The girls and spent a week at the beginning of August visiting my sister and her family up in the Boise area. They have lived up there for almost three years and are probably there for life. So, as part of our summer of exploring what we have around us, we headed up to Idaho to get some quality cousin time and to see what there was to see!
We had an action packed week and explored all the Boise favorites - many of which I didn't even know about until this trip! One of our first stops was the Idaho museum of natural history. They had a really great exhibit showcasing each county of Idaho and some of the historical, geological and cultural highlights from that region. Of course, the first stop was the great Idaho potato! Julianne and I decided that we like our Idaho potatoes fully loaded - we even went home and had stuffed potatoes for dinner after this stop!
The next stop was the display on Lewis and Clarks epic journey and the stops they made through what later became Idaho. The museum was incredibly kid-friendly with lots of hands-on displays. The girls were able to dress up like the famous explorers, sample the different types of horse saddles and take a ride in a dugout canoe. Considering that we were two adults with four kids at a history museum, it was a really enjoyable experience!
Day trip to McCall, ID
Julianne has spent a couple of weekends up in McCall with her in-laws and has raved about how fun the little lake town is. So one day while Jayson was working we decided to pack the girls up and spend the day at the lake. She was right, it's a pretty great little town! We set up camp on the beach at a nice little resort and spent the day swimming, playing in the sand, and of course enjoying endless
pina-coladas from the poolside drink stand!
The girls love to visit temples and were excited about seeing a new one - until we actually got there. Then they decided it was too hot and they were too tired and hungry to be nice. We had to leave the grounds fairly quickly due to the loud fighting and crying. At least we got a good picture =)
Paddle boats in downtown Boise. This was a really fun idea, but due to the extremely hot temperatures and the lack of drinks, we were all ready to be done. Or maybe that was just me - I was about 8 weeks pregnant when we took this little getaway and enjoying the highly nauseous stage of pregnancy. So maybe I should double check with Julianne, she may have had more fun than I did?!
One of the highlights of the trip occurred when my parents drove up with Uncle Stephen and Cline to bring the girls and I home. They came up late Friday evening and stayed through the weekend, so we had some big plans for them when they arrived. Julianne planned a float down the Boise River for all of us and coordinated rafts and life jackets for everybody. It was such a fun activity and everybody loved it - toddlers, teenagers and especially Poppi!
These cute girls loved the idea of helping row the boats and were getting lots of practice before we got in the rafts and on the river. Unfortunately, after we had to rescue our paddle for the tenth time they were excused from helping!
The girls loved switching back and forth between the rafts. They would ask us to pull up right next to the other raft then they would hurry and climb over the edge to safety. After three or four swaps, however, they continued to get more and more brave until Serelle decided her favorite way to ride was straddling the side with one foot dangling in the water and the other secured in the raft. She is kind of a little daredevil!
I think Poppi especially loved this outing because of the chance it provided him to soak his girls. He was so good to row and direct our raft so we went first into all the "rapids" and soaked up the splashes for him. Lili was in the other raft for most of these and thought it was so funny to see mom and Mimi get soaked by Poppi! Glad we could provide some entertainment for everybody =)
A huge thanks again to Julianne for coordinating this activity, it was so much fun!
Backyard campouts are always a much better idea in theory than in reality. We had promised the girls a sleepover in the tent if they went to bed nicely during the week, so this was the night before we went home. Like I mentioned before, I was feeling pretty sick on this trip and just wasn't up to sleeping outside without a pad, plus the nervous mom in me didn't feel comfortable letting the girls sleep outside without an adult. So I was ready to be the mean mom and make the girls come inside for bedtime. Luckily for them, their sweet Aunt Julianne took one for the team and spent the night sleeping on the hard ground with three wiggly and giggly little girls. I'm not sure they got very much sleep at all, but it was a fun way to end the trip!
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