Idaho - Days 4 and 5

The next couple days were spent being pretty laid back.  First a little work.  The girls helped Grandma and Grandpa build a fire pit.  Not sure how helpful they were (I wasn't helpful at all because I went for a run).  But, they did sift through rocks and they each placed a stone around the pit.

The rest of the days were spent playing in water: water fights, slip and slide, running through sprinklers. Or playing frisbee or tossing the football - Abby can throw a pretty mean football.  Our Yost cousins were up from California and we overlapped a little bit and the girls had fun hanging out with cousins.  The kids stayed outside ALL day long running around. It was what summer is supposed to be like unless you live in Texas and it's a bazillion degrees outside and you don't want to run around barefoot because of fire ants.

The water gun is almost bigger than Olivia

Alec's favorite thing was taking over the hose and there was no way you could get it away from him.  All week he'd grab the hose and then spray you.  He chased me down in my street clothes to spray me and got Grandma and Grandpa pretty wet too.  He had really good aim and a devilish grin on his face.  He knew what he was doing.

We had some yummy Dutch oven cooking Monday night to celebrate Troy and Trent's birthdays.  Homemade root beer was a hit!

Feel asleep like this while running an errand.

Idaho Road Trip - Days 1, 2, and 3

This year we decided to drive to Idaho due to the cost of flying a family of 6 and a van rental.  Crazy as it sounds, Todd and I were both looking forward to it.  Kaitlyn went with me one day to the Dollar Store and we stocked up on cheap things to keep us busy in the car.  Winning finds were sticker by number art (kept them busy for hours!), seek and find books, pipe cleaners, and stickers.   I also bought a couple new $5 movies and checked out a couple from our library to make our movie watching a little more enjoyable.

We left late morning Friday to a really clean house (too bad it hasn't been that clean since), and Alec wasn't feeling too well.  Trip was going great until Kaitlyn decided to throw a fit within the first hour of the drive.  Serenity now!  I don't even remember what she was upset about but she would yell to Todd as he's trying to talk to her "Mind your own business!  I'm serious!"  We just laughed at that and that made her madder!

I tried getting the kids to play "I Spy" and gave them a list of 5 things to find: a car pulling something, a red car, a motorcycle, and big McDonald's sign, and I can't remember what the last thing was.  Anyway, Todd saw a red car pulling a motorcycle as we were driving by a McDonald's.  Fun stuff!

 Abby gets car sick so we moved her up to sit next to Alec and she was great entertainment for him and a big help to us.  Besides the Ipad he loved to play with Abby.

 Wipes were cheap entertainment too.

 Our first night had us staying in Albuquerque.  We made reservations on the road and when we checked in, there were too many in our family for one room so they made us get another room.  I was so tired and frustrated at the hotel I was a nasty person - not proud of that.  The rooms were big and we would have all fit in one but they said it was fire code.  It probably ended out well that we had lots of space.   The morning looked up as I saw a Trader Joe's near us so I could pick up some provisions for myself.  Driving through the rest of New Mexico was unadventurous- boring!  Our goal was to get to Moab, Utah  late afternoon and let the kids hike for a couple hours in Arches and stay the night there.

Moab was great, we were able to grab dinner after just eating tons of snacks in the car for lunch and kids were able to stretch their legs.  Moab was HOT though - 104 at 5:00.  We didn't want to spend a ton of time in Arches so we just hiked The Windows section.  The kids complained about the heat the whole time and we didn't have enough cold water. ("Just drink it!  It's wet! - inside joke for my family)

Can you tell that's me and the kids in the middle with some other tourist near us.

Trying to move a huge boulder

 We did drive around and see a little more of the area but only got out to see the Delicate Arch from a view point about a mile away.  Last time I was in Moab hiking was my Junior year in college.

Todd let Alec take a turn at driving :)

We're sitting in a parking lot so no one worry!

 There were no hotels available in Moab for our family so we decided to trek on to Provo.  We first stopped in Payson and let the kids play at a McDonald's there for about an hour.  When we left their feet were all black - gross.  We arrived around midnight and just quickly put the kids to bed.  Olivia was awake the whole time though.  We didn't have anywhere to be early Sunday morning so we were hoping everyone would sleep in and we could have a lazy morning.  Mission accomplished on that.  However, we did finally have to wake Olivia up so she could shower and go get breakfast.

Sunday morning and afternoon were spent visiting the few family members we have in Utah.

 My Aunt Sherry is always a treat.

When we stopped to see Todd's sister, Trudy and her kids, 

Alec had finally fallen asleep so I stayed in the car with him for that visit.

 Lunch was with Todd's grandparents - and a fun little visit.

 We were back on the road for Idaho by around four with happier travelers.

 There was much rejoicing when we finally made it to Grandma and Grandpa's house.  My shoes were quickly discarded as were the girls as we ran around their huge and beautiful yard.  We just let the kids run around and be crazy until late and it was so enjoyable.

 The grass was so nice - I miss it.  They use well water to water their yard and so there are usually sprinklers of some sort going.  That night the girls decided to just run through it in their clothes and I loved this expression of complete joy on Olivia.

 Helping a sister out.

Hooray for finally making it and not having to drive anywhere for the next week!