Idaho 2011 Part 1

Bo's parents currently live in Rexburg, Idaho.  They both decided to go back to school and finish their degrees and Bo's dad has finally graduated, which is the reason for our trip!

Here we are taking a little pit stop in Idaho where we were crossing the Snake River.  It was quite an impressive canyon.

And here is the graduate himself!

We are so proud of him!  What a great accomplishment!

We were also able to get in a Scott Family Reunion!

We started the day out at the family cemetery.

Here's everyone who made it:

Ryker and Starlyn - born just a few weeks apart.

We spent the rest of the day in the water!

Unfortunately our kids aren't too fond of water... as you'll be able to tell from not one smile in the pictures below. 

Here are the boys at the water park

It was CROWDED, but a lot of fun.  Brodie even got the courage to go down the little kid slide a few times by himself.  After dinner we went to the Heiss Ranch where they have natural hot springs.  They had two pools - a cool pool that was 95 degrees and a hot pool that was 100-something.  They also had a huge water slide, which Bo had a ton of fun going down.  Both the boys however were less then thrilled.

I'm going to go ahead and blame their dislike for water on not having a bathtub.  Hopefully when we move into the next house, which has 2 bathtubs, they'll get a little more confident.  My boys were a lot happier throwing rocks into the river though.

On our way home we swung by the temple since it was all lit up.  Brodie loved it!  On the top of our temples we have the Angel Moroni.... I pointed it out to Brodie and said, "Brodie look at the Angel."  He looked up and excitedly said, "Look!  He got gun!"  The Angel Moroni is actually holding a horn/trumpet.  We tried explaining this to him, but he wouldn't have it.

It also happened to be Pioneer Day, so the town was selling fireworks at BOGO!  This really excited me becuase the county we live in doesn't allow fireworks, so I felt like my kids got jipped this last 4th of July.  By the time we got around to the fireworks  though, it was really late but the boys still seemed to really enjoy them!  And although Brodie was so tired he wouldn't let his Grandpa put him down on the ground, he still managed to have fun with a sparkler.

All of Bo's siblings made it to the graduation too, so we had to get a family picture after church.  It is really hard to get everyone looking at the camera and smiling, but here's the best one.

I love this picture of the grandparents with the grandkids

And I don't know what Brodie is doing here, but this picture cracks me up!

Then we went back to the temple to stroll around the grounds

Today we went to Porter Park.  It's such a fun little park.  They have a regular playground and then they also have a water park type area with little fountains.  Again our boys hated it.  They also have this awesome carosel though and Brodie loved it.  He rode it twice and has been asking me all night to go back and dance with the horsies. (The carosel plays music, so he thinks he's dancing with them while he's riding.)

So the conclusion is horsies YAY, water NEIGH.  I know, I'm funny.

Ryker didn't go on the carosel this time, but he managed to look pretty darn cute while watching all the action.

We've got lots of other fun things planned for the rest of the week, so stay tuned!

Couldn't Come Up With A Good Title.

Sometimes it's hard to come up with titles for these posts... Especially when it's a catch up one!

Ryker got his first Tooth!  Which was quickly followed by the second.  I think it's so funny that he got his top ones first.  He's a little bucked tooth baby!

We pulled out the Thomas The Train Tent again.  I love this thing.  It hides under Brodie's bed and then when we remember it's actually under there it is a hit with the kids. 

Now that Ryker can crawl, they have started chasing each other... well Brodie just wants Ryker to chase him.  That seems to be fine with Ryker though.

 We went down to Oakland to visit Grandpa Parmelee.  We always have so much fun down there.  The cats are always happy when we leave though.

On the way back, we stayed the night at my parents house.  Something you may not know about me is that my parents are both licensed falconers.  Weird hobby, I know... but other then defrosting rodents and small birds above the fire place on the mantel, it's pretty cool.  My dad just got a new Goshawk Chick, so the kids had fun getting to know it.

