I don't really know what to write this week. It seems like a lot of things are happening all at once. Rachel has much of her family here for a loose-ish family reunion. I just finished working the craziest month of my entire life. There was an act of senseless violence in our area that made national headlines. My sprained wrist is keeping me from enjoying much of what I love in terms of physical activity. Evelyn finally got a job as a dishwasher at a sushi restaurant. The saga of the lost stuffed-owl, dating back to March, came to frustrating close with many unanswered questions. And on and on and on. All of these things feel like they deserve a mention and could merit a post on their own, but I just don't have a ton to say about each. Maybe I'll just do little sections.

Family in town: As mentioned in the last post, Rachel's sister has moved to Post Falls. At various points during the next month, pretty much her entire family has come, or will come to visit and hang out and help with the move. We all do things together sometimes, but since I am usually at work during these moments not much has changed for me personally. It will be interesting to see, as time goes by, how these relationships evolve and how intertwined our lives become.

Work: There isn't a lot to say here, except that I have recently been taking on a few bigger cases with more complex treatment. This has resulted in more work stress than is normal for me, but I feel like it's good stress and that, professionally, I am growing. Cool. But still, it's nice sometimes to just do simple stuff and to push myself in other areas outside of work. It's a balancing act, for sure. I think in the end, it will result in greater fulfillment and satisfaction in all areas, but it would be nice to take breaks from time to time.

Violence: There was a shooting near here. It seems senseless. Then again, senseless doesn't seem surprising anymore, which makes it so it kind-of does make sense in it own convoluted way. I think we can all agree that it's dumb, a pointless tragedy, and that things like this resonate for years and years in small communities like the one we live in up here. There is also a powerful way that small communities come together and support each other in times like these. 

Evelyn's job: Ev has been trying to get a job for a while now, but it seems like for a while it was sort of a half-hearted type of trying. But then money started getting tight because of a series of traffic incidents, and her motivation went up. She finally found some part-time work as a dishwasher. It's not much, but it'll pay the bills.

My wrist: I think I mentioned this a couple of weeks ago, but I went off a bike jump with a trailer attached to my bike, and got held back and didn't clear the gap, and fell and sprained my wrist. I'm sure it was funny to watch. It hasn't really affected every-day activities, and I can still work just fine (thank goodness), but rock climbing and heavy weightlifting are off the table for probably a few months. I am bummed about this more than I let on.

Stuffed owl: Addy had a stuffed owl named Puff that meant a lot to her. In March, we took a ski vacation to Boise, and Puff was left in the hotel room where we stayed. We have had ongoing talks with the hotel people, and tried to get them to send it back, but these attempts always ended in frustration. Finally, we decided to go on a rescue mission. We would drive to Boise, do some cool things along the way, and rescue the owl. We called the hotel to alert them of our plan, and it turns out that nobody actually knows what happened to Puff. It's not there. Puff is lost, probably forever. Addy is very sad about this.

Renaissance Faire: The world of "Ren-Faire's" (which overlaps into anime, sci-fi, and comic-conventions) is one that I have never fully understood. I still don't. But Jackson and a small group of Dungeons & Dragons friends are pretty into it, and they do all the cosplay things, and there was a thing in Sandpoint this weekend that they went to. Jack dressed as his D & D character, a warrior princess with a whip. That was interesting.

Ladies Weekend: Rachel got out with some of her friends for a weekend of relaxation. They paddleboarded, hiked, and played up in Wallace. I think they had a good time.

Addy in Montana: Addy was invited to go to Montana for several days on vacation with her friend. 

Upper Priest Lake: This is how me and the girls spent our weekend- a short overnighter to Upper Priest. It is beautiful up there. 

Maren's Recital: Maren had a voice recital this week where she sang "Popular" from the popular play, Wicked. I think she did a pretty good job, but she said she missed a few notes. Overall, I think she had a good night. It is always a pleasure to hear her sing. 

Here are some pictures:

I had a night to myself and I went and saw this play. Topdog/Underdog. It won a Pulitzer a while back. At first I didn't like it, but Rach and I met for dinner afterwards, and as I was describing it to her I found myself more and more impressed with the way the themes played out.

Addy and Sarah in Montana

This is from a night at our house where we all watched the stage version of Frozen (on tv). There were a few other activities surrounding this and some food and it made for a good Frozen party.

From Maren's recital

Ladies weekend

Jackson

I have a bunch of photos of our hiking trip. We were off to a little bit of a rough start because, when packing, both of these girls used broken packs. We have lots of other perfectly good packs sitting at home. This made their hike interesting. Good thing it was only three(ish) miles.

Have a good week!

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!