizes my work.  Oh well, I can't be funny ALL of the time.

On to the summer recap.

In July, we went to Sun Valley to spend 2 weeks with my Dad and other family. It really has been years since I've spent time with a lot of my Murphy cousins. Boy had I been missing out. What a fun group of people. There is something so nice and reassuring about being with family that has known you since you were a baby. AND, they are just honest to goodness nice people. I'm at the tail end of the grandchildren so my cousins children are the cousins I spend most of my time with. One such cousin is Emily. She has 3 little spitfire girls and O had the time of her life playing with them. Here is my sweet daughter holding hands with M while walking to the Salmon fish hatchery. My dad is in front and my rock star nephew is in back.

After the informative/educational and smelly food fish hatchery. We made our way to Red Fish Lake. -Sigh- Red Fish holds a special place in my heart. Not only is the water stunningly clear and the surroundings blissfully beautiful, there is a peace that lives there. In all of my travels, I have seen many wonders and beautiful places, but my Idaho mountains will always be home. The smell of the trees and dirt, the clear water and the peace.

Of course we had to take out canoes and paddle boats. One can not be at Red Fish and NOT go out on the lake. Here is O and M with my cousins B and A.

Time for paddle boats.

My cousin received her endowment in the Twin Falls temple. She is now serving a mission in the Philippines. I've been to the temple many, many times, but it was a completely different experience being there with so much of my family. It was awesome.

My dad had us come out for the Sun Valley Summer Symphony. One week during the summer they have a special music camp and my nephew R got to participate. He performed in several concerts and this picture is of my dad, sitting next to his sister W and her daughter V. And, we also have O doing her usual, "I'm not smiling for this picture" face. Wow, we have tons of these pictures. Anyway, we were waiting outside for a concert to start.

Now, if you give O a chance to be sneaky or mischievous she will light up. Bunny ears are good for a 5 year olds soul.

Rock Star Rowan playing that bad boy clarinet.

One fun "tradition" the Hynes family has is floating down the river. Granted you only float for 40 feet, but still, it is their tradition. R and I joined them for a dip. That water was FREEZING cold. Seriously, I'd forgotten how cold a mountain stream can be.

One really fun part of being in Sun Valley was being with R. I haven't had the chance to spend much time with him. I really enjoyed talking with him and getting to know him better. O and I had a lot of fun teasing him. We shared a condo and we told him we were going to have a girls night with him and paint nails and do hair. Yep, he was TOTALLY into that. (not really). Speaking of teasing, here is a sequence of pictures where O tries to dunk him. He is really good with her and lets her tease him.

Okay, so after my first time floating the river, I brought LT and O to do it with me and I wore a wet suit. I thought the suit would make a big difference, but nope, it was still 34 degrees. ( I swear, it was cold.)

A huge highlight of our trip was the paragliding trip I had with R. Originally LT was going to come, but he started coming down with a cold and since we'd already paid for it, we had R go in his place. Man, I am an adrenaline junkie. I can't wait to do it again. A cool connection I had with my pilot was his niece was in O's preschool class. I'm friends with brother and sister-in-law. I accidentally kept calling him by his brothers name. Oops, but in my defense, they could be twins.

See what I mean about smiling? We kind of got a smile out of R after the adventure. Now, while we were in Sun Valley, there were 2 major forest fires nearby and the air was smokey. Next time I get up there, I hope the air is clear. I can imagine it would make for an even more spectacular ride.