Emma's View

We gave Emma our old camera because we never use it and her kid camera wasn't cutting it anymore. She spent A LOT of time taking pictures of everything while we were driving to and from Boise and Utah. It was fun to look through and see the pictures she took.

Emma took a ton of pictures of "all the beautiful things" in Grandma Lorraine's house.

The kids loved this little Christmas village that lights up

And they were fascinated with her grandfather clock. She has had this for as long as I can remember, and it was always one of my favorite things at her house too.

The kids are fascinated with this little mailbox that is on Grandma's porch.

 

She got a ton of pictures of Ellie too. The camera came in really handy when Ellie got sick of the car. Emma would snap a picture and the bright flash would distract Ellie enough to make her stop screaming. She probably took over 100 pictures of Ellie just like this one. :)

 

Grandma's house...I love her cute little house (but I don't love this completely unflattering picture of me)

My cousins sweet wife made little books for her and my kids to keep busy during the funeral. Emma made a book all about animals that was really cute. She took a picture of every single page. I love her frog drawing!

These self portraits are my favorite...what a funny girl!

Oh, her beloved orange hair feather. After 6 months, we finally took it out.

Buddy!

And to end here is an Emma quote from yesterday that I got a good laugh out of:

 

We were driving when a fire truck zoomed past us with it's lights and siren blaring. The kids watched it in awe, and then Emma said, "I just love fire trucks. They're so beautiful and stylish!"

A Quick Trip to Utah

 Jon hadn't been back to Utah since we moved 4 1/2 years ago, and I hadn't been in over 2 years, so we decided to take a little trip there while we were in Idaho.

On our way down, we were able to visit some friends from California who recently moved to Utah. I completely forgot to get any pictures, but it was fun to see them, and they completely spoiled us with a delicious dinner.

After dinner we headed down to my aunt's house....and I'm kicking myself for not getting any pictures with her family either! We spent a lot of time with Dave and Kathy's family when we lived in Provo and it was so good to catch up with them again. 

We had 2 full days in Utah so we decided to spend one day in Provo and one in Salt Lake.

Our first stop was Wymount, BYU's married student housing, where we spent the first 2 1/2 years of our marriage. Building 9A apartment 525....a whole lot of memories here, but I don't miss the apartment or those stairs!

We had to play at the playground down the sidewalk where we went almost every single day of the first 18 months of Emma's life.

After some lunch, the BYU Creamery was our next stop

We wandered around campus for quite awhile: the Eyring Science Center, the Museum of Art, and of course the BYU Bookstore. We tried to go to the Bean Museum, only to find that it is closed for remodeling for the next 1 1/2 years. So sad! We hoped to have better luck at our next destination- the dinosaur museum on BYU campus. I'm sure it has an official name, but I don't know it. Somehow in all of our time at BYU, neither Jon or I had ever heard of this place. And I have to say, it didn't disappoint at all.

The next morning, bright and early, Kathy and I ran our 5k. Then we packed up, said our good byes, and headed up to Salt Lake. On our way we had to stop for lunch at one of our favorite Utah Restaurants, Porters Place, in Lehi. After that, Jon had to take the kids to Cabela's...outdoors store, animal museum, and zoo all in one. It definitely made up for not being able to go to the Bean Museum.  :)

Poor kid was TIRED. I think all 3 kids took naps more days than they didn't while we were on vacation.

Once in Salt Lake, our first stop was the church history museum. We met up with some friends, the LeSueurs, from our BYU days....and again, I forgot to take any pictures with them. But it was fun to see them again after so long. And there was SO much to do in the kids portion of the museum. Definitely worth going!

Fishing off the side of Nephi's boat

We continued on through temple square, stopping at the visitors center briefly

And we rode the escalator up and down and up and down again. One of the highlights of our trip for the kids was definitely riding escalators almost everywhere we visited. I'll have to tuck this idea away for a future rainy day!

Jon proposed on temple square and we took a picture here right after we got engaged. We also got married here almost 7 years ago, so it was fun to come back again to the place where it all started.

Beautiful sunset on the drive back to Idaho

Jon found out there was lava along the freeway (actually at a rest stop about 20 minutes south of my parents) and Matthew had been dying to go see the "wava" for several days, so we made sure to stop there on our way back from Utah.

I think the kids were expecting real, flowing lava so they were slightly disappointed to find only lava rocks. But they had a lot of fun anyway.

Those 2 1/2 days in Utah went fast, but they were some of the best days of our vacation.

4th of July

We planned our trip to Idaho around the 4th of July this year. Crazy as it sounds, Idaho Falls is the place to be for good fireworks. It is said to be the best fireworks show west of the Mississippi, and I believe it. For years, it has been tradition for my family to head to the greenbelt first thing in the morning to stake out our spot (the hard core people camp out the night before!) and then we spend the rest of the day walking around, playing games, and sometimes barbecuing. I've talked up these fireworks to Jon for years (and I'm not even a big fireworks person), but my talking them up did no justice. He was really impressed. The show lasts at least 30 minutes, and the fireworks are choreographed to music on a local radio channel. It's just really cool. Jon said after every big round, he thought it was over, and then was surprised to see even bigger and better fireworks. The kids loved it and could have watched all night. The only bummer about the fireworks is getting home in the traffic afterwards....but it was totally worth it.

It was way too hot to try and stay all day, so everybody took turns hanging out throughout the day.

Abby brought her friend, Greg, who won all the kids over with cotton candy. 

Me and Abby

The dollar store glow sticks that we picked up on our way to the greenbelt were a hit (and they were MUCH cheaper than the same ones people were selling there)

My sister in law brought these (I can't think what they're called....noise blockers???) for the babies. Ellie thought they were fun to play with, but Emma ended up wearing them.  :)

The night before the 4th of July, we set off some little fireworks in front of my parents house.

I LOVE this picture

And I love this little succession of pictures of Ellie with my mom

The kids are slightly obsessed with chickens right now, so this egg-laying-hen was a favorite.

It took the kids FOREVER to try the sparklers. They were so afraid, but by the time they decided to try them, they were almost all gone. 

This was one of my favorite nights in Idaho.