life in general

reality check

71%How Addicted to Blogging Are You?

I've always said that I'm addicted to blogging.  I make no excuses.

I guess it could be much, much worse.

back from sunny idaho

We just returned from our second trip of the summer -- visiting Scott's parents in Idaho.  It was sunny and warm and fun and all those good things.  The kids had such a great time.  Here's a quick run-down of our activities.

saturday, june 30th:  Drive to Scott's parent's house.  We made a pit-stop in Boise to visit with Scott's grandma Mona so that was very nice.  Scott is also never going to forgive me for leading us to a hole in the wall Dairy Queen that was 2 miles off the freeway (heaven forbid) in Baker.  Hey, it wasn't just my fault.  The Magellan had a hand in this too! 

sunday, july 1st:  Before going to church we drove by the Twin Falls temple which is currently under construction to take a picture. 

Notice the flailing child in my arms and Payton with his "just one eye"?

monday, july 2nd:  Uncle Randy also came up for the weekend and early monday morning the boys (Dennis, Scott, Randy, and Conner) went out to play 9 holes of golf.  This was Conner's first experience on a golf course.  We have a child's set of golf clubs that he practiced with last summer in the backyard using whiffle balls.  Sadly, all the golf courses in our area won't allow children on the course until they are 8 years old.  So Scott took advantage of this visit to give Conner some exposure.  They said he did great.  Scott had him play from 100 yards out on each hole and he managed to get some good air on several strokes.  I just think he looks so cute & grown-up wearing his golf visor.

The rest of the day:  Old Navy for hats & pink sunglasses for Anna; washing the cars; swimming in the WTHT (white trash hot tub); a trip for me to the mother of all scrapbook stores.

tuesday, july 2nd:  fishing and tubing near Warm Springs.

wednesday. July 4th:  We went to a parade in Buhl (a great parade in a little hick town -- brought back memories of my childhood in Gustine).  To me, it's just not the 4th of July without a parade. =)

and of course fireworks -- sparklers, pop-its, and an epic battle between the tanks and urban assault vehicle.

We then headed over to Scott's aunt & uncle's front lawn to watch the fireworks show from the college.  It was pretty spectacular!  Although the kids weren't into it as much as I had hoped for.  Partway through they kept asking if they could go home and go to bed!  Even Anna was saying, "home, home."  Wow -- I didn't realize I had such wimps on my hands.  But we made them stick it through the 29 minute fireworks show before bringing them back to their beds.

thursday, july 5th:  (no pictures today).  We went to the park early in the morning to hopefully get some play time in before the temps reached 100 degrees.  But even at 9:30am it was getting pretty warm.  We also took the boys bowling which was very fun.  More time in the WTHT.  And in the evening Scott went golfing with his dad while Valerie and I stayed home to make waffles and french toast for the kids for dinner.  They were spoiled.

friday, july 6th:  A bit of a slower day.  I think we were all starting to get worn out by the heat.  We made sure to hit Scott's favorite place for lunch before leaving town -- pizza subs at Papa Kelsey's.  Later Dennis and Scott took the boys on a little motorcycle ride around the neighborhood.  Don't the kids look so cute in their big helmets?  They loved it, although Conner said that it gave him a headache.

While they were driving around Valerie, Anna, and I went over to their friends' house to jump on the trampoline and later meet the boys there.  It was still pretty hot outside but the sky was completely covered by grey clouds.  As we were jumping on the trampoline we could see lightning and hear thunder not too far away.  There was this really weird feeling in the air (I guess I'm not used to southern Idaho weather), it was breezy, and I looked up at the clouds which looked odd to me (almost reminded me of the movie Twister or something).  Anyways, pretty suddenly the wind really picks up and there is debris flying through the air!  We all get the idea at the same moment to get inside the house.  Nothing more ever "happened" but we sat inside for a long time just watching the insane wind blowing through the neighborhood.  It was wild.

That night Scott and I went on a date to see Transformers -- a pretty good movie.  Scott loved the effects, I thought they could've used some better actors.  Before the movie we went to Barnes & Nobles so I could purchase New Moon, the sequel to Twilight which I had just finished reading.  Holy cow, can I just say what an amazing book this was!  I'm so glad I joined the bandwagon with Emily, Katie, and Lisa and read this.  And I'm pretty excited that I won't have to wait too long before the third book comes out in August - Eclipse.

saturday, july 7th:  The drive home -- took us about 9 hours.  After spending 19 of the last 26 days out of town, I almost forgot what home looked like.  But not Anna.  As soon as we turned onto our street she said, "home! home!"  We had a great time visiting family, but it's always nice to be back home.