Mixed Emotions

We learned just a few weeks ago that pre-k was going to be all day this year. I have had very mixed feelings about it. I'm not sure I'm ready to have Jackson away from me so much. It is definitely easier on my schedule, but my heart misses my baby! Yesterday was the first day of school for Lincoln and Jackson. Lincoln was very excited to get back into things, but Jackson has been really nervous. It surprised me to see him this way. He is usually so excited to go to his Mother's Day Out. He is in the same classroom that Lincoln was in last year, so it is familiar and his teacher's aid is our friend from the neighborhood. I feel confident that he will do great, but miss him so much. He came home yesterday and cuddled up with me and we cried together. He said that he just wants to be with me. I sort of feel the same way, but I know that he will have fun and make friends at school. Lincoln seems to be adjusting fantastically to school and I am so pleased with that! He is being a great example for Jackson and is trying to help him adjust and learn about the school. Can you believe I didn't take any first day of school pics? It was enough just getting everyone out the door! Jeff had to go in early and was already gone when I got up at 6:30. Getting three kids up and going is no easy task. I'm grateful that I usually have his help!

Idaho Day 6

Our last day with the group was rainy and the perfect hang out and play cards kind of day. One group braved the rain and rented mountain bikes for the afternoon. A few went on a hike. Jeff to our big boys back to the hot tub. In the evening we roasted gigantic marshmallows out on one of the patios. I went to put the boys to bed and crashed out in exhaustion right along with them. I think most people stayed up playing and talking for quite some time, but I slept soundly through it all! We had a great time visiting with everyone and really missed those that couldn't make it.

Our flight out from Boise was at 7am, so we chose to spend the next day cleaning, packing, and travelling to Boise so that we didn't have to get up in the middle of the night to get there. We spent the afternoon/evening at a Boise waterpark before heading back to Oklahoma the next morning.

Idaho Day 5

My little family spent the morning with Grandpa at my cousin Joy's salon. She was kind enough to give us all a trim and show us around. She is the only one who lives locally where we were and it was fun to see her in her element. The kids were getting hungry and Joy recommended a pizza joint for us just across the street.

In the meantime, it was time to meet the rest of the group for a tour of the local Smokejumper's Base. I had never heard of such a thing and it was really interesting! These are amazing firefighters who can only get to mountain fires by jumping out of airplanes and with huge packs of equipment on their backs so that they can get to work at starving out fires to prevent further spread. Once they've done all of that hard work, the only way to get out of there is to hike up to 20 miles to the nearest road. What amazingly brave and strong people! In their off time the clean and repair all of their equipment themselves - they have a whole room dedicated to sewing their parachutes.

The boys were starving and let us know that they couldn't quite make it through the tour. We headed out early to get their promised pizza and then decided to check out the local ski resort. We found a flyer at the restaurant promising beautiful summer views from the ski lift, but when we got there we found out they are only open on weekends. Since we had already come that far, we found a few mountain lakes to visit. We just enjoyed the beautiful scenery, relaxed and let the boys go crazy throwing rocks into the lake. They said that it was their favorite part of the vacation and didn't want to leave. Simple pleasures!

Many of the others ate together at the Pancake house and visited cousin Joy's salon in the afternoon. One group had a picnic in a beautiful garden. Barb entertained us all with giant bubbles in the evening.

Idaho Day 4

We always look forward to river days at our family reunions. This time around I was nervous at first (have been since having babies - crazy how having someone needing you changes your desire to risk life and limb). I volunteered to take one of the duckies (an inflatable kayak) to see if I could keep up my paddling skills (that I learned at girl scout camp a day or two ago). Cousin Eric was a great teacher for all of us and it was great fun to hang out with the cousins along the way and get to know them better. The river was perfect - exciting moments with lots of breaks for just relaxing in between.

One of our first rapids brought on the adrenalin when cousin Steven tipped over just in front of me. There wasn't much I could do for him and that was the most frustrating part. I knew he was going to be ok, but could tell he was scared. In trying to help him I hit him in the head with my paddle. What a nice cousin I am! I remembered during the instruction part that if you could hold onto your paddle that you should keep it and it might help you in being pulled back in. I ended up with his paddle and offered it to him. He thought I was crazy. I was very proud that I stayed upright the entire trip (that's me with my paddle up at the last big rapid).

