A beautiful weekend in Idaho

Last Thursday around 4pm Brons, Damen, Fergs and I made the drive back up to Idaho for the funeral. It was a nice drive and we arrived at the house a little after 7pm. Bas, Mom, John and my grandma were all ready over at the viewing. We were all starving so we decided to head out and find some food. Just outside of Rigby we found a steakhouse restaurant that looked good.....and it was fantastic. Our steaks were amazing! When we got back to the house I spent some time with my mom and grandma. Brons and Damen went outside looking for "snipes". They had fun.

I don't think anyone slept well that night and Friday morning came quick. We all met at the church at 9:30 when the viewing started. Kris looked absolutely gorgeous. Her color in her face was amazing.....I didn't realize how anemic (pale) she really was from the constant bleeding in her mouth. Her has was done nice and she was dressed in her temple clothes. I sat there in the room watching all the people go through the line with the same things to say- "Kris was my friend". The waterworks started when they closed the casket and as we walked into the chapel. I sat in the front since I was a speaker. Damen sat with Bronson and the other pall bearers off to the side of me. The service was perfect. Bas picked out amazing songs to be played and my cousin sang an Enya song "where are you now" that my step dad accompanied, it was perfect. I spoke and it was my first time speaking at a funeral and I think I was a blubbering mess and everything was clear in my head but I couldn't get the words out. Everyone said I did a great job, but I'm not convinced. My mom and Ruth also did a great job speaking. The dedicatory prayer at the cemetery was hard. I watched as the pall bearers carried the casket and I was hard to watch Damen carry his aunt. He looked so small and so young. It just reminded me that Kris was to young to leave us.
After the luncheon we said our goodbyes and drove a little over an hour more north to West Yellowstone. We decided we needed some happy times this weekend. We found a motel room at the 3 Bears Inn. Damen was excited to have his own room. Our motel was just off the main street through town so we decided to walk around. We took some time to look in some shops then we ate dinner at Bronson's favorite pizza place. We walked around some more then headed back to the motel and slept!

I slept so good, for not being in my own bed. Saturday morning we were up and ready by 9am and went to the restaurant at our motel. For some reason breakfast always tastes better when your out of town. Then we walked over to the Bear and Wolf Discovery. We walked around the inside exhibit and learned all we ever wanted to know about grizzly and black bears. Then you walk outside and they had an area for the wolves and on the other side had a bigger area for the bears. After some convincing, Damen and 10 other kids became Keeper Kids and were able to learn more about bears. They took the bears out of there area and the kids and the guide walked into the bear house and hid buckets of fruits and veges for the bears to find. When they were back with the parents and the area was locked up they let the bears back out and it was fun to watch them find the food.

Before leaving town we stopped at a fly shop, Bronson's tradition and his favorite fly shop, then we hit the road. We arrived back home safely around 5pm completely exhausted.