Hikes are Fun

After a cold-ish spring break, our Children's Discovery Hike in Red Rock was especially great. Chad & Angie were in town which made the hike even better. I took lots of pictures because it was so nice to see everything green and colorful.

Ben was all about getting his picture taken. He's looking cool in the shades.

Grace & Zack. They are great buddies--Grace mentioned something about an engagement or wedding. I'm not sure if Zack is aware...

Last time we came, there wasn't a waterfall. Waterfalls are cool.

Puddles are messy, messy fun.

Zack in a moment of reflection.

Jake in a moment of reflection.

Ben requested this picture.

I made Zack stop for this picture. He wasn't into the photos, but I was loving this purple tree.

One last photo. Good times!

Easter, etc....

We haven't been able to hold an outdoor Easter egg hunt since 2007. The week leading up to Easter was full of rotten weather, miraculously, Saturday was nice and not even super windy. In Idaho, that is a miracle.

Because of the abundance of mice outside, I wasn't exactly excited for an outdoor hunt. I took no part in the hiding of the eggs and assigned Matt the job of helping the boys on the search. I did put on my boots, to prevent a mouse from running up my leg (ask Logan, it happens) and stayed on the sidewalk (it felt safer) while I took these pictures. I also didn't look down very often and tried to forget Zack's story about a mouse running over one of his eggs.

Really? How is any kid going to get this egg? 

These were in much better hiding spots.

The youngest and cutest egg hunt participant for now... 

until next year when Krew will be toddling around.

Our family plus Shaylee--we share a bond of mouse fear.

After all the Easter prizes were distributed we traded chaos for another form of chaos and dyed eggs. It has been years since we colored eggs. Zack & Ben got into it. Noah opted to play basketball.

Concentrate.

The Easter Bunny was especially tricky this year. It took the boys nearly 20 minutes to find their baskets. Matt wasn't with us for the whole week (he joined us on Friday) and by Saturday night he contracted the sickness that hit everyone else. Poor guy was too sick to check out the Easter baskets

or witness this awesomeness.

The original plan was to drive the entire way back to Vegas on Sunday but we only made it to Salt Lake. Monday was a little better for Matt so we drove home after a quick IKEA trip and a wish-fulfilling stop at Emmett & Ethel's for Noah.

Which reminds me, while we were in Idaho Dad took us all to Bob's (aka The Thornton Merc) for lunch. Rundown is a nice way to describe this place, but they make good burgers & fries. It's the kind of place that probably has a mouse problem and I am sure the boys were totally thrown off that I, of all people, was willing to eat there. Once Ben & Zack saw chicken fingers on the menu it was all fine. Everyone needs to experience the Merc at least once in their lives.

Snow,Wildlife & Vomit--or Spring Break 2010

 We spent a week in Idaho for Spring break. We haven't been in a little over a year. It was great to see our family but the weather was not so great. At least the snow was good news for whoever abandoned the snowmobile in the backyard.

 It was the end of calving season and Dad moved all the cows into the field behind the house. The calves are adorable, but so noisy! One little calf lost its mom really early in the morning and would not shut up about it. It's almost as bad as waking up to a cattle auction.

One night while we were driving into "town" (Rexburg) we saw a moose in someone's yard. I thought a photo was appropriate so on the way home, I had Noah use the regular camera that was luckily in the car. He wanted to use his cell phone, but I insisted that a real camera was the way to go. And I was wrong. We were parked in the middle of the road for several minutes while the moose just stood there. We had every opportunity (including when it slowly crossed the road in front of my car) to get a decent picture and failed miserably. There really should be a moose in this picture. It was standing right in the driveway. I can't figure it out...

It's especially exciting when a new business opens in Rexburg, especially a new restaurant. Brandon was really excited to show us Gator Jack's. I have to give the owners props for the inside. The food was good too, especially these mini potato things..they might be called Gator Bites. 

 We were also going to check out the new self serve frozen yogurt shop (sorry Millhollow) but never made it there because we all managed to get various degrees of a stomach bug during the break. I'm not going to give a lot of details, but it wasn't pretty. Luckily, we were all mostly recovered by Easter.

Zack packed our old camera and took some pictures while we were driving. We've played a Dora inspired game since Noah was little to help him know when we are getting close to my parent's house. Now the boys all remember to look for the temple (Idaho Falls), bridge & Bear World.  This is the bridge:

 Here are some other scene's Zack decided to photograph. Most of them are on the road to the Grandma & Grandpa's house.

City Slickers

My dad is a fourth generation, true blue, wears the hat, boots & Wranglers everyday (except some Sundays) cowboy. By all rights I should be a cowgirl. At the very least I should like animals. But alas, somehow I didn't get those genes. 

