Roaring Springs

We spent a few hours at Roaring Springs the other day when Allie's friend Dawson came into town. I am really glad that Allie was free of charge. I don't think we will be revisiting until next year. Allie wouldn't go on any of the slides, minus the one she could go down with Papa. She kept running out of the water saying "cold" and would go lay down on the chairs in the sun to warm up. We did make it around the lazy river in a tube with Allie on my lap and that was relaxing. We could have stayed there all day. We took a little break mid way through our water fun and had a picnic dinner with everyone. After we went back for a little bit more fun in the kiddie area. I got Allie to crawl through the water tunnel and she quite enjoyed that. Before long I called it quits and we headed home.

Allie braving it down the slide with Papa. There is only one slide in the kiddie area that adults are allowed to ride down with the kids....this is it

Allie enjoying her watermelon

Dawson went climbing up the pole...so Allie in turn had to have some one help her up and she enjoyed hanging there too

Allie braving it through the tunnel. My fearless child is turning out to be not so fearless anymore... I couldn't get her to do anything in the water, she was being quite the baby

Nakey!

What a great find and a good laugh! The other morning I found Allie up in our bed...nakey. She had stripped off her clothing and diaper, loaded up her babies, hauled in some books, and was in our bed reading to the babies. Just to cute!

Fishing Trip

During the summer Blake gets Friday's off from work to make up for the rougher times of the year. We spent our last Friday with dad up in McCall. We went back to Lick Creek, a little spot that we love, filled with so many Brown Trout and Rainbow Trout. This year was a little different: 1-Allie was not in the front pack like last year, 2-The water level was so high, we had a hard time finding a place to stand that wasn't in the water, 3-The mosquitoes were horrendous. We got in to the creek and hadn't put on bug spray and were eaten alive.

We had a great time though. Allie loved the fish and daddy even caught her a frog. After our fun day out fishing, we headed back for a relaxing night and entire day on Saturday at the cabin. We were quite lazy. We just slept and watched movies all day on Saturday.

Allie checking out dad's first fish

We finally found a little island covered in rocks. Allie had a great time throwing rocks into the creek and loved having some room to move around

We just love this place. The picture doesn't do it justice. It is gorgeous and we had it all to ourselves. We just love Idaho!

Checking out the frog. Allie is becoming a little more timid lately. It took some coaxing to get her to touch the frog and the fish

Twin Falls Temple-Open House

We headed over to Twin Falls this morning for the temple open house. Since no one in the family has been through an open house before, we thought we'd take the chance to go check it out. Especially since I don't know when there will be another temple built this close to Boise. I also really wanted Allie to go inside. We are always talking about the temple and passing by, but I just wanted her to be able to feel of the spirit in there. I know she won't have a memory of it, but I still just wanted to take the opportunity.

It was so beautiful inside! Just gorgeous. There was an amazing mural that someone had painted of the Shoshone Falls and the Snake River Canyon. Allie really enjoyed the deer that were scattered around on the mural. She also really enjoyed the "swimming pool"-A.K.A. the baptismal font. She wanted to jump on in. All of those lucky members in that area have a beautiful little temple.

Bubbly Bubbly

I know it is sad that Allie has been deprived this long, but tonight was Allie's first bubble bath, and it won't be her last. We were all in the kitchen cleaning up and I said I was going to go upstairs to put Allie in the tub. Blake responded back, "No...I want to do the bubble bath." I don't know if Blake was having a nostalgia for his childhood bubble bath days or what, but he was excited.

To say the least, these two had quite the time. Allie didn't quite know what to think of the bubbles in the tub at first, but she quickly came to love them. Pretty soon after I took a few pictures and left the bathroom I heard daddy singing, "I'm wearing my bubbly, bubbly." I was summoned back into the bathroom to find Allie wearing the bubbles. I don't know why but we all thought this bubble business was hilarious and were laughing hysterically over bubbles.

Allie as the tub was filling up

Allie contemplating what this stuff is

My "bubbly bubbly"

Picture Blog Tag

Liz tagged me with this fun Picture Blog Tag. The rules are you have to take ten pictures of the following things, and you have to do it right away. No straightening, cleaning or wiping your child's nose. Then you tag five others.

