Miracle Hot Springs

 Back in April we went and met my parents at Miracle Hot Springs in Buhl, ID outside of Twin Falls.  We've been trying to find a half way point between Rexburg and their home in CA, but the pickins are slim.  REAL slim.  They were nice enough to take the brunt of the traveling and we only had to travel 3 hours.  We camped at the RV park at the hot springs and it was really nice to have electricity and water.  Really the whole hot springs set up was great!  I would definitely recommend it as a destination spot to others and visit again.  The hot springs itself had 4 main pools, varying in water temperature and then they also had several private pools that you could pay an extra fee to soak in, which were also really nice!

The only downside was that there wasn't really a shallow end for the smaller kids.  Brodie could touch in some of the pools, but Ryker and Mari could only touch in this little silver of a pool that had cold water in it.  My kids are not good swimmers yet, so it made things a little stressful.  The pic below on the right is right after Ryker jumped into the pool thinking his floaties would prevent his head from going under.... but they didn't and he freaked out a little and was very grumpy about it.

Then we have this little sun beauty.  We took the kids swimming in the morning and she threw the biggest fit that lasted 2 hours!!!  Then she finally fell asleep in the trailer and her big brother walked in and slammed the door and she woke up.  Boy that was difficult on my patience.

The hot springs also had an alligator!  I know, totally random, but the kids loved it and Ryker had to get a picture with it in his Gator shirt.

Nana and Papa didn't disappoint the kids and brought them lots of treats.  Peeps.  Nom nom.  Thanks for that one mom!

The campground was perfect!  The kids had so much fun riding their bikes, going on hikes, and Brodie even made a little girlfriend.

Mari with Nana's hat.

We visited Shoshone Falls in Twin Falls.

And they also had a nice little park nearby.  Nothing beats a park with Nana - pure joy!

We were also right next to Wendell, Idaho.  When my dad was 8 years old, his family traveled up to Wendell and he was baptized a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.  That's where his grandparents lived and they were members.  He has absolutely no other experiences with the church and wouldn't consider himself a member, but the family history that is there and the idea of it is special to me, so I had to snap a pic of him with the Wendell Welcome sign behind him.

It was a really great trip!!  We all got there on a Friday, Bo had to leave Sunday to get back in time for school and the kids and I left on Wednesday.  I am happy to report that I pulled the trailer back all by myself and no one was injured!  Success!

Our Chicken Adventure

Back in CA before we moved to Idaho I had built a coop and we had some laying hens.  I absolutely loved them!  Since we've moved to Idaho I've kept wanting to get chickens again and we finally made it happen! 

I bought a small coop for myself as a birthday present.  It was a really small coop, so it was only big enough for 2 chickens.  I bought two Easter Egg hens that laid blue/green eggs and I was happy and the kids were thrilled!  Ryker named his Grasshopper (white) and Brodie named his Soft Hen-Weed Eater (brown)  Both of his names were so awesome that he couldn't pick between both of them, so the chicken had 2 names.  My name of "Hen"rietta was denied.  The boys LOVED collecting their eggs and feeding them worms. 

Then about a week later we went to some Hot Springs near Twin Falls to meet up with my parents.  We tried to explain to our dog sitter that our dogs would eat the chickens if left unattended, but somehow it didn't sink in and he let them out to go to the bathroom and ran back home.  By the time he got back, 5 minutes later, the dogs had killed one chicken and eaten the other.  Sad day.  

When we got back home I bought 2 more hens, some Cuckoo Morans, aka Grasshopper #2 and Soft Hen #2 (thankfully, the name Weed Eater seems to have been forgotten)  They lay these beautiful dark brown eggs and I absolutely love them! They are nice and big too!  But... I wanted more.  I always want more chickens.  If I had the property and coop I would probably have like 20 chickens and it still wouldn't be enough.  So I bought 4 more chickens from a guy in Utah.  A Buff Orpington - Henrietta, a Black Sexlink - ShellShe (Brodie's), another Easter Egger - Pinkie (Ryker's) .... but instead of laying blue eggs the little stinker lays pink eggs, which is a stretch, because they are more like light brown eggs, and a Golden Sexlink - No Name.  The Golden Sexlink kept getting picked on by the other hens and kept getting feather picked, so I rehomed her.  Turns out the Golden Sexlink was actually an Easter Egger and she was my one laying blue eggs, so I was pretty sad!

