One of my darling children must have stepped on a crack...

...because I broke my back!

How do you like my new brace? I wear it all day and all night. It only comes off when I shower. I'll wear it until this fall, but...I am getting ahead of myself.

Let me start at the beginning.

All the descendants of my great grandparents on my paternal grandmother's side were invited to a family reunion in July. I really wanted to go, but Stan's family reunion was the same weekend, so my mom flew to our house to drive with me in the van. We took three kids with us and Stan kept the other four to take to his family's reunion.

Summer, Kelly, and Naomi came with my mom and me. Here are the two youngest in Nevada where we stopped for a picnic on our first day out. It was 109 degrees Fahrenheit.

We met my dad along the way, went to church with my in-laws and headed up over the mountains to see my Aunt Margaret and Uncle Tom.

We stopped at Cedar Breaks on the way. It was about 40 degrees cooler in the mountains on Sunday than it had been on Saturday in the desert.



By Sunday evening, we were in Colorado and had a nice drive Monday. We stopped here so that my dad could take pictures of the hay bales and the hills. It was nice to stretch our legs for a minute.

Later in the day, my dad taught Kelly how to fish. Naomi took mental notes while they practiced casting in the road.


Then it was time to cast for real (for reel? ha ha).

While Kelly fished, Naomi gathered flowers and...

...I took pictures.

Success! Her first fish - a 10 and 3/4 inch brown trout. It was delicious :)

We drove into Fort Collins that night with scattered rain and a beautiful sky that turned into...

...a double rainbow.

The next day, we took my grandmother and visited the cemetery to put flowers on my Grandpa Herb's, cousin Veronica's and sister Heather's graves.

Kelly and Mo rode the train in the city park.

We also visited my Grandpa Bob at the nursing home and took in a little shopping for Summer's sake.

We spent our second and last evening in Fort Collins at Uncle Gale and Aunt Judy's house visiting with all their kids and grand kids as well as Uncle Kent and Aunt Kay, having fun, eating dinner and doing laundry.

Wednesday, we picked up Grandma Blanche to come to the reunion with us and headed off to another cemetery at the Ryssby Church.

Kelly found a bird's nest and a toad. I took pictures of both to ease the pain of not keeping them forever.


Summer was a delightful travel companion.

She took this picture of the van full to the brim with seven (3 kids, mom, dad, Grandma Blanche and me) people's stuff and...

...this funny picture of Naomi and me.

I really like this picture I took of my parents.

We stopped to ride an aerial tram and stayed for lunch.

This picture of the Rockies was the last picture I took on our trip. It was lovely driving through the mountains.

After lunch, we drove until we came to Hot Sulpher Springs, where we stopped to swim (the kids) and soak (the adults). It was so relaxing :)

We got back in the car and started on our last 100 miles or so before we reached the reunion.

Soon, almost everyone was asleep.

Then, everyone was asleep, including the driver, but not for long.

Next, almost all of us were hollering, while we flew off the road, caught some air, bumped along at high speed, hit a ditch, tipped to the side, tipped back upright, took out a fencepost, and stopped.

We all ended up going to a nearby town in two different ambulances. The three kids ended up with scrapes and bruises, but nothing worse. My Grandma Blanche had some broken ribs. My mom, dad and I all broke our backs in different places and I broke my sternum. The spine specialist who treated us told us we were very blessed as a family to have three broken backs and no spinal cord injuries.

The van didn't fare so well, but that is ok.

It is replaceable, unlike the rest of us :)

Here are a couple of pictures that Stan took when he came to pick up the kids.


The four adults ended up staying in the hospital two or three days each. When we were released, we were taken lovingly in by many of the family whom we had been looking forward to seeing at the reunion. I was sad that we didn't see everyone and that we missed the reunion, but it was so nice to have time to visit and spend time with loved ones for a while as we recuperated and waited to see our doctor one more time.

I will be forever grateful for all the kindnesses shown by our families, our ward, Stan's coworkers and our friends. Thanks everyone!