Down on the Farm

 How I love this place!

Cousins and the trampoline. They loved this piece of backyard equipment. Every morning at Grandma and Grandpa Cow's house, they were out on this or the tire swing as soon as breakfast was over. Breakfast was sugar cereal every morning. My kids were in heaven. 

 Daddy on the trampoline. 

 Gordon trying on water boots. 

 Digging potatoes in the raised gardens. 

 Ben detailed the van while we were there, this is washing before waxing. 

 Ben climbed a circle tower to look out over the corn field. So quiet out there. 

 The front yard at my parent's is a big pond, complete with bullfrog and koi. The kids, mostly Gordon, thought it was great to sit in the stream, and throw rocks into the pond or feed the fish. 

 The tire swing where they could spend all day. 

 Evelyn read books to everyone, here they made a fort of sorts during one of Gordon's naps. 

This Little Critter book about the potty was hilarious apparently. 

Building with Legos. 

 Gordon trying to figure out how Ben is floating in all those tubes. 

 We went swimming a few times. 

 Lazying with Aunt Lyndsey in her hammock. 

 My sister Nicole and I cooking in the kitchen. 

Feeding the cows.  

 Practicing my domestic skills. Really, I've always liked hanging laundry on the line outside. I always do it when I go to the farm in the summer.

 Cooling his feet in the stream again. 

 Grandma Cows gave the girls painted nails, stickers and all. They loved that. 

Digging potatoes out in the field this time. It's kind of like an Easter egg hunt to the kids. For shame, I do not have a single picture with my parents and the kids. Next time. We all loved being in Eastern Washington, and really hope to come again next summer. 

At Grandma Chicken's house

 Next stop, Western Idaho for a week at Grandma Chicken's house. 

We did a belated birthday party for Evelyn, a proper tea party actually. Just minus the tea. But all the accompanying treats were authentic, cream cheese and cucumber sandwiches, scones, and cracker-like cookies. Evelyn wouldn't touch most of the treats of course (picky as she is), but the mini-chocolate cupcakes and lemonade (tea substitute) went over fine. Gordon felt like giving me a great big smooch in this picture, it's one of the things he likes to do right now. 

 This kid is such a cute stinker. I could pinch his cheeks all day long. Except when he starts beating on his sisters. Unfortunately, he is already really good at it. Especially with Jillian. She needs to put on some weight and muscle so she can hold her own against him. 

 Grandma and Grandpa Chickens thought it would be fun if we rented a cabin for a few days in McCall, Idaho. It was fun to sit around, and do anything we wanted. We played a lot of speed Rummikub and Canasta, ate too much food, fished, and mostly avoided being eaten by mosquitoes. We also discovered that YouTube carries a lot of old Disney cartoons, and spent some time looking up favorite ones from when we were kids and watched them. Our kids loved them. 

We visited the local fish hatchery. 

 Evelyn figured out how to work this chair, but Jilly doesn't have the weight to keep it open by herself and it tried to eat her. She has the same problem at movie theaters. 

 Grandma bought magnetic "paper" dolls for the girls to play with. 

And Gordon loved his truck and trailer combo, complete with horses. He uses it to stow cars and tractors though.  

We visited some of Ben's other relatives, Tom and Patricia before we left Idaho. They have chickens too, this was a half-grown one the girls were brave enough to pet. Tom has a good-sized train room, and Gordon wanted to stay there and stare at the trains and play with them. These ones were not for touching though. On the way out of town, we spent the night at Auntie Chelle and Uncle Nate's new house while waiting for Daddy to come back from Salt Lake City on the airplane. The kids all loved the two little chihuahuas they have, although I am sure the poor dogs were happy to have the kids leave.

Thank you Idaho, we love you!

Gone fishin'

We took the kids fishing this morning at a family fishing spot, Rowland Pond, outside McCall. It took some time to get set up and once the poles were cast Jillian could be heard asking questions such as "When is the fish gonna eat the worm?" or "Can I reel it in now?" Evelyn was very patient and when she got a pole cast she sat pretty still waiting for the fish to nibble. Poor Gordon just wanted to reel the thing in constantly and he made a mess of at least two reels before he went home to take a nap. Maybe next year kid.

Jillian caught her first fish on a pole that Grandpa had cast and he let her reel it in. It's a small rainbow trout and it happened to be tagged by ID Fish and Game. Jill wasn't afraid to hold the worms or take a picture with her fish.

About an hour later Evelyn also caught her first fish on a pole grandpa cast (thanks grandpa). She was startled by her wriggling fishy just as I took this photo, so I figured it would be best to hold the line for her.

 Just as we snapped the photo my brother-in-law let me know that my pole had a fish. It was a real beauty too, about 9 inches or so...well it was a kids pond (no teasing Tyler). After we caught our fish we went and looked at other fishing spots around the pond but instead we found a huge swarm of mosquitoes that wanted to eat us. After that the girls decided it would be more fun to go home and get some food. Thanks Grandma and Grandpa Cluff for helping the girls catch their first fish!