Then we went to the feed store to get some chicken food and saw these cute little meat chicks....

Who could resist, right?  Here they are experiencing a food coma.  They are Cornish Cross chicks, so you only keep them for 8 weeks and then butcher them.  I thought this would be a fun project to do with the kids and they were only a little over a $1 each, so if something happened to them, it wouldn't be a big deal.  One of the chicks ended up dying (it got paste butt) so we are down to 2, but the kids love them --- especially Brodie!  He is going to be a chicken farmer for sure!  The first thing he does when he wakes up is go and check on the chicks and the hens.

Anyways, after I got the newest hens, their little coop was not going to be big enough, so my neighbor and I got to work on building a chicken coop.  They got 4 chicks at the beginning of chick season too, so she was also going to need a coop.  Figured we might as well do it together!  We ended up taking the back wall of a shed and adding some doors as a wall to make a little coop.  Then we were lucky enough to snag a large dog run from some neighbors who were moving.  Score!

This is the view from Mari's window.  I love checking on them and seeing how they are doing.

 The chicks were able to fit through the chain link fence of the dog run, so we put my smaller chicken coop into the run.  It works out perfect because the little chickens can't be pecked by the older ones,  but they can see each other so they have plenty of time to get used to each other.  We'll also put our 2 meat chickens out there once they have all their feathers.  It's the perfect little brooder coop!

Once the coop was finished, I bought two more Easter Eggers because I wanted to have blue eggs again.  One is called Naked Butt (Ryker's) because her bottom was picked a little from her previous home and Brodie named the other one Swirl.  Then later that evening I was talking to another gal who was trying to get rid of some hens because she had just bought some new chicks and one of them was a Silver Laced Wyandotte (black and white pictured below) and that breed was on my chicken list, so I was so excited!!  Bo told me that I needed a limit, so I asked my neighbor how many chickens was too many and she told me to tell Bo 50, so that when we had 20 it didn't seem like that many.  I love her thought process!!  So I went and bought Lacey as well as another Easter Egger from her flock so she would have a friend.

If you've lost count, we now have 9 hens, 4 chicks, and 2 meat chicks.  I love it!!  And they are all getting along!  It is always stressful to introduce new hens to the flock because they can be so mean to each other, but I've been letting them free range around the yard and they have gotten used to each other and established their pecking order really quickly.

And look at this!

Aren't those beautiful!?  I love having fresh eggs!

The other day we added one more chicken to the flock... his name is Ryker.  He's a rooster that lays dark rainbow colored eggs.

He even eats bread when you throw him pieces... just like the other chickens.

 He's fallen right in line with the flock and the other chickens love him!  Especially when he helps them find worms in the garden.

The Dunes

We took the kids to the St. Anthony Sand Dunes last Friday.  We hadn't been in a few years, so they had pretty much forgotten about them.  Since it was Memorial Day Weekend, we were a little nervous about how crowded it might be, but we took a little road off the main one and did a little 4-wheeling to find our own dune.  The kids had a blast!!  They were running around like crazy and kept shouting, "This is SO AWESOME!"  It was a really great little family trip.

Since we don't live within driving distance of the ocean anymore, we had to bury the kids in their own holes.  I mean every kid has to do that, right?  Brodie was first and thought it was so fun!

At first Mari was a little worried when she saw us burying her brother, she kept trying to dig him out.  Then once Brodie popped out, she jumped in the hole and was so excited.... then she started to get a little worried...

Then she started freaking out!

It was so funny!  She was happy to crawl out!  Ryker also loved it!  This is his "I'm stuck out in the desert scared face."  Such a cutie!

Best Brothers.

We'll definitely be making more trips out to the dunes in the future!