Family Fun!

Chad's parents got their mission call to Nauvoo! We are so excited for them but as Jaedyn said, "it's a long time!" They leave in January... we may just have to go crash their party in Illinois at some point 👍

As a last hurrah for a while, they rented a beach house in Lincoln City, OR and invited all of us to come join them for some memories. We were so excited! In Northern Wa sits a rain forest called Olympic National Park. Chad has been wanting to visit there for a very long time. As we were driving up for a 3 day reunion, he decided to plan to take a little more time off and take me hiking and exploring in the park. Thanks to the generosity of his parents, we were able to do this sans kids! We were a little saddened though to hear that everyone had the idea to gather a little earlier so we ended up missing out on some good quality get together time. But I'm glad the kids at least got to take part.

The park was beautiful! We've flown to Hawaii and Costa Rica and have absolutely loved the rain forests there so it was funny to chuckle at the similarities so close to where Chad grew up!

Me and my main squeeze

And my main squeeze squeezing on a massive tree.

And a bridge

And a waterfall

Ok but for real, it was beautiful. I just don't have a good camera on my phone. And I may have been a little frustrated because my phone has been on the fritz and I've been looking for a new one. Right before this trip I was checking out the Samsung S21 Ultra and the camera was AMAZING! So every picture I took just made me sad because it could have been so much better if I'd just bit the bullet and bought the dang phone. But alas... sigh. So instead I created many memories while Chad took all the pictures. 

We headed up to Vancouver on the 24th of July, spent the night with family and then headed out to camp in the park Sun-Tues. On Sunday Chad woke up with a little sore throat that went away after an hour. The same thing happened Monday. His allergies have been bothering him off and on for a bit so we assumed there was something in the air. Then Tuesday he woke up feeling kinda crummy and it just progressed through the day. We returned to Vancouver in the afternoon and by then he was doing a little better. Wednesday we left for the beach and was a little congested. Thursday it hit him pretty hard and that evening his sister-in-law convinced him to take a COVID test which came back positive. Dang. So we left a day early. The kids were hysterical and we were disappointed. It was hard to end everything so abruptly and say good-byes that weren't real good-byes. 

We got several keepers for the memory books though, and these are my favorite pics. These cousins!

Best friends forever, cousins for life!

Sure do love you Cronin Gang!

PS: Sadly, Chad was only the first of many to become a COVID victim from this gathering. And we were all vaccinated! He is now fondly referred to as "Patient Zero" by his family. Thankfully all have made a full recovery!