Like ten years ago, soon after we moved up here, Rachel's sister fell in love with the place told us she wanted to move up here one day as well. This week, that day finally came. Marissa and Wesley are officially residents of Post Falls, Idaho. I kind have a few mixed feelings (this is my town!), but we are actually very excited to finally have family closer than ten hours away, and it will be fun for our kids to get to know their cousins. Because of the move, we didn't really make big plans for the week. We were planning on hanging out with family and helping wherever we could.

For a week with few plans, it actually turned out to be pretty eventful.

I'll start with this picture, because it represents SO. MUCH. WORK. See that couch? It's a sofa bed that I really like. We got it for the attic. It was heavy and long, and we had to carry it up three flights of stairs. The first flight wasn't so bad. The second was a little worse, but easier than expected. And then we got to the third, and it didn't fit into the door.

Game over.

Or not.

First came the tools. Screw drivers. Drills. We took everything apart that we could. It still didn't fit. Next came more tools, in the form of power saws. Finally- by breaking and folding the stupid beast, we were able to get it up. And then the repair work and reassembly. I am proud to say that we got it together again and that it looks exactly how I had imagined it. Voila! The next series of photos chronicles our journey. A 20 minute job turned into 3 hours, but it was a little bit fun, and we got to spend some time with Shannon and Adrian (who were also up here to help with the move).

This next series of photos is from a hike that the four of us went on. At the beginning of the year, Evelyn made a bucket list of places to visit and things to do. Standing under a waterfall was one of those things. She planned this trip, and it was a great afternoon. Ancient Lakes, WA.

Mexican food is second only to Pizza. Moses Lake actually has some really good Mexican food though, so we couldn't pass up the opportunity.

This is a random photo from earlier in the week on a hot day when a bunch of people went to the lake to hang out.

Look at the top of the TV- It's Lindsey! Her Irish dance group made a Cinderella movie that she was in, and this week we got to see the final product of all this hard work.

The four of us went to the release party last night at Arbor Crest

And this is just to prove that we actually did spend a little bit of time helping out with the move. Welcome to Idaho!

This is a post where pictures tell the story better than I could in words. We spent a couple of days, as a family, biking along the Coeur d'Alene river. It was a chill ride, and we couldn't have asked for better weather or a more beautiful time of year. Enjoy!

Here we are at the trailhead, spirits high. Actually, spirits stayed high pretty much the whole time.

This is a recreation of the picture we took under the bridge the last time we did this ride. Some people have changed a bit. Some, not so much. Rachel is even wearing the exact same shirt!

This is the "album cover" edit. Just for fun.

We made a few stops along the way. This photo was taken when we ate lunch at Silver Mountain- Pizza, of course! Right after lunch on this day, I actually wrecked my bike on a jump at the BMX park they have set up in the parking lot. It turns out that a 50 pound trailer doesn't do jumps all that well, and it was a pretty comical fail on my part.

These last few were at a park we stopped at. There was a pond that must have been recently stocked with fish, because people were catching trout with pretty much every cast!

We got to camp with plenty of time to relax in the shade or wade in the river. 

Lindsey, setting up her bivy. Notice the wrist brace? She doesn't need it. I picked it up for my wrist after the bike crash described above, but didn't really end up needing it. You will see it on several pictures of Lindsey though. It's quite the fashion statement.

The sunset that night was pretty nice. I love being in the mountains.

It seems like we always have to have a good morning photo of the two of us enjoying our breakfast. If you look at the two of us, it would be hard to guess at the weather. 

The next few are just some random photos from the trail. We went about 60 miles in all.

And of course we saw a lot of natural beauty and wildlife along the way. Moose, deer, snakes, frogs, and lots of different kinds of birds accompanied us at varying times on the trail.

Acres and acres of water lilies

The braded bunch!

At the end of our ride we got ice cream in Harrison, then drove to our favorite Mexican restaurant for lunch in Wallace (it was right on the way for the shuttle). After lunch we went up to the house and took naps before finishing picking up the car and heading home. Great ride. Great weekend.

Have a good week!

What an amazing place we live in! On Friday, we had no specific weekend plans. Just staying around home. Well- it turns out that "staying around" is pretty spectacular. Captions on the pictures will tell more. 

Also, we are in the home stretch of school. Tomorrow is the last day. At the elementary school, Lindsey is doing a "day of awesome." We used to call it field day. But school, for her, is basically done. For the other kids, the end of school means finals, finals, and more finals. One more day.

Here are some photos:

Here's Ev with her awards from the year, and two letter pins. Junior year is usually the hardest, academically, and I'd say she pulled through pretty well. 

Lindsey had her last choir concert. This is a picture to prove that I was there.

I walked in on Maren getting ready for church and I thought she looked really pretty so I took a picture. Also, Ev and I played again at church, and that is always fun.

I wrote about this last week as well, but the trail is so nice and so close. This is a bike ride that Rach went on.

We've been playing tennis several times a week. Sometimes we do pickleball instead, but everyone prefers tennis. We still aren't very good at either game, but we have fun.

Rachel interpreted a pride-in-the-park event for like five hours on Saturday. We went to watch her for one of those hours, and had a good time with the various family-friendly activities.

Lake days are becoming a weekly thing now. The water is still a little chilly, but it's so hot outside that nobody seems to care.

#Goals for all the drummers out there (I'm pointing at you, Ev!)

Rachel and I kayaked out to a little island to camp on Sunday night. After a bumpy dirt road to the put-in, we were met with this sign. I can't really say why, but I think that is pretty funny.

This is one of the few non-selfie photos of me on this blog. Thanks, Rach!

Back to the selfies. We had the whole lake to ourselves, and we spent the night at a little campsite on top of the island. It seemed like we were in the middle of nowhere, even though the drive was only like 40min from our house.

This was our view as we ate dinner. No civilization in sight- just lapping water and animal sounds. Perfect.

What a way to wake up. From here, we paddled out, and then went to Wallace to plan what furniture to buy for our new bonus room.

The Buoy in CDA has the best fries, frequent live-music, and a great lake-front vibe. We end up there almost every time we are downtown for an afternoon.

Just a picture of Rach and me. We still have several moments every week that we look at each other and one of us will ask "how did we get so lucky to end up here?" It's not always perfect, but is sure is good.