It was perfect weather and a great day to be on the river. Jerry was nice enough to plan two trips that day so that parents could split up and watch kids. Jeff was able to go on the afternoon trip riding doubles with Jerry in the same boat I paddled. He was a little nervous not being on a raft at first, but did great and had a lot of fun. The boys rode the last little leg of the river which was very calm water (where you had to paddle if you wanted to go anywhere). After we got back to the resort we headed over to grandma and grandpa's chalet and warmed up in the hot tub. Late that afternoon we had some good rain and there was a beautiful rainbow over the lake that we could see from our cabin.

Idaho Day 3

Our third day in Idaho was a relax around the house day. We kept ourselves busy doing crafts (awesome wooden pens on uncle Jerry's lathe, fancy friendship bracelets with Pam, butterfly mobiles for the kids with my mom), picking huckleberries in the surrounding area with Barb, playing cards, reading books, playing with our iphones (only Mac -based internet connections could get connected), croquet and frisbee golf just down the road.

Sneaky Home Evening

I hereby interrupt this vacation log to blog about our evening. Jeff is working late and we were our own for FHE. Lincoln was excited to choose a story to tell from our Gospel Art Picture Kit and Jackson wanted in on the deal too. They both chose images of Joseph Smith and I was happy to talk to them about it. Only they weren't ready to listen. Not even close. They had a giant case of the sillies and couldn't snap out of it. I gave them several good chances and nothing worked. I wasn't going to try to talk about something so important in those circumstances, so I sent them both to bed early. More like, I carried them to bed early because they wouldn't go. They both kept coming out and Harrison was crying. I decided I couldn't monitor all three at once so I put everyone in my bed. They knew I was serious now and started to listen. They were quiet while I told them all about when the prophets wrote down all of their experiences long, long ago... how the last of those prophets buried those records when there was no one else to keep them, and how he came back as an angel and showed Joseph Smith where those records were buried many years later. They listened and asked for more. When we weren't in our formal FHE setting they were ready. We got to have our spiritual moment, but it took a lot of work to get there. I'm taking note.

Here are some pictures of the boys being silly and one of Harrison scaring the tar out of me with his, "I'm gettin' ready to be mobile" positioning.

Idaho - Day 2

On the second day the plan was to head out to the Yellow Pine Harmonica Festival. Every year they have people from all kinds of places come and compete on the Harmonica and it can be quite an interesting and amazing thing to watch. All of the group that headed out to the festival (about a 2 1/2 hour drive) enjoyed it very much, but wished they had gone a little later in the day. There wasn't enough shade and the good stuff didn't happen until later in the evening.

We didn't choose to join the group because of the long drive and late night (they didn't get back until around midnight). I would have enjoyed it, but didn't think the kids would. We decided to do some investigation and see what was going on locally. We went out to the Cascade County Fair (about 30 minutes away) and had a picnic lunch at the park.

We enjoyed looking at the 4H animals and the kids loved the ribbon prizes. Our favorite part was the backhoe rodeo. There wee six backhoes set up with different competitions such as scooping up basketballs off of a PVC stand and dropping them into a hoop.

That afternoon we braved the freezing swimming pool at the lodge. Brrr. We didn't last too long there and as we were packing up to go my boys (Jeff included) went off ahead. I was chatting with cousins Corey and Liz and I thought they had gone to the car. We thought we were catching up to them, but when I got to the car they weren't there. There were a few trails around and I figured they'd wandered off down one of them. I tried calling and waiting, but finally gave up and rode back with Corey and Liz. Quite a while later the boys showed up at the house. They had gone around the corner and found a hot tub. They played there and when they were done they had to jump the fence to get out since I had taken the card key for the gate. Oops!

The "cabin" (top left in pic) where we stayed (one can hardly call this gigantic home a cabin) is owned by my uncle's brother's family. We were so blessed to have such a beautiful place offered to us and we were all very comfortable there. It was wonderful to have a large, stocked kitchen for each of us to take turns preparing meals. Everyone made fantastic cuisine and we never felt cramped. Some of the group stayed in two chalets (see one of them on the bottom left) which were right next door to one another and just down the road from the big house.

Idaho - Day 1

Jeff had a work meeting in Canada for a week. He got home at 1am and we had a 7am flight that same morning to head out to our family reunion. Talk about no sleep! The kids were super sports about the trip. We got to ride the shuttle, two airplanes and then a rental car for two and a half hours to our destination. We went straight to the lake in McCall to meet up with the family who had all arrived the day before. They were having a delicious barbecue and a great time down at the beach. The Bowman's brought a few kayaks that people could test out and Barb brought lots of sand toys for the kids. Harrison and Camree were very excited to finally meet. They had the same due date, but were born about 3 weeks apart.