Utah

We drove from my mom's house to Utah, with only one stop in Winnemuca. We made great time and did it in 11 hours! (That's really good.) Doesn't Allen look awesome in my glasses!

The kids watched movies on the laptop.

Grandma Lou and Granpa Gordon
We met them for dinner and fun at the pond.


Spencer

Kayla feeding the ducks

Brayden

My Aunt Kathy, a fantastic fisherwoman. My Uncle Larry was there too, but I just realized I didn't upload his picture. It was great to see you guys!

They caught the fish with flies and then threw them back. The kids even dipped their hand in the pond and touched the fish.

All of us with Grandma Lou and Grandpa Gordon, my grandparents.

We stayed with our wonderful friends the Twitchells while we were in Utah. Our kids had a great time playing with friends. We know the Twitchells from dental school, and Allen and Brent drove to school together, sat together, and were best friends for 4 years. We did family home evenings, date nights, games nights, went camping, to D.C. and have shared a lot of memories with the Twitchells throughout the years. Thanks for letting us come visit!

Carly and Kayla

So, we were packing things up and getting ready to drive to St. George from Salt Lake area, when the kids decided to get really messy and chalky.

Spencer, Eden, Brayden, Carly, Kayla and Aspen

(In case you were wondering, this photo with Brayden's eyes closed was the best of the 10 pictures I took of these 6 kids.)

Crystal and I

We loved staying with you guys. I love your big, beautiful house!

Purple field just south of Utah Valley

Watch out for this guy with the crazy hair!

Kayla with Grandpa Bob and Grandma Margaret

Rob and Jennifer

Allen's parents - Bob and Margaret - I showed them this picture at the pool and told them it was really cute. Neither of them had their glasses on, and they both agreed that it looked like a bear.

Spencer loved laying in the shallow water.

Kayla and Sally

Brayden let Jennifer take a bunch of pictures of him jumping into the water, and then when I came over, Jennifer had to pretend she still wanted more pictures for him to keep posing.

Cute boy!

Sally and Kayla

Sally is such a fabulous cousin. She played with the kids a ton, and they just loved her.

California

Warning: This story is really long! I hadn't been back to the U.S. since we moved to Germany 3 years ago, so we decided to take a trip there this summer. Since tickets are so expensive for a family of 5, we decided to have Allen take a month of leave and travel Space-A on military planes. We packed all of our stuff and started calling the numbers for flight information a couple of days before we decided to leave and were amazed how many flights were cancelled and postponed. We went to the base here to get on a flight on July 3rd, but it was loaded full of cargo and took no passengers. We kept calling and basically heard that very few passengers had gotten out since the end of June, and we would be put behind all of those passengers since our leave didn't start until July. I woke up early on Sunday, July 4th to shower and get ready for the drive to a neighboring base and an early flight, only to find out that 2 flights for that morning were cancelled. We were able to go to church on the 4th and then, the evening flight was also cancelled, so we celebrated the 4th with our friends the Roach Family and Trek with games and snacks and fireworks at the base. On Monday we drove to the neighboring base to try to get on 3 different flights, but only 17 people got out that day. We tried again to get out from our base on Tuesday, and we got tickets, went through security and were sitting in a bus on flight line, when we saw them take our luggage off the plane and then heard them say on the radio "terminate passengers." There was a group of army rangers coming back from deployment, and one of the guys was a pretty arrogant red-faced, bald-headed warrant officer that said things like, "It's our bird. It's our gear," and when one lady asked where they were coming from, he said, "I can't tell you." So the rumor that we heard is that the warrant officer told the pilots to tell the terminal there was a "weight issue" so that he wouldn't have to fly with a bunch of families. Of course there really wasn't a weight issue, but we saw the plane fly away without us. Later that night we came back to the terminal to try to get on a flight to Dover, and HOORAY, we got on the flight. We flew on a C5 with some "soldiers" as Brayden called them and their K-9 unit. The C5's are huge, and the passengers sit, on the top deck, facing backward. The seats are like normal passenger seats, except there's no overhead bins, more leg room, the seats are wider and they recline more. We slept all the way to Dover, and just after we touched down, they told us that one of the engines was on fire, leave all personal items, and prepared for an emergency evacuation. They inflated the emergency slides (which are pretty steep on a C5) and we got to slide down. Wa-Hoo! They told Allen to go first to catch the kids, so he went down alone, and then I sent each of the kids individually and then followed them. The kids did great, and Allen and I thought it was awesome that we got to go down the slide. It's too bad I followed directions and left my camera on the plane! We landed at about 5am and had a long wait to get our stuff with the necessary inspection of the plane (they determined there was no engine fire, it was just a light that came on). Dover had a great USO with a room for the kids to play in, video games, pool table, t.v.'s, computer room, snacks, etc. Amazingly, we were able to get on a flight to Travis that night (a C5 also). Although, we were little worried when we sat on the bus next to the plane for 30 minutes while they couldn't get our luggage pallet unstuck and the mobile staircase wouldn't work (and all of the kids fell asleep). We climbed up a ladder through the cargo hold, and I had to do it with a sleeping Spencer, his backpack and mine, and all of our fleece sleeping bags since Allen was ahead of me with Brayden. A guy on the plane said, "Ma'am, can you do that by yourself?" It's wasn't like he was offering to help, so I had to. We landed at around midnight, got a room for 1/2 a nights sleep, and then rented a car and drove to Merced. Hooray for going home!

Kayla playing in the USO kids room in Dover.

We went to the zoo with my dad, his wife Mary, and her granddaughter, Giselle.

It was a crazy hot day (~100), but the animals were surprisingly active. (Probably, hot and bothered.)

