Good-Bye

The first phase of our trip is over.  My sister Tricia and her family were the last family stop on this trip.  My parents may join us for a weekend in Oregon in August, but other than that our time visiting family is through, and it makes me so very sad.  We have had the most incredible time.  I have loved spending time with my parents, siblings, in-laws, and nieces and nephews, and it has been so wonderful for my kids to get reacquainted with everyone again.  All the cousins have grown up so much in the last 3 years, and it is so sad for me to think that we don’t know when we will see everyone again.

If we ended our trip now and headed back to Alaska tomorrow, I would say our trip has been a success and all the money and time spent to make it happen has been so incredibly worth it.  Building memories with those you love, is to me, the best thing you can do in this life.

Lowry Family Epic Adventure

Some of my sister Melinda’s girls.

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My sister Jennifer’s kids.

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My sister Emily with my niece Livs (Olivia).

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Shawn’s sister Lydia and her dog Barney.

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Camdon with his cousin Beck.  They were best buds at Grandma’s house.

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My mom, my brother Josh’s boys, and my sister-in-law Cordie and her kids

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My sister Tricia’s boys.

I feel bad that I don’t have a picture of everyone we visited, but I hope you each know that we loved spending time with each and everyone of you.   I’m tempted to make the rounds again.  I have enough family that I could just spend a week at each persons house every 8 weeks!

Good-bye all!

 Thank you for letting us visit and eat you out of house and home.

 We love you and miss you all so much already.

Palouse Falls, Washington

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We spent this past week at my sister Tricia’s house in Moses Lake, Washington, and last Saturday, we took a drive to Palouse Falls, about an hour and a half away.  The falls were beautiful, but we thought that was a long drive just to be able to gaze at them for a few minutes.  We noticed people at the head of the falls and at the bottom of the falls, so we decided to see if there were any trials we could take to get closer.

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We found a trail that went up and over the hill next to us that allowed us to see the Snake River before it went over the falls.

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There were people swimming and jumping off the smaller water falls so we decided to hike down to it where they were.

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A special thank you to my brother-in-law Callin for carrying Camdon all the way down.

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The rocks were slippery and jagged, so you had to be super careful when walking around.

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It’s hard to see but there is a drop off with small waterfalls just past Jarom in the above picture.  The kids had fun swimming in the falls and jumping off the rocks into the pools below.

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This calm area was filled with fish that we just stood and counted.  The kids were sad we didn’t have fishing poles.

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I didn’t get any pictures of Logan jumping off of the small waterfalls into the pools, unfortunately.  I slipped on the rocks and got my camera wet, so I didn’t dare turn it on until it dried out, but we stayed all afternoon and had a great time.  We were so glad we did a little exploring to see what else was around.  We never did make it to the big falls though but that was okay.  We had fun.   Maybe next time we’ll hike to the bottom.

I did a bit of research on the big waterfall.  It is 198 feet high, and I found a video of a kayaker going over the falls to set a new world record.  You can watch the video here.  It makes me scared just to watch it.  AAAAaaauuuuuuhhhhhhhh.

 

Camdon Turns 3

 

 

Camdon turned 3 yesterday, and we celebrated at my sister Tricia’s house in Washington state.  Shawn, Tabetha, and Grammy were on face time with us so they got to watch Camdon open his presents, and they even got to help sing Happy Birthday to him and watch him blow out his candles.

Some fun facts about Camdon are:

  • He can identify and name every piece of heavy equipment
  • He loves his family so much
  • He is very polite and always says, “Thank you Mom” after dinner
  • He loves his nursery class
  • He doesn’t like to share his toys
  • He loves to sing and his favorite song is “Shut-up and Dance with me”
  • He thinks he can’t go to sleep at night unless he watches a bit of Netflix first
  • He loves babies and wants to have a baby at his house
  • He likes to go for drives in the car
  • His favorite food is pizza
  • Loves that he has the same first name as daddy

Here are some of my favorite pictures of him of this handsome boy who is growing up so ridiculously fast.

Kim Lowry Photography | 64 Degrees North

Kim Lowry Photography | 64 Degrees North

Kim Lowry Photography | 64 Degrees North

Kim Lowry Photography | 64 Degrees North

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Kim Lowry Photography | 64 Degrees North

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Happy Birthday Camdon!!!  We Love you so much!

 

 

 

 

 

Rafting the Payette River

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Shawn took the boys rafting while he was here visiting us.  They opted to raft the upper part of the South Fork of the Payette River in Idaho.  As you can see from the pictures it is a bit more exciting that the middle fork of the Payette River which is what we floated down in my last post.  Can you tell that Jarom and Logan are in the front and Shawn and the guide are in the back?

They decided to do the upper part of the river, because it has class 4-5 rapids instead of the lower part with 2-3 class rapids.  They invited me along, but I politely declined on behalf of my younger children who still need at least one parent alive to take care of them.

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Yep, that’s Shawn going in the water head first!

