Idaho has never been prettier. For real. I just couldn't get enough of it. I guess you have to move to the desert to fully appreciate the beauty. This is the butte (aka the "R" mountain) near my parents' house.
This is taken from the west side of my dad's property.
Some of the dry farms on our way to go camping (more on that later).
I know Idaho isn't considered a very happenin' place, but we sure had a fun time. Maybe because we were with some happenin' people. First off we had a little fireworks show in honor of the 24th of July. Growing up we never got fireworks unless they were sparklers and maybe sometimes those little worm things. Valley of Fire changed all that. Except for having way too many bottle rockets, we put on an impressive show.
There are multiple places to bowl in Rexburg. We opted for Fat Cats. I wouldn't blog this little excursion except that FINALLY Zack beat his brothers. It was a big day for him. I may have mentioned before that he is a little competitive. We had 5 bowlers and the screen only shows 4 at a time and Zack's name was on top. I wanted to get a photo of his victory but the worker couldn't make the screen go back and their printer was broken so she couldn't print the official records. We ended up with this. Which proves nothing,
until you do this.
Rexburg is also home to a new water park. But we decided to kick it old school and went to Rigby Lake instead. It is fancier than when I was a kid.
Zack & Haylee worked hard on their little Sword in the Stone inspired castles and I was required to take the following pictures.
We even managed to find time to camp for a night. This is the spot where Dad will take his trailer up so he can fence and be closer to the cows during the summertime when they are on the range. Who wouldn't want to be closer to cows? It is dusty getting into.
And the cows might be a little too close. None in the site while we were there but there were little reminders that they had been there which ended up on several people's shoes. Cow pies aside, it was very pretty and secluded. That's why all these hot ladies hang out there.
The obligatory grand kids on the step shot.
Before we left we had to pick up some supplies at Wal-Mart. While Zack was with us in the camping aisle he discovered the world of tents. He got a little obsessed and wanted us to buy multiple tents so we could connect them and create a tent mansion. I talked up our tent and then crossed my fingers that it would satisfy his expectations. Fortunately the other kids are used to their fancy camping in trailers and the sight of a tent was a novelty. They just wanted to play in our tent (no way we were letting them do that), but that made it cool enough to pass the Zack test. Whew!
4-wheeler rides are always popular. But that may have changed...
Just before dinner Kelli (brave soul that she is) agreed to take almost all of the kids (Zack was helping Haylee with an injury) out on the Ranger. Noah took a few with him on a 4-wheeler. It seemed like an excellent way for the rest of us to eat a hot and peaceful meal. So we ate, talked and enjoyed ourselves. 30 minutes passed and I started to wonder if we should worry that the kids were still gone. But every so often you could hear them so I figured Kelli was just being awesome. (She proved that the day before by swimming in the freezing Rigby Lake with the kids for way longer than I would have). Then as more time passed we realized that maybe they didn't know how to get back. Logan went to try to find them and returned 20 minutes later alone. Now it was starting to get dark and a little scary so Matt & Scott formed a search party. They really were lost. The situation was becoming so desperate that Ben said he was hungry enough to eat fruit. Other than being a little tear stained and dusty they were all safe and sound and hungry.
Lucky for Ben there was more than fruit to eat.
You are not really camping if you don't bust out a chain saw. I am pretty sure that is a camping rule.
We added some gun shooting this year. This was definitely not a mom approved idea, but the boys liked it.
I couldn't resist taking a few more pictures of beautiful Idaho as we drove back into Rexburg.
