Kathryn's House/Everything is Awesome Week

The week before our move the kids and I drove to Rigby to spend a week with Kathryn. We had so much fun, we didn't want to leave, so we stayed an extra night. It made it really hard to leave Idaho after that. We had a hard time narrowing down a theme for the week, but about half way through we decided to call it Everything is Awesome Week, because it was a great week, and everything we did was really random.

 

I love roadtrips. I love being able to stop along the way to see the sights, but when it's a long one, we usually don't stop much. So this time we took our time on the way down. First we stopped in Twin Falls to see the temple.

 

 

 

 

 

A few miles away is Shoshone Falls. It's actually pretty dry here, it can have twice as much water.

 

 

 

 

 

We enjoyed the view and had a little snack up on a hill overlooking it. Then the kids rolled down the hill for a while. It was a really fun and relaxing afternoon.

 

 

 

 

Kathryn's house was a blast. There are giant dandelions....

....and little flowers. 

Kathryn made "elephant toothpaste" with the kids. That was a big hit. 

 

We had a bunch of water balloon fights. I bought a bag of 200 balloons, and by the end of the week we had used the entire bag. 

 

We sat out in the yard one day and played "Would You Rather" for at least an hour. That was entertaining, the kids come up with some funny ideas. 

The kids wanted to have a lemonade stand again. So we made lemonade and brownies and they had another successful sale. Their first customer remembered them from last year and was impressed, saying more kids should do it. They worked really hard in the heat.

Tanner bringing me a plate of brownies. 

He went and got all of his blankets and pillows and made himself comfortable. 

One day we went to the splash pad, park, and carousel in Rexburg. We had a blast. 

 

This carousel is over 100 years old. It was such a magical day. 

We bought some cotton candy and sat on the grass to enjoy it. 

Kathryn has plenty of space for the kids to run around. They spent a lot of time outside. 

 

We ate a lot of meals outside.

 

Enjoying cupcakes on Father's Day. 

"Inside Out" came out while we were there, so we went to see it. Loved it, loved it!

 

We also went bowling, introduced Kathryn to the movie "The Princess and the Frog," she taught them how to play "Pirates of the Caribbean" on the piano, we played games, ate at Cafe Rio, and I don't even know what else. Great first half of our week there!



Father's Day

Josh couldn't make it home for Father's Day, but he was home the week before. We had our celebration that weekend. Saturday we went to the water park. The kids earned free tickets for reading a certain amount of minutes at school, so that was awesome. We stayed for 6 hours, and would have loved to stay longer, but we had to call it quits at some point. It wasn't crowded at all, and we had a blast. I didn't take many pictures, because, well, water and electronics don't mix, so my phone stayed hidden all day. I don't have a single picture of Jayden, but he was there, and he love, loved trying out the big slides. We lazied down the lazy river, and the wave pool was a huge hit with the kids.

 

Tanner is our little fish. A crazy fish. He isn't scared of the water at all. There was a huge, huge water slide, like several stories high that he was able to do alone. There are four slides next to each other, so Josh went next to him. You lay on a mat on your stomach, facing head first, and it goes down, with big bumps along the way. He was so brave, and he was laughing and couldn't stop grinning the whole time. We did that one a couple of times, and the second time we got there to pick up a mat he grabbed one, laid it on the ground, and hopped on, ready to go.

 

 

Sidney tried a waterslide with Josh that we didn't know was going to be pitch black and then end with a small waterfall you go under. She came out bawling, and totally traumatized.

For dinner we ate at Costa Vida, a close second to Cafe Rio. It's closer to our house, so we usually end up there over Cafe Rio. Plus the service is better. It's one of the few restaurants where we are all happy.

We saw Josh so rarely for two months, that having him home was wonderful. I'm adding this to my list of perfect days. Every once in a while a perfect day comes along, where everyone is happy all day long, no one whines, we just love being together, and fall asleep at night feeling perfectly satisfied. (The only thing that was hard was Sidney's pitch black waterslide experience, but that actually didn't affect the day too much. Perfect day anyway.)

Sunday we celebrated Josh. The kids were so excited to have him home.

 

 



Camping Week

Our first theme week of the summer was Camping Week. We started the week out visiting a nature center in Boise. I didn't realize that the center was closed that day, but we were able to walk around the nature trails.

We made a fake fire in the living room and watched "The Parent Trap."

Picnic in the backyard.

I saw these adorable story stones on Pinterest and couldn't pass up making them. Most of them are camping pictures. We had a lot of fun making up stories.

The kids decorated little wood slices.

They also made little "lanterns." They painted them and poked holes in tin foil, so when we put a little battery tea light in them, the light shines through.

Yummy s'mores!

 

We also made little bracelets out of bandanas.

On Friday night Josh set up the tent for them in the backyard and they all slept out there for a couple of nights.