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They had a great time and said it wasn’t as scary as the pictures make it seem.  They did have to get out of the raft at one point though, and portage (walk) around some waterfalls.  Also, Shawn was not hurt when he went head first into the water, (pause for a special thank you to Jarom for pulling him back into the boat.)  Shawn said that as soon as he went into the water, the lines from the safety video they watched with the guides before setting out, came immediately to his mind, “You are responsible for saving yourself.”  And, I’m certainly glad he did just that by feeling his way out from under the boat and getting to where Jarom could pull him up.  There are kyakers following the raft and they along with the guides do the best they can to help rescue you, but they want you to do all you can to help yourself as well.

Photos courtesy of the rafting company.  The rafting company said I could go out with the camera crew and take pictures if I wanted to, which would have been fun, but I really didn’t have the right equipment and I didn’t want to leave the younger kids all day.  When I saw the pictures of Shawn going in the water I was glad I hadn’t been there to witness it first hand, I would have freaked out, especially since I wouldn’t have been able to help.

They all said it was a great experience, and would do it again in a heartbeat.  I, on the other hand, will stick to the middle fork.

 

 

Just Floating Along

I am getting so far behind on blogging!  Aaaahhhh.  What I’ve decided to do since I’m behind and getting farther behind by the day is to share what we have been doing recently and then insert past things here and there.  That way I’m not just getting further and further behind.

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Last week we spent the week with Shawn’s sister Lydia.  She lives in a lovely little valley in the mountains of Idaho.  Her house is on a hill surrounded by pine trees and you can watch the deer from the hammock while you rest outside.  It was so peaceful and relaxing.

Shawn’s mother grew up in this quiet little valley, and Shawn spent every summer until he was 16 here.  He spent him summers helping his grandfather, playing with cousins, haying, riding horses, swimming, and getting into mischief.  It was so fun to hear his stories as we drove around and saw all the sights of boyhood summer home.

One thing that he did every summer was float the river.  It’s a just the sort of river that begs to be floated on a hot, lazy summer afternoon, so that’s just what we did.  It took us about 2.5 hours to float the section we did.  A couple of the girl’s, (Katie and Mya) thought it was boring after having floated the much more exciting river in Lava Hot Springs the week before, but Camdon loved it and kept yelling, “This is awesome,” from the top of his lungs which was the exact opposite of what he was saying floating the Lava River.  I personally thought it was just right.

Today’s pictures are brought to you courtesy of Jarom and his waterproof camera.  Thanks, Jarom!

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Thanks for following along with us!

 

Day 3: Part 2 Liard Hot Springs

Liard Hot Springs was a little bit of heaven in the middle of the Canadian wilderness.  After a 10 minute walk from the camp ground, on a boardwalk over very swampy ground, we arrived at a tropical paradise.  It was heavenly.

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The beautiful wooden pavilion houses the dressing rooms, and the wooden deck under the awning leads to stairs down into two separate pools.  The upper pool is fed by the hot spring, and the lower pool is filled by the overflow of the upper pool.  The water is very hot at the mouth of the spring and is cooler the farther away from the spring head.  This was wonderful because if you were cold you  could move up closer to the spring, or if you got hot you could move farther away.  The dirt walls around you are carved by the running stream , and underneath your feet are the tiny rocks of the stream bed.  The water flowed through the second pool and wound its way around corners as the walls of the stream bed narrowed.  I didn’t venture as far back as the stream bed went.  It was too cold and too narrow.

When we arrived a good friend of ours from North Pole, AK was there swimming.  He was driving to the lower 48 as well, and had stopped there for a bit of relaxation like us.  It was sure fun to see a familiar face.

We enjoyed it so much we spent the whole evening there, and then the girls and I went back the next morning before we left.  The best part about our time there was that I just got to enjoy my children.  I got to just BE with them without any obligations, or appointments, or “you should be doing _________” , or “I should be doing______”   “we have to hurry because”.   I just got to enjoy our time together, and it was so refreshing.  I don’t have enough of those moments with my children, but I’m hoping this trip provides a lot more.

Lowry Family Epic Adventure | 64 degrees north | Kim Lowry Photography

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Lowry Family Epic Adventure | 64 Degrees N | Kim Lowry Photography

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Day 3: Part One, Watson Lake Sign Forest

  Friday, June 3, 2016            875 Miles Traveled            Stop #19

We camped our second night in a camp ground just outside Watson Lake.  We arrived late, we got up late, and then hurried to get out and on the road again.  We stopped at the sign forest in Watson Lake.  There are over 78,000 signs there.  The kids thought it was fabulous.  There were rows and rows of signs from places and people all over the world.  I wish I had thought about bringing or making a sign for us to add to the sign forest as a remembrance of our epic adventure.
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There were also some really old pieces of heavy equipment, an old backhoe, bulldozer, crane and others I couldn’t identify  The kids played and played on them.  Camdon was in heaven moving and pulling all the levers.  You can sure tell they are children of a heavy equipment operator.

