After our stop at Yellowstone, we continued the long trip to Minnesota. The family reunion was at Mike's grandparents' land on the Rainy River. The first few days at the big family reunion were spent meeting people, fishing, swimming, playing with the kids, and keeping the bugs off of me! We also did some shooting, which is always fun, and rode the 4-wheelers in the woods. I met way more people than I'll ever be able to remember their names, but everyone was really nice and made me feel like part of the family. The fireworks were my favorite part! I took tons of pictures of the whole trip, and have some of them posted on my facebook page if you want to see more...
The next day we drove to Spicer, MN on Green Lake. We spent the 4th of July weekend there with Mike's friend Jeremy, and his family. We had a blast! Great street party, flea market, 80s hair band concert, and awesome fireworks! On the 5th, we started our long trip home.
We drove through the Badlands in South Dakota, which was really cool - amazing rock formations. Somewhere along the way, we managed to stop and check out the infamous Wall Drug Store. Then we headed to Mt. Rushmore, which was really cool, you gotta see it in person at least once in your life! And finally we headed over to the Crazy Horse Memorial, which much to my dismay, is not even close to being completed! Still cool to see though. By then, it was pretty late, so we decided to stay in this cute little hotel right down the road, and had a nice dinner in the Bavarian-themed restaurant.
We pushed hard the next day and finally made it home to Washington!
A few days later, we took a nice little motorcycle ride out to Flaming Geyser state park. It sounded WAY more exciting than it ended up being. It was still a nice ride, and we decided to keep riding after our quick stop to see the no-longer-flaming geyser. I would like to go back there sometime though, there's a really nice river there and tons of people were going tubing that day - looked like fun!
Two days later, we took another cool ride up the 101. We stopped at a nice little winery - Hoodsport - which had a great view of the Hood Canal, and we tried some really great wine! Then we continued on in search of a cool waterfall that I had read about. We easily found the waterfall, which was just a short walk from the road. It's called Dosewallips Falls. It was huge and had a nice little swimming hole at the bottom. It wasn't quite hot enough for me to want to swim, but there were plenty of other people willing to brave the cold water that day!
A few days later, we headed out on another long road trip. Mike's friend Kenny was marrying his beautiful girlfriend Kelly in Sacramento. So, we headed south and stopped in Mt. Shasta along the way. We camped at a KOA there, and had a great pizza at a local restaurant. The next day, we finally got to Sacramento and checked in to the lovely Sheraton. That night, we went to the rehearsal and dinner, which was a blast, (and a tearjerker!) The next day, Mike went with the guys to go shooting, so I headed uptown to get a massage. It was pretty hot, but I enjoyed the walk, and had a great massage. When I got back, I swam a little in the tiny (but refreshing) pool, then started looking for plane tickets. Sadly, I found out that morning that my stepfather had passed away, so I knew I would be flying back to PA in a few days. He had been sick for a long time, with Huntington's disease, so I had kind of been expecting the phone call for awhile. Needless to say, it was still a bit of a shock to find out he was really gone, and I spent most of the morning crying in bed. The massage helped take my mind off of it though, and the amazing wedding later that day definitely uplifted my spirits.
The wedding was at Vizcaya Pavilion, and it was really beautiful. Everything was very personal, and the DJ/MC was amazing. He was so interactive, and really made the evening flow really well. There were a lot of really touching moments, and funny moments, and we all laughed, cried, and felt joy for the newlyweds. I even danced a bit and Mike danced a lot!
A few days later, I headed back to PA. I spent a week there, and tried to help my Mom with all the funeral arrangements and keep my little brother out of her hair. The funeral and service was on Saturday, and it was so hot out, it was miserable. It was really hard, and I pretty much lost it when they played "Taps" at the cemetary. My stepdad was in the Army when he was younger, so the local American Legion or VFW (can't remember which) sent their Color Guard to do the military honors and presented my Mom with the American flag. It was nice to know that every servicemember is remembered and honored, no matter how long ago they served their country.
After I got back to WA, I was pretty sad, cuz I knew the summer with Mike was almost over. We tried to take advantage of any free time we had together, and managed to fit in a few more adventures before I left. We took the dogs to the beach, went to the farmer's market, watched a free concert in the park, and took one last motorcycle ride. Our last weekend together, we made a trip out to Westport, where we usually go crabbing. We went down to the beach, and collected a couple hundred sand dollars to use in our wedding. The dogs had a blast running around the beach, and we had blast finding so many beautiful sand dollars! On the way home, we found a UFO and then we stopped at a very cool winery, and sampled some amazing wines! Gotta love finding random wineries, always a fun time.
The next day, we headed out to Gig Harbor for their 1st Annual Food & Wine Festival. We sampled some amazing food and some really great wines. My favorite dish of the day was the Ahi Crisps from Anthony's. The beef dish from Brix 25 was pretty good too - that was Mike's favorite. We also watched some interesting cooking demonstrations, and sampled some awesome NY steak after watching them cook it right in front of us. The beer & pizza pairing class was cool, and the spicy Thai pizza was amazing! At the end of the event, they had a cook-off between Top Chef Fabio Viviani and Craig Haslebacher, a local culinary expert who recently beat Iron Chef Bobby Flay at his own game.
The amazing Ahi Crisp-
On August 9th, Mike and I had to say our goodbyes (I cried of course), and I started the long drive home. My summer was officially over, and I had to head back to school in just a few short days. :( It was an amazing summer, one that I'll never forget.
One last picture for this post is one of the amazing sunsets that I got to share with Mike that last week from the deck of his house in Steilacoom...
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