First Zach turned 10. We held a party here for him and he had a water slide out back. They had a lot of fun!
In June, John took David for some one-on-one time at the Bruneau Sand Dunes. They went early and camped overnight. The largest public access telescope in the northwest was there, so they did some cool sky watching. A group from the church of kids his age were also there the following day and they joined together and climbed the sand dunes. It was a good father/son over-nighter. This is something John is trying to do with each of the boys every few months.
So then he took Zach for his over-nighter over 4th of July weekend. Boy was it hot out! They backpacked in to a hot spring up near Tamarack Resort and then went over to Tamarack to do some mountain biking the next day. On the way home, they stopped at another hot spring because the one they stayed at was very disappointing. This one was much better - but extremely hot and had quite a hike to get to it. Somewhere during this trip John got a bad case of Poison Ivy - yukk!
In July, John's biological dad passed away. It was very unexpected as he was still very young. We received a call on Friday morning that he'd had a heart attack and John jumped on a flight within 2 hours. He was able to say goodbye to Robby before he passed which was an immense blessing. The other 4 of us took off to Florida the following morning and we stayed for a week to attend the funeral and spend some much needed time with family. It was difficult and sad, but some really good growth came out of it. John was able to help Karen and his siblings through the arrangements and a sad first week. Some good photos of family can be seen below.
(L to R) Joy, Michelle, Karen, Trae & John
Extended Family
Robby
We took a day and went to Magic Kingdom while we were there too. It was a good break for us all and we had a lot of fun.
Schooling started back up in September. The boys are doing well. Alex is beginning to take off with his reading. Zach exploded with his literacy skills over the summer. David is now a 7th grader. He is enjoying the freedom we are permitting with some of his studies. Mom is enjoying that she is able to be a little less hands-on!
Will try to keep this up better in the future! LOL
Steph
