Spokane Trip

We are on our annual trip to the lovely Davenport Hotel in Spokane Washington! We decided to bring Ashley and Emma along this year. They are missing school this week, and had all of their homework done before we even got to Washington, so I think they will be ok missing a couple days! They are just loving the place and all of the attention they are getting, they are the only kids here this year, they are having tons of fun anyway. Ashley panicked a little at dinner wondering which fork to use first.
Emma tried out the jumbo shrimp, but didnt care for it too much. We have scoped out the hotel a little bit and already tried out the pool. We went to Northtown shopping all afternoon and plan to go to a childrens museum in the morning. Ryan is just in meetings all day.
At dinner there was a huge chocolate fountain and really fun fruit trees full of yummies to dip in the fountain.

This is the biggest chocolate fountain I have ever seen! We couldnt stay out of it, it was so yummy! We are really enjoying ourselves! Justin and Claire stayed with Grandma Nielson for the night, they were excited to get to do that and we will go back there tomorrow afternoon before we go home Friday morning.

Snowmobile Rides

Ryan finally got around to giving rides yesterday.  Justin was getting desperate, he even asked me if I knew how to drive a snowmobile so he could ride!  Ryan told him he would start it so I could drive them around, Justin did NOT want that though, why would he want his Mom to drive when he knows Dad drives WAY faster!

Over-Nighter

We got to go with Ryan to some potato meetings this week in Pocatello and stay in a ………..HOTEL………..!!  Almost as fun as Christmas!  The kids were so excited!  We didn't  do anything but swim, swim, swim!  It was fun!  I had to take dozens of pictures of every little trick, I'm surprised I don't have a sore neck from keeping my eye on EVERYONE!  Here go Ash and Emma!

 

Every person in this pool was related to us, it was a fun little family vacation!

Ashley's splash

Justin got a little to brave with his arm floaties, to brave for Mom anyway!

 

Claire stayed right on the stairs until the second day she wanted to venture off a little more.  I was not wanting to jump in and save her very bad, it was only 3 feet deep most of the pool, and thankfully no one had to be rescued!

Except Jared: I thought this was funny, Jenna is “saving” Jared, they didn't know I took this picture of them,  just like a woman to have to save her man!  HA!

Ashley and Emma learned how to flex while we were there, it was quite entertaining!  Emma is one buff little girl!

Emma and Ashley  jumped in over and over and over.  It was great!

 

The pool had a waterfall, Ashley is standing under it here;

Lots of fun!  We had a really great time!

Corn Maze Guests

We have had some late visitors in our corn maze the past week.  I saw about 25 Elk one morning heading our direction and I hoped they would stay on.  It sure has been fun to watch them come and go.  They eat for a while and then head down to water in the slough, and then back again.  I saw more than 50 at one time, our hired guy said he saw over 100! 

 

I love my super zoom on my camera!  I took these all from the kitchen.  We have also had 2 raccoons and a couple of foxes living in the corn patch.  It is quite the habitat, our poor puppy goes crazy!

Family Night Activity

Ash and Emma got a root beer making kit for Christmas from Uncle Mark and Aunt Paige and we have just been DYING to try it out!  We mixed it up for the activity after family night and then we have had to wait…..  It can take up to a week to be ready.  We had a good time anyway with lots of help!

Las Vegas Trip

Whirl Wind!

The past 3 weeks have been CRAZY!  I am going to have to spend a few hours catching up my journal on all of our fun travels and Christmas time.   We went straight from Christmas, to Christmas in Washington, over to Preston, Idaho for a new cousin baby blessing, home long enough to pack and then on to Vegas and now home, for  a few weeks anyway! 

We had a great Christmas and school break, the kids weren't very agreeable, I was sad they fought so much… we had a week long trip to Mom and Dads, the cabin we were supposed to be renting flooded so we ended up at “Home” for Christmas, which I was excited about!  We got home from WA and less then 12 hours later were back in the car for the weekend to Tyler and Lain’s house to bless new baby Kyler.  I didn't take one picture of that doll baby, but I did get to hold him a lot, he is such a good sweet baby! 

We were home for two days to get laundry done and clean up Christmas and then Ryan and I flew to Las Vegas for the rest of the week.  Jenna kept our kids for 5 LONG days, I hope she can recover quickly!  They were all happy and healthy, (which really I was more worried about her than them!)  They were happy to see us (surprisingly) when we got home, and we were happy to see them (a little surprising too)!  I feel like I have been gone forever, we are glad to be home though,  although I did like that BEAUTIFUL Las Vegas weather, it is 4 degrees here right now!  BRRRR!!! 

Las Vegas Trip

Winter Storm

While we were gone to Washington we got a big storm, at least it appeared that way when we got home to a drive way FULL of snow and a huge drift in the back yard!  The kids spent some time out rolling around in it all. 

And the puppy too, I think she missed us, A LOT!

The trampoline hole is a fun place to slide into, not so fun trying to get out of!

I'm kind of glad we were gone for all of it, all of the roads were plowed, except our driveway of course, but it was easy to get around in!

Kylers Baby Blessing

As soon as we pulled in the driveway from Washington (which was late)  We had to take a detour because a train was de-railed onto the freeway!  It was a miserable LONG trip home!  We unloaded the Suburban and packed the pickup to go to Preston for the weekend!  It was SO cold, like negatives when we got home and not much warmer there either.  Still you cant not sled on that GIANT hill out Tyler and Lains front door!  The kids were frozen, but had fun!

 

April and her family were there too, it was fun to see those cousins over Christmas too!

We had lots of fun playing and dressups;

And really good food Sunday afternoon!  It was a quick trip, but we were glad we could make it!