 I have lots of great memories on the farm. I spent most of my time working in a tractor,but I occasionally would go along on some cattle drives and I even took horse 4-H.  None of it changed the fact that I am horse challenged. Horses scare me, ok? I have my reasons & they are all very good.

Now that we live so far away, it is even more important to me that my boys get to spend time hanging out with Grandpa on the farm or at the very least enjoying the wide open spaces. Zack is usually the most eager to experience farm life. He likes the tractors and riding horses. This trip he tagged along with Grandpa while he doctored the calves. Zack rode Jazz by himself & especially liked it when Jazz "went fast to chase the cows."  It was really cold and so his wimpy mom didn't take any pictures. We'll have to settle for this artist's rendition of the event.

It's a rare occasion when we can join them for the some of the more cowboy-ier things like branding and cattle drives. The cattle drives are big family events involving uncles and cousins and long days up on "the mountain." Sometime I would love for the boys to have that experience.  Instead we somehow always manage to see my dad when there is a cattle auction taking place on RFD. What is RFD? It's my dad's favorite channel--programming lineups include Hee Haw, horse dancing competitions, a dutch oven cooking show they sometimes make fun of on the Soup and cattle auctions. While we were there, some of Dad's cows were up for auction. According to a disgruntled Zack, "Grandpa came in and literally woke us up with the auction." Thanks to my dad's little obsession with recording and watching auctions, my kids can all do impressions of an auctioneer.

Normally the boys pass the time in Idaho playing video games, basketball, jumping on the trampoline or 4-wheeler rides. This year, our visit coincided with a massive mouse infestation. Not good for me. Awesome entertainment for the boys.  They went on a mouse killing rampage. I am really surprised that my boys willingly coaxed mice from their hiding spots, chased them around the yard and shot them with blow darts, air soft guns and stabbed them with sticks until they died. Noah has pictures of some on his phone. Gross. I will not post them here, but I do say a dead mouse is never a bad thing so while I didn't exactly encourage their behavior I didn't make them stop either. They were having fun, enjoying a little bit of farm life. 

Like Old Times

For the first leg of our spring break vacation there was no question that we'd be stopping in Utah. It's kind of a long story, but we ended up staying at the Best Western in Lehi. I was a little grossed out, but the boys thought it was awesome. Ben thinks it's great for families or for a honeymoon. 

Even though I really like living in Vegas it still feels like a crazy dream sometimes. So it was really great to go to a Zumba class with Jilynn, catch up with some good friends and hang out on Winter Wheat Way again.  I dropped Noah off at the park and didn't see him for hours. Ben quickly hooked up with Brant, Carter and Teegan and Zack reunited with Lance & Gavin and later Meggie, Mya & Landon. The boys were in heaven seeing their friends again. I love that Lynne was willing to give up her Saturday so I would have somewhere to go.

We all loved spending a Saturday with some of our favorite people. Except that the kids are getting bigger, it was just like old times.

Our Favorite Alabamians

I don't know if I can even explain how excited we were that the Benhams stopped to see us on their way to Disneyland. Do you know the Benhams? They are awesome.  We have especially missed Gavin and his visits. He used to walk in our front door just to hang out. He didn't really care if the boys were there, sometimes he would come to play with Matt.  That doesn't happen here. 

While the adults talked, the kids had some adventures.  I found a bunch of pictures on the computer. It seems they took a quick trip to the Paris.

Practiced swordplay on the beach (love the floating head Gavin)

hiked in Yosemite

and did some deep sea diving. 

They even got in some roller coaster ride practice. 

Not bad for a Sunday afternoon. 

Cub Scouting It Up

Matt & I are the Wolf den leaders in our ward. For the most part it's fun. The boys are a little wacky but I am used to crazies so it's usually good.  I am not new to a scouting calling, I served briefly as a Bear den leader when Noah was a Bear. I got to go with him to Cub Scout day camp. Now I can say the same for Ben. Here day camp is actually DAYS camp-like 4 days of Cub Scouts. It took me the rest of April to recover. We had a good sized group so I only managed to take a few pictures.

Here is Ben in a few moments of reflection.

Ben building a tool box.

Ben and his shield.

When you go for 4 (!) days, you do A LOT of stuff. Ben also crafted a sword, acted the part of a king in a play, played checkers on a life sized board, learned about marbles from a real-life former high school marble champion (he was way too into marbles!), shot a bow, shot a BB gun, raced a boat in a rain gutter regatta, spent his life savings on beef jerky sticks and candy at the "store" and did some relay races. WHEW! I guess maybe Noah got ripped off.