Trekking Barris: August 2018

Summer 2018 Overview

We had a great, long summer vacation filled with family visits, seeing friends, backpacking, golfing for Jeff and visiting a few new countries for us girls. The first week was spent in Michigan seeing grandparents, aunts, cousins and having lots of fun - horseback riding, water parks, shopping, jump houses and enjoying the long summer days. The 2nd week Kiki flew in from Germany and watched the girls in Michigan while Jeff and I backpacked in Washington State. We had a rigorous loop planned in the North Cascades, but with snow conditions had to cut our trip short and used our remaining time at Olympic National Park. The 3rd week was spent in NoCal with Kiki, my parents, and our family. We spent a few days on coast in Fort Bragg checking out various state parks, and the last few days in Berkeley with a day in San Francisco. The 4th week was meant to be a backpacking trip in Yosemite with the 4 of us, but the fires precluded. Instead we did a shorter 3 day, 2 night trip to Trinity Alps in Shasta region, a few hours in Lassen National Park and more time at my Aunt's house in Belmont. It was nice my cousin visited from Chicago while we were there and we got time together. The 5th week was meant to be in Idyllwild with my brother and his family, my parents and are our family at a great air-b-n-b, but the fires there changed plans. Instead we split the time between SD and LA which in the end turned out great. In San Diego we were able to meet up with really close friends (Jennifer, Koleen, Shelley Jeff and LJ), and also have family pictures taken (thanks Michelle!). The last week Jeff went to Boise Idaho to caddie for a friend in a golf tournament and play a few rounds afterward, and the girls and I went to Sweden and Norway. In Sweden we visited Morgan's first close friend she had in Italy, and Norway was purely sightseeing.

Lots of great memories from our summer 2018.

Scenic Norway

We spent 3 nights in Bergen at a fabulous hotel with that included an amazing breakfast buffet and was walking distance to all the sites, and then spent a day doing our own version of 'Norway in a Nutshell'. The Norway in a Nutshell is a train, bus, ferry, scenic train and faster train to Oslo which is absolutely gorgeous! Because I did it myself and was nervous about connections ended up having a few hours in between public transportation which did make it an all day (first train left Bergen at 7:57 AM, and last train arrived in Oslo at 10:35 pm) event! The girls were troopers and Morgan after seeing the scenery became motivated to be a photographer.

I did take 919 photos this summer, and proportionally the last few days in Norway had the most!!!

The one museum I went into - Bryggen is a UNESCO site that was important as a trading port in the 14th-16th century

In Norway, kids get into museums free. After paying to go in one, the kids said they scope out the rest to see if it was worth money for me to pay. In this one they took a lot of photos to show me, including a few where they asked other tourists to take their picture together.

Trolls are ugly mischievous hill dwelling creatures and legend in Norway. If you've ever seen the movie Trolls, the Bergens are named for this city. Also the Frozen Movie city of Arandelle scenery is a direct replica of the harbor in Bergen.

We lucked out with weather the first day in Bergen, but the 2nd was rainy. We spent the day in an indoor water park with lots of slides. The girls loved it!

Waiting for the ferry. Bought the girls cute sweatshirts and they had wifi - no was complaining!

Friends n Sweden

We had a great time visiting friends in Stockholm. The girls stayed up late, got up early, traded clothes, painted fingernails, jumped on the trampoline and had a ball. We also got to see a lot of the sights, including a tour from the water from their speedboat, tubing, going to the Vasa museum, spending the day at a water park, and walking the streets in Gamalstan. We had a wonderful time thanks to our gracious and accommodating hosts!

Kids around the world are into making SLIME!

Family Time in CA

Here are some photos from our time in CA.

Sea Glass Beach

A non-traditional playground with DIY wood, nails and saws for kids! As we pulled up we dubbed it - 'homeless park'! Kind of loved the non-safe aspect of it.