The second week in August Clay and I both took a week off. So why not throw 2 family reunions in there?!
So that's what we did.
The honey bunz family lives in Vancouver, WA. It's a 10 hour drive from Idaho Falls, if you don't have kids. With kids it's a long drive of torture. :) So we broke it up into 2 days, staying in Boise on the way up and down.
I'm going to jumble all my pictures up and you just try and keep up.
We made many pit stops along the way because well ya know, we have kids.
Here we are at a rest stop at Deadman's Pass. It's call Deadman's Pass because they line dead bodies up along the pass.
It's a terrible sight, but a lovely rest area.
(You fell for that? How embarrassing. :)
For our lunch break we stopped at the Bonneville Hatchery. I'm sure that onlookers who were their to see the fish actually had more fun watching Clayton and I trying to make lunch and keep the children from running around like the psychopaths that they are. We just create scenes wherever we go.
This lady photo bombed us, may she forever remain in our scrapbooks and be known as stripey shirt lady.
The Northwest is lush with greenery and flowers, so we must take advantage of posing next to them.
Here fishy, fishy!
I had to hold Zoey back, she wanted to get in. "OOO look a swimming pool!"
This hatchery had some sturgeon in it that were rather large. They looked like sharks. No photo's of the shark fish tho, only videos and rarely do I post video's on here. Terribly sorry.
We made it to GMA and GPA Paces and GMA gave us a tour of her beautiful yard.
Lucy enjoyed taking pictures of all the flowers.
It appears that I have a broken neck in this photo, no worries I don't. I'm just an awkward photo model, it's a gift. And apparently Zoey takes after me. Her looks, silly child of mine.
These lovely little white flowers are called flocks ( I believe). They smell delightful. I highly recommend you planting some and having me over to smell them.
Cousin time! This was our first time meeting Miss Mia! And this was Clay's family's first time meeting Zoey. They are about a year apart, with Zoey being the older of the two. They had fun conspiring and plotting plans against us crazy giants.
Lucy cuddling with Mia. Cute, chubby little toes!
Clay had to sit down and have a chat with Zoey. Ya know about being a whiner pants and such. She whined through the whole chat.
And on our way back to Boise we stopped at a museum. We didn't actually go in because once we found out what was in there we had horrific images of what our children would do in there.
Images of Zoey stomping around one of the displays like Godzilla, except that we actually do call her "Destructor!" or "t-rex". And Lucy grabbing one of the "stuffed" dead animals like the beaver and pretending to brush his teeth.
Soooo we took the photo op and piled back into the van.
See when you have more than one child and more than one photo of the same shot you have to decide which of your children's pride are you willing to sacrifice.
Zoey was looking away in the last photo and Lucy was smiling. But in this photo Zoey is looking at least in the general direction of the photographer and Lucy is pulling a Lucy.
I sacrificed Lucy.
"Driving along in our automobile"
when what to our wondering eyes!
O Hail!
It looked like snow at first glance and I had a sinking feeling that winter is headed our way whether I like it or not! Tear.
AND I forgot to mention, we've been planning this trip for months and months. So we had our van all tuned up and ready to go. Two days before departure I notice a funny sound, poop. Something to do with the wheel baring, the Honda Dealership worked feverishly to get this bad boy done for us. We had the intentions of leaving Friday at noon, but work was insane for me and the van wasn't ready so I stayed later. And Clay and I kept debating about whether or not to just borrow my parents car or wait for our van. And then if you do wait for the van and leave and get on the highway just to be stranded...... They were done with vanny boy at 5 pm and we took a chance and drove away with him. And thank goodness he done us good. So nice to have all the space, our DVD player, our own vehicle. The person who first started putting DVD players in cars is a freaking genius and if I ever meet them I will give them a hug and then run away like the insane person that I am.
The girls didn't watch movies the whole time but when I was ready to jump ship Elmo saved my butt.
We found these scratch off picture things at dollar section in Target and Lucy had fun doing that. She did it for at least an hour. I tried doing one, my ADD kicked in and well scratch, blow, scratch, ooh look a tree, Clay are we there yet?, yellow line, yellow line, I'm bored out of my skull. The children travel better than I do.
This is us girls with Aunt Birdie. Aunt Birdie is GMA Pace's sister. And visiting her is an adventure. She lives in Boise so we like to stay there as our half way point. She over feeds us of course, the girls love to go look at her garden and to feed the barn cats. I love to look at all the history in her home. She has old photos of the family and I harass her and ask her who everyone is. And if you look over my right shoulder you will see a pink hat. She decorates with women's hats. I love to see them all. I so want to do that!
Lucy's first official photo with a real deal camera, not too shabby.
While in Boise we had some time to kill before we headed to Red Fish Lake. Soooo why not find another adventure. Why not stop at the Morrison-Knudsen Nature Center. And it's FREE!
And they had fishes filled with beans so of course I piled them onto Lucy until she felt like her arms were going to break.
What a lovely room of death.
Ya know what I think? I think that caribou is impressed with my stripey shirt, ok or maybe can't believe that, that little whirlwind next to me never holds still.
You see what I live with? This crazy old man. :)
"Turtle, turtle, turtle!"
You can see his head poking up, I'm pretty sure he was hoping we had some food.
AHHH what a hoot!
See Idaho can be lush and green too. Scenic Idaho is on our licence plates after all.
Isn't it just glorious when your kids finally just sit down and enjoy the company of an Ibis?
Or is that a crane?
And I cannot end my post without placing a photo of this child with her favorite toy, a plastic water bottle. She was very determined to always have one in her hand and you could not put the lid on it or you would suffer the wrath of t-rex! And then someone would walk by and she would smile and flirt, wave her hand, say hi in this cute little toddler voice. They would pass by thinking they just witnessed the most adorable little blonde baby, and Destructor would be off in the distance crushing innocent flowers and getting water all over her outfit.
Just a little road map of what we did in the 10 days that we were gone.
Friday: Leave Idaho Falls for Boise, about a 4 hr drive.
Sat: Leave Boise for Vancouver, WA, about a 6 hr drive.
Wed: Leave Vancouver for Boise.
Thurs: Leave Boise for Red Fish Lake, about a 3 hr drive. (It's a gorgeous drive but so curvy and never, ever ends!)
Sun: Leave Red Fish Lake for Ammon/IF, about a 4 hr drive, 3.5 if you speed the whole way like we may or may not have done.
It was all a ton of fun! Ok not all, the driving really stunk.
Stay tuned for more adventures!
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