Picnic With The Huckleberries

The Newbry cousins (minus 4)

Top Row: Missi, Savannah, Sarah Kate, Gracie, Hannah

Bottom Row: Cadence, Gabbi, Zack, Alli, Ben

Missing: Nikki, Maddi, Travis, Trent

The 5th of July we were still in Grace and April (my sister-in-law) thought it would be fun to go into the mountains and have a picnic. After trying and failing to get to some spring that apparently no one has been to in a long time (the road was overgrown with weeds) we decided to just drive up to where we go huckleberry picking every fall. The road is a dirt road that we've traveled many times and is not overgrown with weeds. It was a great idea until just short of the huckleberry turn when we heard a pop. We continued on to the turnoff and discovered our tire was flat. While Kenny went to work changing the tire, Helen (my mother-in-law) Mindy (another sister-in-law) and I took the kids for a walk up the road. They loved it and were disappointed and the swiftness of Daddy's tire changing ability. In no time we were headed down to a nice meadow where we had our picnic.

Changing the tire. Better him than me. :)

Sarah Kate, Hannah, and cousin Gabbi heading up the mountain.

BenBen being a boy with a stick.

Hannah and Grandma Newbry on our hike.

Our mountain picnic.

We had a wonderful short picnic and then headed down the mountain again. The rest of the day was spent much the same as the day before. The kids played together, napped, ate Grandpa's homemade huckleberry ice cream, and then we washed them off with a soak in the hot tube (this time Gracie got to go in and she was a big fan. Kenny and his Dad took Ben (who was all girled out) and Gabbi (the oldest cousin there who was little kidded out) to a place called 24. They got to climb down some rocks to the river below and splash around. It was a perfect outing to the the kids who didn't really fit in all the time.

Eating Huckleberry Ice Cream

Swimming in the hot tub

Gracie is our water baby and LOVED the hot tub.

We had a great 4th of July weekend and my sadness at not being in Virginia was quickly gone, though I still would have loved to have been there. We went to church on Sunday and then had a very slow drive home that afternoon. Funny thing about our flat tire. When Kenny went to get it replaced on Monday (the hole was to big to patch) we discovered that when we got our back tires replaced on the way home from the Disney Cruise in May they had put two different sized tires on. So after a lot of talking and waiting we got two new, matching tires for the back, free. We decided to just replace the other front tire so now we have four new matching tires, two of which were free, and a spare that is a normal sized, not very used tire to put underneath. I guess that flat was a good thing afterall.