Over the River and Through the Woods (1200 miles) to Grandmother's House We Go

In Elin's short life of 4 months she has already been on two vacations.  Since I have been a little busy lately I have combined them both into one blog.

September

At 7 weeks old Elin and I flew to Salt Lake for a long weekend.  She did surprisingly well on the flight and had a great time visiting with her cousins who kept her very amused. My Dad also flew in from Colorado so that he could meet Elin (Grandma Aila came to Seattle just after she was born).

Aunt Julie & Olivia

Grandpa Gillespie ("Pappy")

Aunt Leina

Sy, Ella, Elin, Noah & Marty

Olivia

MJ

Smiling at Pappy

She also met our good friends the Esplins who we consider family.

 Steve, Nalyn, Annika, Emily Kate & Jenoa

November

For Thanksgiving we traveled 600 miles by car each way to Townsend Montana to spend the holiday with the Scoffield family and to attend our niece Olivia's baptism. We had a huge snowstorm in Seattle just before we left (4.5 inches in our backyard). We went across Snoqualmie pass and it looked like a winter wonderland. It was also 20 degrees. In fact, the entire week we were gone we never had temperatures above 25.  The coldest place was on McDonald Pass just before Helena MT where it was -7. 

Elin did really well in the car. We split the trip into two parts each way (5-6 hours each leg) and she mostly slept.

  

Our nephew Hayden rode with us part of the way to Montana and helped to keep Elin amused. She especially loved looking at his iPod.

We had a great time visiting with James' parents, his sister Julie and her daughter Olivia, and his brother Russell and his family.  Holidays are always more fun and special when you can spend them with family and the people that you love. 

Lisa, Trevor, Russell, Hunter, Tristan and Hayden Scoffield

GG and Papa with Elin

We also got to visit with Grandma Hunter who is 92 years old. She is such a cute lady and we were excited to introduce her to Elin. There are 4 generations of Hunters in this picture.

On Olivia's 8th Birthday (11-26-10) she was baptized into the LDS church.  We were happy that we could be there to support Olivia on her special day.

James and Grandpa Scoffield gave Elin her baby blessing on Sunday after church to officially put her name on the records of the church. She seemed to really enjoy it.

It has been fun to introduce our little Elin to her family over the past couple of months. We are so thankful to have such wonderful families and we look forward to many more memorable vacations and holidays with all of them.

Maija