1. The fridge....this is after sending Blake to Costco...always a bad idea, the grocery budget get's killed, but we get great food

2. The closet...lots of projects that are unattended adorn the top shelf

3. Self Portrait...with the help of setting the camera on the dresser. I couldn't stop shaking when I was trying to take the picture on my own

4. My favorite room=the family room. I love my rocker. Allie and I love to curl up, rock, and watch a movie. This room equals popcorn too because whenever we watch movies we always make air popped popcorn

5. The kitchen sink. If I have to anal about one thing in my house it's the kitchen. I love to pretend to cook in here and love, love, love it to be clean

6. The laundry room....in the midst of redoing some things in Allie's room and trying to get caught up on some laundry

7. The toilet....this picture hides my dirty toilet pretty well. I should be cleaning this....but instead look what I am doing

8. What are your kids doing right now? Peacefully napping

9. Dream vacation- Unfortunately I don't have any pictures of this place because I have never been to the beautiful HAWAII. Blake is anti-the tropical vacation because he doesn't like to swim in cold water. I try to tell him there are plenty of other things I'm sure we could do. We are still working on this one

10. Favorite Shoes-Any pair of flip flops. I love that my feet can breathe. I love them so much that I even wore flip flops under my wedding dress

This tag is pretty fun- so I'll tag Jaime Blaisdell, Heather Dean, Kelly Histand, Stephanie Johnson, and Katie Givens. And if you don't want to, don't worry I won't be too hurt

1st Meal from the Garden

I came home from being at the park with Allie and Blake had picked all the food and was in the midst of whipping this together for us. One of the many things that I love about Blake is he is such a good cook and can just create things without a recipe. I am a definite recipe girl....I can't make anything withough knowing what I am supposed to put in. We ended up with a yummy salad (minus the tomatoes you see) and creamed peas and new potatoes. If you have never grown new potatoes before, they are so so good. Blake and I are planting some more because we love them so much.

Take Me Out To The Ball Game!

We had a great day with the immediate Hansen family. We started out the morning by going to the Logan Zoo. Watch out, this zoo just has an honesty policy about paying. You put your money in the box and call it good. It ended up costing us .50 for Allie and $2 for Blake and I. There wasn't anything to crazy here...a few monkeys, turtles, raccoons, and lots of birds. It was a good way to kill some time while everyone was getting up and ready for the day.

All of the cousins attempting to pose for a picture. I can't even imagine what would happen if we took them all in for professional shots

After the zoo we met up with the rest of the family and had an enjoyable time at the park. Papa and Grandma Julia brought some outdoor games like giant crochet, and wiffle ball. We had a couple of good rounds of wiffle ball with a majority of the family playing. It was a blast! Papa ordered pizza which they delivered right to us at the park. We attempted to put the toddlers down for naps on blankets while we played some more whiffle ball after lunch, but that didn't go so well.

Cam and Allie enjoying the swings

We want a pitcher....not a belly itcher

After our afternoon of fun we headed over to Sonic for 1/2 price slushes and then stopped off to say goodbye to Grandma and Grandpa Great.

Cute Grandma and Grandpa Great

Grandma and Blake-Blake just loves this photo...Grandma has got the best sense of humor, it's so fun to catch her in these moments

Happy Fourth

Happy 4th! We packed up camp and left Yellowstone Park in the morning. We leisurely took our time down to Logan, UT where we were meeting up with the extended Hansen family to have a BBQ birthday party for Grandma Hansen and watch the firework show. One of our stops included the Teton Lodge. We took a short hike here to a gorgeous view of the Teton Mountains. Another stop included Grandma Hansen's old stomping ground...Freedom, Wyoming. We were able to find the spot where they once had the Haderlie family farm.

A view of the Tetons

Cute Brynn found a flower on the way

We made it into Logan with a little time to freshen up our "camper" look. We had an enjoyable time at the BBQ and Allie was able to have a good time with all of the other cousins. By the end of the evening Allie was melting down. When we finally took off to the firework show, she passed out in the backseat, but it didn't last long. I woke her up when we got to the show because I knew she would love the fireworks. We had a great time!

Me and my girl

Now this was a hoot. This man walked over before the fireworks started and asked if he could take a picture of the family. After repeated attempts of teaching him where the shoot button was on the camera and him not understanding he finally snapped a picture. Drum roll please....

