Summer vacation 2012–week 2

This week started off with a trip to the Spokane Valley Mall with Katie and the kids.  We had fun shopping and having lunch at the food court. 

One of the great parts about our summer vacation is that we get to be here for Logan’s birthday.  Here’s the birthday boy!  It’s hard to tell in the pictures, but he was super excited about his cake.  Happy 6th birthday, Logan!

The library does a summer reading program for the kids, so we went and signed up for that this week.  Here are the kids doing a craft.

Right after we finished at the library we headed up to Silverwood again with Katie and her kiddos – but this time Grandma and Grandpa met us there for a little while, too.  We all had a lot of fun!  Grandma and Grandpa got soaked on Thunder Canyon, and the kids spent lots of time at the water park (again, too cold for me!).  Jonni just loves Kyrie and wants to do everything she does, so they had lots of fun together today.  They even got into a bit of trouble when they ran off alone without telling any adults!  They were perfectly safe, but it sure scared us for a few minutes while we tried to find them.

I very willingly took over watching little Stellan while everyone else rode on rides, and he snuggled right up to me and fell asleep.  He’s just the sweetest!!

Katie, Stellan, Cambria, and Jonni on the kiddie coaster.

We finished off the week with a beautiful hike around Tubbs Hill.  It’s breath-taking regardless, but coming from the desert just makes us appreciate the beauty that much more!  I could have taken 1,000 pictures easily but stopped at about 100. 

The bridge had a mishap, and Derk and the kids had fun climbing across!  It’s only about a foot off the ground, so it’s safe (but to be honest, that didn’t stop me from saying “be careful!!” about 1,259 times!).

We sure love this area!!

Summer vacation 2012– week 1

We finally made it to Idaho!  We got in really late, so it was straight to bed after we unloaded the bare minimum from the van.  The first day we had fun seeing all my family throughout the day.  It was great to see all of my siblings, both my parents, niece, and nephews so quickly!

First we saw my sister Katie and her kids.  Here’s my cutie nephew, Stellan!  We went and shopped at Costco, and he had a great time with the girls’ accessories! 

 

Most of my family at my mom’s house.  It was crazy with everyone but lots of fun. 

My nephews- Noah, Logan, and Benjamin!

Of course Nana had presents for the kiddos when we got there.  They were so excited!

Our second day we wasted no time and went to Silverwood!  Derk’s dad was awesome and bought a couple season passes for everyone, so we wanted to take advantage of that as soon as possible.  We took my little niece, Jonni, with us  and had such a wonderful time!  Jonni and Bri are only 2 months apart, so they were the cutest little best buddies all day.

They had a blast on this ride and wanted to go on it about a million times. 

We got the kids some HUGE ice cream cones.

We went on lots of rides – and Kyrie FINALLY went on Aftershock!  We’ve been pestering her to go on it for a couple summers now, and we finally wore her down and got her to agree.  She HATED it, but we were so proud that she gave it a shot.

Once we got back to Grandma and Grandpa’s, Katie came over to pick up Jonni and hung out with us for a bit longer.  Derk and I had fun snuggling Stellan. 

 

 

Later in the week we went back to Silverwood again.  The kids had a blast playing at the water park (I refused to get in – still way too cold for me!).  Here’s Kyrie going down one of the water slides at Velocity Peak.

They love the water!

Bumper boat fun.

While Derk, Kyrie, and Asher were on the log ride, I got sneaky and soaked them!  It was way too fun. 

After I soaked them they had to go on some roller coasters to dry off! 

My mom took Nathan, Jonathan, and I out to lunch to this amazing Vietnamese restaurant in Coeur d’Alene called Pho Thanh.  It was so fun to sit there with them and hang out just the 4 us of us!  Here are my mom and my handsome brother, Nathan, enjoying each other’s company and the yummy food!

We ended the week  by Asher and I going to Logan’s kindergarten graduation!  It was so fun to be there and see this big milestone, and I loved seeing these cousins together!

James, Abigail, Logan, Noah, and Benjamin.

I love this boy!

After the graduation, Derk and the girls met the rest of us at my mom’s for a yummy lunch.

It was a really fun first week, and we’re looking forward to all the fun yet to come!

Summer vacation 2012–Meeting Quinten

Our last stop on our way up to Coeur d’Alene was Pocatello, Idaho, to see Jenna and Kevan and their kiddos.  It was extra special because they just had their 4th baby, and we arrived while they were still in the hospital!  Since we live so far away, we normally don’t get to meet new nieces or nephews until they are much older – so I was super excited to meet this little guy when he was just a day old.  We all had lots of fun cuddling the little sweetie.

And here are a couple group pictures I snapped of some of the family that was there!  Unfortunately I didn’t get any pictures of Grandma with the kids, but she was there too!

We spent an hour or so visiting at the hospital, and I gave Jenna a few of Asher’s newborn outfits for Quinten.  I was so happy to pass them down to family instead of having to give them away!  Finally someone had a boy in the right season.    Once the kids got rowdy, Grandma, Kevan and Derk took the kids to the park and out to lunch to let them burn off some energy.  I opted to stay at the hospital and hang out with Jenna and Jessica.  Then it was back on the road to finish our last few hours of driving.  We took Jessica up the rest of the way with us, and it was fun to have her in the van to visit with me while I drove!  It was a short stop in Pocatello, but it was great to see everyone.

Summer vacation 2012–Salt Lake City, Utah

We  made it to Salt Lake City and decided to visit Timpanogos cave while we are here.  I am so glad we did because it was INCREDIBLE!  The hike was long but beautiful.  Here are some pictures of the beautiful scenery along the way.

 

The kids did really well on the hike for the most part.  There were a couple sections along the trail where there was a very steep drop-off with no fence on the right hand side, so that made me extremely nervous!  Then Kyrie started spazzing out because she thought she saw a bee and went WAY too close to the edge, which very nearly gave me a heart attack!  We had a nice, long talk about how they had to be extra careful and safe (and how dying is far worse than enduring a possible bee sting!!!), and thankfully we had no further scares. 

It took us a couple hours to get up to the top - it’s 1.5 miles long and gains nearly 1,100 feet in elevation along the way.  We had to make quite a few stops to let the kids (and ourselves!) rest a bit, but we made it just in time for the tour of the caves. 

 

I was so glad we brought sweatshirts with us because it was very cold once we got inside the cave!  But it was absolutely spectacular.  The pictures don’t even do it justice.  We saw the most incredible stalactites and stalagmites that were absolutely huge (5-10 feet in length, maybe even more).  The water in the cave was beautiful, and learning about how each of the features was created was amazing.  Unfortunately most of the tour prohibited flash photography, so I don’t have a ton of pictures of the inside.  It was so impressive, though.  One of the coolest parts of the tour was when we entered this very large cavern, and the tour guide shut all the flashlights off to show us just how dark it really was.  We had never experienced true darkness like that – it was really cool!! 

 

We took it a lot slower on the hike back down and stopped to enjoy more of the scenery and read the signs along the way. 

After our long hike we treated ourselves to Café Rio for dinner!  Then it was back to Grandma’s house where the kids CRASHED hard the second their heads hit the pillows. 

It was a wonderful day full of exploring the wonderful world we live in!