When we left the zoo, we saw this possom with babies in the park.

We went over to kiddie rides at the park next door, and Brayden loved the train.

My mom, my sister, Jen, and her twins, Cole and Anja, rode the train with Brayden

This picture is out of order, but I don't know how to move it. We went to the lake near my house (about 3 miles away) and met my uncle there and were able to ride his wave runner.

Spencer slept the first time through the zoo, so after he woke up, he went through with my mom and sister.

Mary, my dad and me.

Thanks for taking us out on the lake Uncle Steve! Our kids didn't like to go very fast, and when we took them on the tube, we told them the signals like thumbs up for faster, etc. and we probably shouldn't have because we had to go faster and slower and faster and stop and faster and slower and slower and faster, etc.

Our kids loved the beach at Lake Yosemite. They had a great time building a "water kingdom."

Spencer's sandy, sticking up hair.

My mom, floating in her fabulous pool.

We had such a great time swimming at my mom's house. We love her pool! There's a slide, diving board (although barely functional), hot tub on the side, lots of steps and benches along one side, and lots of toys for the kids.

Brayden was our most daring kid with the slide. He loved it!

Spencer at the sunken bar in the pool. I love to lay on the tile here and get warm.

Silly kids! Brayden always needed help with his "gobbles" so he could see under water.

We got to see my sister and her twins while we were at my mom's house, but her husband didn't come out until the weekend after we left.

Norway

We got a great deal on our flights to Norway with Ryan Air, and then discovered that's where the deals would end. Norway is the most expensive country we have visited so far. They deal in kroners which have a crazy conversion rate of ~6.1 to the dollar, which just makes it more painful when our cabin was 650 kroner per night plus the price for bedlinen. We don't check any lugage when we fly Ryan Air, so we each have our 1 carry on or backpack. Spencer insisted that he carry his own backpack. When we put his backpack on the first 2 times, he fell forward, but he still wanted to carry it. He got lots of laughs from the people we passed.

We went to a viking ship museum in Oslo with these giant, incredibly well preserved ships from 1000 years ago.

We tried reindeer burgers for lunch that you eat with garlic sauce and ligonberry jam.
The kids stuck with hot dogs.

The Vigeland Statues at Frogner Park

I actually really liked a few of the statues, although I don't quite get why so many artists (especially European ones) love to create nude statues.

Cute little guy

Father and son

A sweet family

Weird statue of a pile of naked bodies

We drove up above Oslo to the ski jump that is being built for the world campionships next year. We went on a star tours-type ride where we we did a downhill race course and ski jump. Kayla and Brayden loved it, and the guy let them do it again for free.

The ski jump (our kids took one look at it from the top and asked not to go down it)

Sod roofed buildings

A view from above Oslo - we had to stop and take a picture because the water looked like it was shimmering.

The Oslo Fjord

Our second day in Oslo, we took the kids to the amusement park Tusenfyrd.

The kids loved it!

The kids especially loved this car track. They got a little briefing about stopping at stop signs, yielding on a roundabout and stopping at lights. It was just like the real thing minus the speed. They even got a little fake license at the end.

Brayden had to be near the other truck at all times and was constantly telling the other cars what to do and tried to make sure they obeyed the rules.

After the amusement park closed, we went to see the royal palace, and this was taken in the park next to it. It was probably 8 or 9 o'clock, but the sun doesn't set until about 11, and then it doesn't ever really get dark, so we had to kill time because our kids couldn't fall asleep until they were dead tired.

King Spencer - we are definitely not above eating at Burger King and McDonalds in foreign countries.

I loved these wild flowers and had to get a picture.

We drove from Oslo to Flam, and it was an amazing drive. Beautiful!

There were so many waterfalls that our kids asked us to stop pointing them out.

I would love to water ski on this amazingly glassy water (with a wet suit of course).

Can you believe I took this picture from the car window?

Moo-ve cows!

The Borgund Stave Church - unique because they were built with the planks vertical in what are called staves and have a lot of viking type carving.

When we got to Flam on the Aurland Fjord, there was a little Midsummers Night festival. These cute kids held hands and led the smallest parade I've ever seen.

We were in the parade too.

Kayla with the band in the background

The kids didn't quite figure out skipping rocks, but they loved throwing them into the water.

The bonfire

Kayla made friends with some Norweigan girls - everyone spoke English quite well.

What a fun dad! This was just before our ferry ride on from Gudvangen to Flam on a branch of the sonjefjord.

Our cute family!

Our boat was crazy crowded with Asian tourists, but it was a beautiful ride.

Apparently there's a half dome in Norway too.

We fed seagulls from our hands! It was really fun, and we still have all of our fingers.

Brayden said the seagulls have their own private airport.

The typical fjord village

Our boat

We took a ride on the Flamsbana railway

It was beautiful!

We got out on the way up the flamsbana, and they had music playing and a siren-like woman dancing and beckoning us into the falls. It was really cool.

After a day at an amusement park where Brayden went on a roller coaster that went upside down, he was really concerned that the train would be fast and scary, but instead, it put him and Spencer to sleep.

Another train that was sitting outside - Brayden was pretty concered that it didn't have a shed.

Kayla thought it was the coolest thing that she got to sleep on the top of a 3 level bunk bed.

The kids loved the park at the campground where we stayed in Flam. It had a clubhouse type structure that was basically a mini 2-story house, and there were lots of trucks, shovels and buckets left there, so the kids had a great time.

Our cabin - #2

View from the car window on the way back to the airport.

Watch out for the moose!

On the way back to the airport, we stopped to see viking burial grounds. The big mounds have ships inside them where the royal and rich were buried.

The burial grounds were right on the coast, so we stopped and collected seashells. We loved Norway!