Here is half of the group that he got in the shot

I love how Allie and Cam both have their eyes up looking up. They were both too cute. During the fireworks Allie kept saying, "pop, pop"

Afterward Papa started pouring water on all the grandkid's heads. So, in retaliation the dads decided to get him back which started a great water fight

Yellowstone Day 2

We had yet another packed day ahead of us circling around the lower loop of Yellowstone. We first headed over to check out Old Faithful. As we headed down the road we could see Old Faithful going off in the distance. We had just missed it, but luckily this geyser is predictable and goes off every 90 minutes. We killed some time walking around the Upper Geiser Basin and checking out some more geysers, springs, and pools. We also killed some time and got some delicious ice cream for everyone while we sat and waited for Old Faithful to go off.

Killing time at Upper Geiser Basin

It's crazy to see how far down into the crust of the earth these pools go

Here we are with Old Faithful spouting up behind us

Hanging around with my girl

Next, we headed off to a picnic spot along the river for lunch. The kids enjoyed being able to run around and throw rocks into the river. What a great stop this was. Following this we headed off to the Fountain Paint Pot Trail. This one mile trail was filled with mudpots and colorful hot springs and was one of my favorite stops on the trip.

Allie was being hilarious. She would not put here feet in the shallow river, she kept them parallel to the ground everytime Blake would try to lower her in

Crossing the river with daddy; safely on his back

No justice is done with this picture; this pool was bubbling with mud

Next, we took off to the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone. What a unique landscape to have in Yellowstone, not expected at all. We checked out two great waterfalls. The Upper Falls were visible from right off the road where we parked. Then, we hiked a one mile trail to Artist Point where we had a beautiful view of the Lower Falls and the gorgeous yellow canyon, hence the name of the park....Yellowstone.

On our way to the Grand Canyon we witnessed this herd of buffalo who were blocking the oncoming traffic. The cars were backed up for about 5 miles because there was no where for the buffalo to go. On one side there was steep rock and the other side of the road there was a river. I'm just glad we were on the right side because we got to keep driving and got a great view of the herd

A shot of the lower falls...the picture doesn't do justice to the beatiful scenery

A view from Artist's Point; the end of our one mile hike

Our final stop for the evening was at Mud Volcano which was my favorite stop. There was the reminisense of a volcano that had erupted millions of years ago, which now is just a small bubbly muddy volcano. There was also a cool cave where water surges out and it's called the Dragon's Mouth. To top off this great stop, we had buffalo all along the trail, just laying in the grass and walking around.

Blake and Allie with some buffalo along the side of the trail

Allie and the Mud Volcano

Another fun patch of purple wildflowers that we spotted on the way home. I don't know why I just love these fields of flowers

Day 1 at Yellowstone

We packed up and headed off to Yellowstone on Tuesday night. We made it to Pocatello and camped at the KOA. We woke up Wednesday morning and headed over to Yellowstone. We made a couple of stops along the way, one which included Rexburg. My how the memories flooded back as we drove through the town. Next we headed up through Island Park and stopped off at Big Springs to see the gigantic rainbow trout and to eat lunch along the Henry Fork River.

We made it into Yellowstone that afternoon and met up with the Givens. We had a packed day to say the least. We made it through the Upper Loop of Yellowstone on day 1. Before we even got to our first stop we saw some buffalo right on the side of the road. You could never get enough of the buffalo although you saw them everywhere. Our first stop was Norris Geyser Basin. We walked around the wooded boardwalk and checked out mulitiple geysers and hot springs.

A beautiful field of wildflowers in Island Park, Idaho

Our first, but definitely not the last sighting of buffalo in Yellowstone

We headed up to the northwest corner next where we checked out Mammoth Hot Spring Terraces. Although there was no water at any of the springs, the rock formations were still very impressive. The town of Mammoth is right next to this stop and it was filled with Elk. It was pretty fun to check all of them out.

Allie, Blake, and I at Mammoth Hot Springs

A cool rock cascade with no water... I can only imagine what it would look like with the water

Our final stop for the evening was Tower Falls. This waterfall was very close to the road and had amazing rock formations around it. Afterwards we made our way back down around Yellowstone Lake and back to Grant Village where we set up camp for the night. Allie was such a nut. We were all trying to get our tents set up and then Blake and I were getting dinner ready and we could not keep Allie out of the dirt. She was filthy and there was nothing we could do about it. Good thing we could pay $2 to take a 6 minute shower and get Allie cleaned up. Honestly though, I have never camped where I've had to put in coins to operate a shower.

Tower Falls and the awesome tower of rocks around it

Allie and Cam back at Camp

Allie having a meltdown because no one would pick her up...I wonder why

Finally, daddy gives in and decides to give the dirty girl some love

Much in need of a shower