In other news, we have decided to move into town.  We're going to miss a lot of things about this house... well I take that back.  We are going to miss a lot of things about the PROPERTY the house sits on.  The house, not so much.  I think it will be fine though.  We'll be in a neighborhood, but the park is right down the street!

Hope these two boys will adjust well...

Ryker sort of has a Donald Trump look in the above photo... I'm not sure how I feel about that...

And below he had a run in with a vanilla wafer.  That kid cracks me up!

And we've gotta get a video of Ryker giggling on here...

Broken

Today Brodie had a very sad moment.  His last and final binky broke and the binky era is over.  I took Brodie's binky away for a few nights back when he turned two, but somehow he kept finding ones that had been previously lost.  I swear he must of stashed those things around everywhere in case we ever did take them away from him.  I'm not sure why I gave in and let him continue to have his binky... I think part of it is because I still have my childhood blanky that I sleep with every night (yes it's true) and I would get so mad when people told me to throw it away, so I have a tender spot for soothers that help you sleep better.  Anyways, he wasn't allowed to have it other then when he was going to sleep.  Then about 3 weeks ago, we were visiting the grandparents and their dog Gracie somehow snatched Brodie's binky which created a hole in it... and it has grown ever since.  Then this afternoon before nap time he ran out of his room, jumped on the couch and went to yank the binky out of his mouth to say "No Night, Night!" and it ripped in half.  At first he smiled and showed me what happened, but then once he realized what happened the tears started pouring down.  It was so sad!  It was completely different from the crying he does when he gets hurt or wants something.  I felt so bad for him.  It made me want to cry too.  After about 20 minutes of really sad crying he went over to the toolbox to find something to fix it.  He found some mosquito spray and told me he wanted to spray it on and stick it back together.  I told him it wouldn't work and that it was yucky, so he gave up on that idea and went back to the couch to look lovingly at his binky.  Eventually he perked up.

Here he is telling me what happened:

Brodie then wanted the camera so he could take a few shots of his binky...

I'm thinking about entering them into the fair.

On the bright side, Brodie went to sleep tonight without one little whimper.  But his binky is laying beside his pillow and to be fair, he skipped his nap because of the binky fiasco.

Ready For a Long One??

It has been a long 2 weeks from my last post!  We've now been sick for 3 weekends!! (and the weeks in between!)  I think we're finally starting to pull out of it, but we are still left with coughs, sniffles, and hoarse voices.

Last weekend my sister Rachel came to visit.  She is such a good Auntie and the kids had lots of fun with her around.  Below Rachel was throwing the duck dummy for Brodie to shoot.

Brodie would then go and fetch the duck...

Bring it to Rachel...

Get a "Good Job" scratch...

And Repeat.

They also did some fishing...

I love this picture of Brodie.  He looks like he's really into it.  What a little fisher-man!

And they danced to banjo music..

And went on a bike ride!

Ryker was being fussy at the beginning, so Brodie put his arm around him to comfort him and left his arm there the whole ride - SO CUTE!

Like I said, we had a great time with Rachel.  And she left with our Summer time cold - Sorry Rachel.

In other news, Ryker learned how to pull himself up on things.

He gets so excited and is so proud of himself when he does it.

I've also been really into canning.  My sister and I canned some chicken and beef and then the other night I canned some pineapple and strawberries.  I really suck at cutting pineapple, so I bought this really awesome pineapple slicer and corer and I love it!

It's weird how little devices like this get me so excited.

This weekend was Burney Basin Days, so Brodie and I kicked the day off with going to the parade.

 

A few of Brodie's favorite parade attractions included the firetrucks, Little Bear (Smokey the Bear), the Baby Horsies (Ponies), The Cowboys who were shooting guns and gave him a Sheriff's sticker, and the guy on a Motorcycle who came up and gave him a high-five.

Later that evening we went to the high school to enjoy the fireworks.

We met up with the Oilars and Brodie and Lainey had a little date watching the fireworks.

They were adorable and loved every firework burst.

It got a little loud for Brodie during the finale though...

The fireworks display was awesome!  Burney really does a great job.  I love America!