Utah and Eastern Idaho

 Next stop in our epic road trip, Provo, Salt Lake City, and Farmington, UT. 

We house-swapped with some friends of ours (an awesome idea if you can swing it). The kids liked crashing at a place that was somewhat familiar and especially loved playing with the toys. Gordon demonstrated his line-up skills. Ben spent the day we were in Provo visiting faculty at BYU, and then we were off to Salt Lake. 

We met Grandma Chickens (Ben's mom) at Temple Square for a few hours. We walked around the Church History Museum, and then around the temple where we got to see a few brides taking pictures. The girls always enjoy ogling at pretty dresses. The landscaping was spectacular as usual, I think it's the first time I've visited Temple Square in the summer. We spent a couple hours visiting Ben's grandma in Farmington, and  then we were off to Eastern Idaho. 

 We stayed with my grandparents. The kids were immediately excited by all the dirt on the farm. They dug away and got dirty. 

 We went and fed the ducks and geese along the greenbelt in Idaho Falls. The weather was so nice there, and the whole area so green from the wet winter and spring they had this year. 

 The Snake River running high. I've never seen it so full. You can't see it, but they are reconstructing the grounds around the Idaho Falls Temple. 

 Lots of birds, but Grandpa bought tons of bread to feed them. 

 Jilly being "contrary" in this picture. It pretty much describes her right now. Cute and contrary. 

 Four wheeler rides, Gordon referred to it as the motorcycle. We also enjoyed an extended family dinner one of the nights we were there, with some of my aunts, uncles, and cousins. 

 We met up with some good friends from California in Rexburg, and the girls loved playing with all the dress-up things they had in "the cave." It's a somewhat finished crawl-space, about 4 1/2 feet tall, a perfect place for kids to play. You can see it behind Evelyn. We also went to the new aquatic park in Rexburg, the kids absolutely loved it. It reminded us that the wind is ALWAYS blowing in Rexburg. 75 degrees with 25 mph winds in a water park where you forgot to bring your towels equals children bordering on hypothermia. Next time we (I) won't be so forgetful. 

 Ben is so much better at taking pictures than I am. 

My grandparents with their great-grandkids. We loved spending a few days with them, and wished it could happen more frequently. 

Family Photos

While we were visiting my parents we had some family photos taken. My Mom scheduled a session for the whole family with her friend Diane Brinkerhoff. She did a great job getting Gordon to sit still and she also was able to get our girls to look at the camera, which is nothing short of a miracle. You can see an example the results of the shoot on the blog header and you can see more of her work here: http://dianebphotography.blogspot.com/2011/07/emmett-idaho-extended-family-session.html

Vacation

I figure I'd better post our summer vacation in stages, or else I will never get it done. We left Southern California as fast as we could, with plenty of traffic unfortunately. The south-bound side of the freeway had it much worse than we did though.

This line went on for something like 5 miles, all backed up to get through the port-of-entry inspection.

 We stopped in Las Vegas to see Ben's best friend from his youth and his family. They graciously served us dinner, dessert and ice cream in the dry, dry heat. It felt so dry after being near the ocean. We stopped in Baker, CA earlier, and it felt like we were in the devil's frying pan.

 The view from our room at the Hilton in Las Vegas. The kids were SO excited to stay in a hotel. We went swimming at 8:30 am the next morning, it was already 90 degrees outside. We also went to scope out the strip before we had to head north.

 We went and looked around City Center, and while waiting for the tram, we got this view of the Monte Carlo pool complex. The girls say this is where we need to stay next time we come to Las Vegas, the lazy river on the left side of the picture being the reason.

Lots of escalators at City Center and the mall there, the kids thought it was great. 

The blue tram you can ride to different areas of City Center. 

City Center has an open Dale Chihuly exhibit, it's pretty in pictures, but much better in person. They had a video playing showing how the sculptures are made, the girls were enthralled. 

The mall at City Center was the most posh I have ever been in, with cool little areas to play. These tornado fountains were an example. When we packed up to leave the hotel, Evelyn had a breakdown declaring that she loved this hotel, and wanted to stay there for a few more days. We could only stay one night, but I'm sure we'll be back there to look around some more in the future. 

And it's July

I finished summer block (phew!), and along with a month chock-full of craziness, we were able to take some needed time off. Some pictures from this crazy last month. 

 On the 4th of July, we BBQ'd with some friends whose daughter (the same age as Ev), had recently learned to ride her bike without training wheels, and brought the bike to the BBQ. While we were eating and chatting, Ev was teaching herself to ride that bike. She taught herself, and spent the week before we left practicing all the time. I removed Jilly's training wheels at her request, but she is going to need a bit more practice!

 One hot, humid day at the beach. Ev's missing quite a few teeth right now. 

 This boy is enjoying throwing just about anything. 

 Ev celebrated her birthday right before vacation, she wanted to have a dress-up tea party with some of her girlfriends. We had a little tea party, painted nails, and made crafts. I think they had fun. 

Now if I could only hire someone to follow me around and take pictures. Or get me a way more awesome camera.