Our crazy, busy, non-stop summer

I have been such a slacker at blogging (surprise, surprise) so in order to catch up this is going to be a very long post. Most of you won't be able to make it through the whole thing and I don't blame you, but people keep asking for updates and photos from our summer adventures...so here they are.

Laguna Hills Half Marathon

I began the summer (summer begins in March here in southern California) running a half marathon on Memorial day with some fellow runners. I was training pretty well but found out a month before the race that I was pregnant. So I backed off running a bit but still managed to race, and get 4th place in my division. Not bad for a 9 wk. pregant lady I guess! I don't recommend running while you are pregnant though. I did some irreversible damage to my legs!

Newport Beach

We had a Struve family reunion back in June at a very nice resort at Newport Beach. We had a blast with my family going to the beach, hanging out together and of course going to Disneyland. What's a trip to SoCal without going to Disneyland?

My little (taller) sis Holly and her boy Wesley

My Big sis Amy and her family

Nathan and Rylee having fun in the water in Bug's Land

Utah
Rod had a week of vacation in July and one in August. So we decided to clump our vacations together take one really long vacation. We went to Utah first and had a blast hanging out with the Jays in Utah. We were able to attend Jared's farewell while we were there. Rod now has 3 siblings on missions!

Nathan and Annikka with their cousins at the Dairy Keen (Heber City) The Heber Creeper train yard

Hobble Creek Canyon




Rod and I had a fun date night at the Folk Festival in Springville

Susanville

Then we headed to northern California to spend some time with my family. We had fun going to Bucks lake (my girls camp when I was a YW) It was so great to go back - - so many fun memories!

Rod decided to bring the kayak down to the lake on his own!?
Kayaking is now one of my favorite things to do

Antelope Lake

My mom loves her grandkids!

Nathan loved being in the boat with grandpa
Annikka gets so excited whenever she sees grandpa And we got to celebrate Nathan's 4th birthday with his grandparents and cousins. He loved his Lightning McQueen cake :)
Redwoods

Sadly it was time to say goodbye to our families, but we had a blast camping together in the Redwoods way up north on the California coast. The kids loved it and so did we!

We had a funny incident with our tent. When Rod was getting it out he noticed that all the strings holding the poles together were cut (don't ask how that happened!?). Every single one of them! We had to think fast because it was getting dark and we didn't have a tent that would stand on it's own. We couldn't sleep under the stars with the kids and we didn't know where we could get another tent. Rod told me some duct tape would work. So I said a little prayer and the next thing I knew there was a dad with a BYU hat walking past our camp site. I asked him if he had some duct tape and he said he did. He brought it to us a short while later. I couldn't believe it! What a quick aswer to my prayer! And it worked. It's smart to include duct tape in your camping supplies!

Annikka was wandering around everywhere. So we tethered her to the cooler while we set up camp. Poor girl!

There's nothing like hot chocolate on a chilly morning!

Fern Canyon - the most lush, beautiful place!!! Actually part of Jurassic Park III was filmed here The kids loved going over the bridges, jumping over rocks and rivers

It warms my heart when they are kind to eachother :)
The view from our campsite - the praire was filled with elk
And we made it through the big Redwood tree
We had a great time driving through the whole state of California. The redwoods and San Francisco were my favorite places. Poor Nathan didn't get to see the Golden Gate Bridge and the Bay Bride because it was dark and foggy when we drove over them. It was great to be back to my roots in the bay area :)

Funeral

My dear grandmother passed away shortly after we returned home from our trip. So I prepared for another trip to Boise Idaho. Annikka and I took an airplane from LAX to Boise and we were there for less than 24 hrs. It was Annikka's first plane ride and she did pretty well. It was great to see so many of my relatives I don't get to see very often!

My parents and sister Holly
I just had to post this picture of my parents with Elder Christofferson and Elder Malm (from Sweden) My dad is the stake President and they visited for stake conference several weeks ago. They got to spend a lot of time together.

One last trip - Arizona

We drove to Arizona a couple of weeks ago to be with my niece for her baptism. We loved our visit and and the kids loved spending time with their cousins and grandma and grandpa again.

My sister did a great job decorating.
Going on a family walk