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We also got groceries in Watson Lake, and then we hurried on down the road to Liard Hot Springs just 135 miles away.  I had been promising the kids since we got on the road that we would stop there to camp and swim.  We had planned on stopping there the 2nd night, but we just weren’t traveling as fast as I thought we would be traveling.  However, being able to have a short driving day on day 3 and being able to enjoy some time out of the car was so nice.

We got to Liard Hot Springs mid afternoon and it was heavenly, the camp ground was nice, the water was perfect, and the kids and I had the best time.

Part 2 of day 3 Liard Hot Springs… To be continued….

 

 

Day 2 And Yes I Can

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The first night on the road we stopped at a great little rv park on the banks of spectacular Kluane Lake.  We pulled in around 12:30 local time, and there was a hand written note on the door of the office that said we could pick our own site and pay in the morning.  In the morning we woke up to the most fabulous views of the mountains and the lake.  It was like being in camping heaven.  I could have stayed there for days.

While we were there we met Joireen.  She and her husband are retired and are spending their days biking from Anchorage, Alaska to Mexico and then to their home in Phoenix.   (You can read about their awesome journey here.   This post is the spot we met her.)   Listening to her talk, I was so inspired by what they were doing, but my immediate thought was: I could never do that.  As we were driving that day, I thought more about Joireen and her adventure, and I had a little talk with myself.   Why couldn’t I do what she is doing?  She didn’t look like she was super human.  (Sorry Joireen)  Instead of saying “I can’t”  I thought about the reasons I might not be doing what she is doing.  Am I too scared to do what she is doing?  Do I not want to put the hard work in it takes to do what they are doing?  Or is it something I’m just not interested in doing?  It isn’t a priority right now?

How many things do I automatically say, “I can’t” to, before I really examine the possibilities.  I don’t think there is anything wrong with saying that something isn’t a priority to me, or that I’m not interested in that, but is the real reason I’m saying I can’t, because I’m too scared to try.  I don’t want my life to be dictated by the things I scared of, and I don’t want my children seeing me living my life by the things I’m afraid of, either.  I want them to see me saying “I can,” and see me working toward my dreams and the things that are important to me, so that they will also have the courage to say “I can.”  Now, I’m not saying that I’m going to be biking to Mexico anytime soon.  It isn’t a priority right now, but I’m learning that I can do anything that I’m willing to put my time and energy into accomplishing.

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The Fun Has Arrived

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It took us ten days, approximately 45 stops, and 2800 miles to get to Bear Lake, Idaho, our first official stop and our first stop visiting family.   Let me just say that we are so happy to be done with that part of the trip.  Driving through Canada for 6 days, spending 10-12 hours in the car everyday, was long and tedious.  It felt like we were going to be in Canada FOREVER.  After 6 days in Canada, though, we finally made it back to the U.S., and after another three days driving through Montana and Idaho we made it to Bear Lake.  I think it is safe to say that the hardest part of our trip is behind us now, as Shawn will be driving home with us in October, so I don’t have to go it alone again.

We have been gone from home for 20 days now, and traveled 3300 miles.  Thankfully we aren’t traveling much now.  We are enjoying long, relaxing summer days filled with family, picnics and going to the beach.  The summer weather has been splendid, and a balm to my winter weary soul.  I can even tell I have a little color to my skin now.  Yay, for vitamin D!

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Blessings At the Start

Lowry Family Epic Adventure | 64 Degrees North | Kim Lowry Photography

“What you still need to know is this:  before a dream is realized, the Soul of the World tests everything that was learned along the way.  It does this not because it is evil, but so that we can, in addition to realizing our dreams, master the lessons we’ve learned as we’ve moved toward that dream.  That’s the point at which most people give up.  It’s the point at which, as we say in the language of the desert, one ‘dies of thirst just when the palm trees have appeared on the horizon.'”  –The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho

This was the quote that would go through my mind every time something crazy happened the days leading up to us leaving.  This is what I thought about when I had to have a root canal, and a major filling.  This is what I thought about when Tabetha came down with strep throat the day we were supposed to leave.  I thought about this when Shawn came in the house at 1:30 a.m. the day I was supposed to leave, and said that there was something he needed to fix on the car, and we would have to delay our trip a day.  I was seriously wondering if all the work and stress was worth it as this was just the tip of the iceberg.

But, the lesson that kept coming to mind as well, is that God is good and he watches over us.  Having a root canal days before leaving although time consuming, expensive, and frustrating, was a blessing that my tooth acted up before we left and not on our trip.  Our trip being delayed an extra day was a blessing, because I was able to get everything done without as much stress, and I was able to get some needed sleep before we started out.  We were also blessed with a wonderful family friend who took Tabetha to the doctor while we finished packing and loading up.  So, even though it felt like we were being tested at every corner, we were blessed beyond measure and have been continually blessed along our way.

Lowry Family Epic Adventure | 64 Degrees North | Kim Lowry Photography

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