Wyoming

 Kellan is such a dork.  Our airbnb had a dress up corner, so he decided to oblige us with his fabulous style.  Not much has changed since he was little.  I remember him dressing up like the ridiculous ninja just to make us laugh.  He is a good time.

Mikey meeting his birth dad for the first time.  They are similar in so many ways.  His mannerisms, his voice, the way he laughs with his whole body, the way he states the obvious.  He looks more like his birthmom with her skin, hair, and eyes.

This is Megan, Dustin, Mikey, Nana, and Glen.  They were so sweet with us.  We enjoyed their company and they were so easy going just like Mikey.  It was such a good thing.  So glad we were able to go visit them.

We visited the Japanese Intern Concentration Camp near Cody.  It has been rebuilt and memorialized with a museum and everything.  There is an original barrack and these are the original telephone poles.  There are many stains on our American soil.  This is definitely one of them.

This was the chimney from the old hospital.  The Japanese had to organize and use their own resources and their own doctors with minimal supplies, and resources.

I walked the path and took pictures of all the signs and then the family all made fun of me.  Mostly Jessa and Michael.

This was the watch tower that was manned by a soldier with a gun to keep an eye on the prisoners to make sure they didn't leave the area.  There was no information about if anyone ever tried to escape or what not.

I can't imagine raising children in this environment.  To lose your business, generational wealth, put your life on hold while you try to rebuild in this setting and then start all the way back over when you were released to face more racism making it difficult to establish a business or a career.  This was not too far in the past.  I feel as though this is happening today with the immigration laws and the detention centers.  It is important that we never forget these parts of history.  History is repeating itself.  It was interesting to see that some Japanese Americans rebelled by not serving in the army since they were being treated so badly and others rebelled by serving int he army saying that they are just as American as anyone.

This was all that each person was allowed to bring to the camp.  

the barracks were small.

This is one of the original barracks.  It has been restored with the original wood etc.  There would be just enough room for beds a lot of times.  Not much room to move around for each family.  It would have been really tight for a family our size.

Next, we went site seeing in the Big Horn Canyon.  It was beautiful and we were able to see a lot of wildlife.  The canyon was amazing.

Mikey was able to spend a bunch of time with his bio family.  He got to sleep over at their Air bnb and ride with them around all the site seeing.  We are so grateful for the opportunity to see bio families.

Our air bnb had the best pool!  It was so gorgeous.  Right in the middle of farm land.  We would go swimming every night.  The hot tub was amazing and the pool was heated.  It was a great trip.  The airbnb made it that much more fun.

Michael throwing all the kids in the pool.  Well, the boys anyway.

I love this picture!!  Soon it will be just me and all the boys.

Lucas always living his best life.  He tells me, "mom take a picture of me sleeping."   Ummm OK Lucas. LOL.  He sold it.

We even got to have Mikey's bio family over to swim for a bit.  Then we would have dinner with them every night.

We went around Big Horn area and we spotted so much wild life.  We had such good luck!  These guys were just walking along the side of the road.

Lucas was my exploring buddy.  when everyone else was done he would walk the paths with me and wait with me while I read all the signs.  We are going to have a good time together if he keeps this up.  This is Native country.  We got to see tent circles that are thousands of years old.  The ancient people would use the rocks to hold down their tents and then move on to follow the buffalo.

They got out on a few of the walks.

Coyote Gulch reminded us of the grand canyon.  It was so deep and there were boats that would tube through the narrow canyons bellow.  It was really pretty.

We spotted some wild horses.  They aren't always there where you can see them, but we got lucky again and were able to see a few.

It was so hot and we were cooling off before our rafting trip.  We got a boat all to ourselves.  It was a blast.  The kids weren't sure what to think of it because we usually go with uncle Brian and we row ourselves.  We didn't have to do a lot of rowing, but there were a few fun rapids for the kids to "ride the bull" on the front of the raft.  And I forgot to put batteries in my go pro so I didn't capture any of it.  Megan was a little nervous at first, but then she warmed up to the idea and kept asking to go again.  LOL.  Maybe some day we will be able to meet up with them again and go rafting.

Cody Rodeo

First rodeo for the kids.  Michael Johnson was coming in hot in second place.  He was so close, yet so far away.  There are way too many Michael Johnson's in this world I'll tell you what.

This was when the girls saw the bull riders for the first time.  LOL Everyone around them didn't even flinch.  Yeah it was just a little obvious that we aren't rodeo people and live in the city.

Not gonna lie.  I felt pretty uncomfortable by some of the opening speech where they talked about how "we don't see color"  and how "we stand for the national anthem."  Probably wont ever go to another rodeo.  Just not my scene.

add more rodeo pictures......

Quinton went down to try to catch a baby calf.  He would get really close to it and then chicken out.  He was so dang cute!

We also went to a gun museum.  There were thousand of guns.  It was so crazy to see how they have changed over the years.  It was fun.

Its always sad saying bye to bio families.  They treated us so well and it was fun to spend time with them.  Mikey had a lot of fun spending time with his birth dad.  Until next time!