Carter wanted to have his birthday party on his actually birthday, so we did. He invited a bunch of his friends to Obstacle Warrior Kids to burn off some energy American-Ninja-Warrior style!

Colton, Carter, Marissa, Raine, Spencer, Ben, Will, and Matthew

June 21 – We started our drive home and stopped in Moab to visit Arches National Park.

Our hotel was right on the Colorado River.

Of course Carter had to try out the hotel pool!

June 20 – We hiked up Mueller Canyon toward Elephant Rock.

Tuesday, June 18 – More swimming

Raine and Addy

Katie and Benji

Carson and Carter fishing at a community pond.

A moose at the pond where we were exploring.

Millie, Carson, DJ Carter, Addy, and Raine

Up the mountain we found snow.

Raine and Addy

Carter crossing the run-off river

Carter, Millie, and Daddy

Anderson Family Square Dancing

Kids’ Dance Party

We went back to Grandma Dewey’s house that night but met up with the Hicks family in Bountiful on their way out of town the next day.

June 16 – We drove up to Heber City for the Anderson Family Reunion at Timber Moose Lodge.

This was the first family reunion for the Jay and Nelda Anderson family in a whole lot of years. Dad was the only one of their children who was not there, because he’s on a mission in Germany. All of my siblings were there at some point, but not all at the same time. Ryan was there Sunday night but Jake’s family hadn’t arrived yet and John’s family was only there during the day on Monday.

June 17 – After breakfast, we hit the giant indoor pool.

Millie, Raine, and Addy

Carson and Carter

Playing sharks and minos

Hiking around the grounds we saw a deer.

Pastels with Aunt Barbara

I helped Connie make a whole bunch of batches of a variation of these goodies; we used Rice Chex instead of corn flakes and left off the chocolate on top. In a couple batches we used nutella instead of peanut butter. These things disappeared fast!

That evening we all rode the Heber Creeper.

Addy, Raine, Carter, and Carson

First, the wild-west shootout.

Dixon, Annie, Addy, and Raine

There was a lot of entertainment along the journey.

Some didn’t get into it as much as others.

First, DJ opened his Father’s Day gifts.

Then, we picked up Ryan and drove down to John’s house for Wrenly’s blessing

After that, we headed to the Anderson Family Reunion. But that’s its own post.

Below are the kids’ stats from their well child checkups today.

Raine
Weight: 83 lbs (58%-ile)
Height: 5′ 1″ (96%-ile)
BMI: 15.7 (22%-ile)

Carter
Weight: 61 lbs (44%-ile)
Height: 4′ 7.75″ (91%-ile)
BMI: 13.8 (4%-ile)

Our last day in Iceland we stayed close to the airport and explored the Reykjanes Peninsula.

The first place we stopped was cliff Valahnúkur, where we watched the ocean waves crash against the volcanic rocks and cliffs. The cliffs are part of the mid-Atlantic ridge, marking the boundary where the North American plate and Eurasian plate are slowly drifting apart.

The statue of the Last Great Auk, looking out toward Eldey Island. The large flightless penguins inhabited the area until they became extinct in 1830.

Eldey Island, home to one of the largest gannet colonies in the Atlantic.

Basalt columns

The force with which the waves crash against the volcanic rocks is really awesome and almost mesmerizing.

Next, we headed inland to the Gunnuhver mudpots.

It’s fascinating how much geothermal activity there is in Iceland, it really is the land of fire and ice.

Further along the coastal highway, we stopped at the Brimketill Lava Rock Pool.

As we ventured out onto the metal lookout platform, we saw some other tourists wearing rain ponchos with a plastic bag over their camera. I thought they were just extra cautious, until this happened! I stopped the video and ran as soon as I realized that we were about to be SOAKED, so it doesn’t capture the secondary splash that came in from the side… drenching us!

Our flight was leaving in a few hours, we had packed up all of our dirty clothes and checked out of the apartment that morning, and now we were soaking wet! That put an end to our sightseeing and we cranked the heat as we drove the rest of the way around the peninsula and out to the airport.

I never figured out what these rock statues were, but they were all over the place on the main road.

Since DJ had a dry coat, we had him drop us off at that airport with all the luggage and return the rental car by himself, so that we all didn’t freeze to death in our wet clothes. The kids and I dug out some dirty clothes from the suitcases to change into, pulled out our boots (since our shoes were soaked), and laid our wet socks across the radiators in the airport waiting area. It was not an ideal way to start our long trek home, but we’ll sure remember getting soaked by that giant wave!

Carter heading through security with his sword sticking out the top of his backpack.

Because Iceland Air cancelled all of their direct flights from DFW after we purchased our tickets, we ended up with some really horrible layovers. On the way home, we flew all the way over to Seattle where we had to spend 6 hours in the airport before catching our flight back home.

We finally landed at DFW on Monday morning at 5:00 a.m. local time… home sweet home!