H's Parents Visit

We were feeling a little sad about the fact that no one was visiting us this year (even though that's because we went to the States this summer), and all we did was hint that to H's parents and they bought flights to be here for M's birthday!

They've been here a lot of times before, so we mostly just did normal life with them, which was great. They did ALL the school dropping off and picking up, which was a huge break for me! Of course, we also did a little to celebrate M's birthday. But the big thing we did was to go to a nearby national forest!

Apparently, it closes after the last big holiday of the year, which was in early October. But you know, there are whole villages in there, so it's not like it's locked. It just meant that we didn't have to pay admission (yay) and there was no tour bus for us to ride on through the treacherous mountain roads (boo). Also, we realized after looking at a map that driving all the way through the forest would result in us ending up very far from a highway and on even more treacherous looking mountain roads. So we just went about halfway in and then turned around and drove back out. H is our professional mountain driver, and he did a great job! But it was terrifying.

Everyone loved it! It was really beautiful. Although, as is typical for national parks here, it was a little manmade. For example, the beautiful lake in the pictures is the reservoir for a hydroelectric dam. But it was really, really pretty and I think everyone enjoyed getting out of the city. Also, it was H's first time to really do a longer distance drive here, and he did great!