Yellow(stone) Fever

Ryan and his Epa have been dreaming of touring Yellowstone National Park together. In October, Lisa made their wish come true, as she arranged for the three of them to take a four-day weekend adventure together.

Ryan hit the major highlights between Boise and the Park including Craters of the Moon Natl. Park, Old Faithful, Mammoth Spring, Canyon Falls, boiling mud pits, and sighting much wildlife. The most impressive to him were the GIGANTIC elk which were bugeling.

It was a great time for the three of them to build memories that will last forever... each of them got to check off an item on their bucket lists.

The Great Hunters

This summer Robbyn planned a campus-wide scavenger hunt, for all the grand kids, on NNU's campus. The dorm setting has provided an array of fun times for the kids from mattress surfing on the stairs to the basement, to riding bikes and scooters through the empty halls when the dorm is closed for holiday seasons, to numerous parties in various dorm lobbies.

Ema has the biggest and most exciting house of all, and this time the whole campus served as the backyard for a scavenger hunt!

The kids followed a series of clues all around campus and ended up at the volleyball court where there was a marker with each of their names.

Epa was riding his bike like mad across campus, staying one step ahead of the kids as he hid the clues and buried the treasure.

They had to dig their box of "treasure" out of the sand, and all were quite excited with the contents: stickers, feathers, coins, candy, magnets, etc. The event was a hit!

Three Amigos

School is back in session. All three of our kids go to Pioneer Elementary now. Abby is in Kindergarten, Will is in second grade, Ryan the fourth grade.

This is new for us. All three kids together, lookin out for one another.

Mariners Baseball

Ryan and I stole away from camp Friday night to catch the Mariners game, up in Seattle. We had a great time together, experiencing alittle "man-time" watching the Ms paste the Royals, and enjoying the sights and sounds of Safco Field.

Black Lake Bonanza

Lisa has four very close friends from her high school days at Nampa Christian. Summer, Jerusha, and Missie have all stayed in contact with each other through college, marriage, over-seas residence, child rearing, and career pursuits. Their company has always been a comfort to one another.

Jerusha's husband, Greg, is the program director at Black Lake Bible Camp in Olympia, WA. The four friends decided that they wanted their kids to get to know one another better, so they took their families to BLBC, and shared the days together while the kids had a ball in the day camp. Everyone was pleased with their experience... especially the moms, who enjoyed the time to catch up and relax in fellowship with one another.

The 11 kids made for fast friends and had a blast running as a little pack throughout the camp.  This may become a tradition.

The Last Frontier - Finale

Our last days in Nikiski were cool and wet... but good.  

We spent time down on the beach and in the water fishing with the family, followed by relaxing times of fellowship.  

Ryan picked the 36 lb. King Salmon from the net.

 

 The kids enjoyed the relaxed schedule and the opportunity and freedom to play.  

 It was a simple existence and one that these Kinnamans needed more than we had realized.  

 It was sad to leave our friends behind when it was time for us to return.  We are grateful for the opportunity to have seen some place new. 

We finally saw moose while we were leaving for the airport in Anchorage.

 But we are even more thankful for the encouragement and rest that we received from simply spending time with friends.  

 We came away from out Alaska adventure truly blessed.

The Last Frontier - Part 9

Once again, we woke up ready for adventure.  Our second day in Seward was spent on a boat.  We took a tour out into the Gulf of Alaska.

The scenery was beautiful.  We saw whales, and a sea otter on our way to Fox Island...

We ate...

Lunch was all-you-can-eat salmon and prime-rib, with sides of king crab and corn on the cob.  While we feasted, the kids were awarded Jr. Ranger badges for completing the Ranger workbooks they were given while we waited for the trip to begin.

We finished the tour and saw puffins, sea lions, and a whole bunch of beautiful scenery...

 

 
And the kids caught a quick nap on boat ride back to shore.
That ended our time in Seward.  We were packed and ready to head back to Nikiski for a bit more fishing.

The Last Frontier - Part 8

When we came down from the trail to Exit Glacier, we stopped to read the sign at the trail head. I want to point out that it mentions that if a brown bear attacks, play dead unless it begins to eat you...then go ahead and fight back.

On our way back from Exit Glacier, we noticed that a number of cars were pulled over near a bridge about a half-mile from town.
We got out of the car and saw a mother brown bear with two cubs. As she strolled along the river, she reached in and pulled out a fish for the cubs to eat. We had an exciting evening which was capped with a trip to the creamery where we learned that Alaskans consume more ice cream per capita than any other state population in the U.S. (we were just trying to make our bear-sighting that much more authentically Alaskan)