2 Weeks of Vacations!

Our vacation marathon started with a trip to Bear Lake. My dad and his brothers had this great idea to have a giant family reunion with all their kids and grandkids. It turned out to be so much fun. Here are some of the highlights.

Here's my dad (on the left) with his two brothers.

The kids loved the beach.

My fun aunt decided that one of the all time favorite kids activities is an easter egg hunt, so she decided to do one just for fun, in June! She was right, the kids loved it!

We took a trip to visit Minnetonka Cave. (Notice Emma is still in the dress phase. We finally got her to put jeans on under a dress, but there is no way we could convince her to not wear a dress... silly girl)

Here's a picture of the whole group.

Then, we packed up the car and headed over to Canada for our traditional 1st of July McInelly family reunion. We always look forward to spending time with Jared's grandfather and love the small town feel of Raymond. Jared was raised making the trip to Canada in July every year and it has such special memories for him and his siblings that the tradition has carried on. As we drove and drove to get there, we talked about all the trips we've made before having kids, with babies, and now with our larger family. We've hardly missed and as we counted we realized we've gone back 7 out of the 10 years we've been married.

It was pretty HOT the first couple days, thank goodness Jared's sister brought this fun slip and slide for all the kids.
Check out the air Hunter gets with the help of his dad and Uncle Mike! Looks like fun to me.

Here is Jared's mom and his grandpa. He is 88 and never fails to amaze us as he jumps in lakes and even goes bridge jumping with us. He is always fully dressed in a cowboy shirt, jeans and a belt. It's a crack up.

The parade on July 1st. (waiting for candy...)

Emma ate whatever she got just as quick as it landed at her feet.

The rodeo is always lots of fun. Emma and her cousin Brody went down to the grass for a closer look.
We took a fun hike in Waterton. It gave us a gorgeous view of the town and I think the most exciting part was the chipmunks that were so incredibly tame.


They would come and eat right out of your hand. That was cool enough for most of us, but Jared and his brother Mat started trying to get them to come closer and closer.

We thought no one could top this .....

.... until Mat did that.

Cameron Lake is always a favorite spot. We took Jared's inflatable raft out for a family ride. The kids had fun playing on the dock and throwing rocks in the water.

Emma spent a long time trying to figure out what was under the dock.

She especially loved throwing rocks in the water.. what toddler doesn't?

Of course Jared always gets up early to sneak away for a fishing trip or two. No trip to Canada would be complete without it. He loves the thrill of catching Pike.

One of our favorite parts about visiting Canada is the chance we get to be around horses. Sometimes we all go riding, but our kids are content just to feed and pet them.

Both of my girls are horse lovers. These miniature horses were so cute and non intimidating even for little Emma.

Grandpa Bill had some horses out back that the kids could walk out and visit anytime. Emma woke up in the middle of night once and stumbled around the room trying to find her flip flops. I asked her where she needed to go and she said, "I want to go outside." I thought she must be sleep walking and put her back to bed, but in the morning I asked her about it and she remembered everything clearly. She explained that she had wanted to go see those horses out back.

Here are my girls going for a ride.

Hunter took a turn too.

Here are the kids with their Great-Grandpa Bill.

We are so grateful for him and the wonderful memories we have going to visit him in Canada every year!