07/25/2026
Our third year in our favorite place🥹🏔️ And oh Idaho, you were so good to us again!
Getting a front row seat to watching these kids grow is truly the joy of Austin and I’s life 🥹🥲 Seeing them experience firsts, explore and adventure out in nature, and, most importantly, make memories together as a little family unit is such a fleeting gift I will never ever ever take for granted—overtired meltdowns, sibling fights, screams on the plane, and all 😜🤪🥹
As I reflect on our trip, I can’t help but think back to our first year here when Lyla was only two, almost three (she’s turning SIX on Monday!)—she was trying her best to keep up exploring and adventuring with big brother Rowan, and Austin and I had to rotate in shifts carrying her on hikes. This year, we rotated carrying little Miss Clara (who wasn’t born yet when we first came here) while Lyla made it the entire way on foot by herself! 😭 In just a few years, we have experienced a shift from our oldest “babies” trying to form sentences, to now sharing in witty humor with us adults…from them running around and chucking rocks/inanimate objects into the lake (sometimes at people 😆🙈,) to now using their vivid imaginations to create storylines and play together, a shift from early bedtimes to staying up later so we can watch the sunset and play board games together. A shift from wanting to hold my hand, to wanting to hold Clara’s to help her get where she needed to go. The changes in their childhood I observed almost daily this last week and it really made me so emotional but in the BEST way possible. I love this season with my “little big kids.” It’s such a beautiful gift watching the Lord work in their lives and seeing them become the human beings they are meant to be, right before our very eyes 🥹😭 Life is fleeting and goodness I am cherishing each and every day that I get to be their mom 😭💛
*I just had to put a Beach Boys song with this post because our cabin this year had a record player and only one vinyl with it—The Beach Boys Classic Hits. It was the soundtrack to our entire week ☺️🥹🌊
