While the Boys are Away...

While the boys were out riding through the hills, the girls and I stayed at my parents house and just hung out with my mom, my sister, my sister-in-law (and kids) and my niece (and kids). As mentioned in earlier blogs Baylee and Jaten are the best of friends. I have seriously never seen two kids get along better than these two. They play, and play hard and never get tired of each other. Never is a harsh work spoken. Pretty dang good for a 3 year old and a 4 year old! The kids had a great time playing in my mom's new back yard! There is still work to do on it, but it is already so beautiful! They work so hard on it. It was a great day all around. Thanks mom and dad! You're the greatest!

Mom and Dad's back yard

Playing in the creek that goes from the pond to the canal (Baylee is in dress up of course!)

A Day With The Boys

Last weekend we packed up the girls and went to my parents house in Mackay. Josh and my dad had been talking about taking their 4-wheelers out for a ride in the hills. One by one, more people were added to the group. By Saturday at 11:00am 6 4-wheelers and 1 motorcycle were being packed and ready for what would turn out to be a 10 hour trip! The group include Josh, my dad, my brother Brad, my brother-in-law Doug, nephew Dallin, nephew-in-law Dustin, and the neighbor Cameron. It was quite the site to see them drive down the road with my dad leading the way! They rode up to one of the high mountain lakes and fished and just had a great time. I'm so glad they were all able to have a guys day out!

Josh getting ready for the 97 mile ride

Doug, Brad, Dad, Josh, Dallin, Dustin, Cameron

Pump it Up!

Today was the day the Baylee has been waiting for all month. Kayleigh's birthday party at Pump it Up. Kayleigh is her friend from daycare and she invited both girls to her party. They were so excited. I took some time off work this morning so I could go with them. Tenlee is still a little young for most of the bounce houses, but she still had a good time. They both had so much fun with all the kids so it was a good day in their little lives. I'm sure Baylee will be talking about this for awhile. She talked about the last "bouncy party" she went to for months! I'm never going to hear the end of this one! But I love it when she gets so excited about things like this. Oh to be young again!

Baylee and Kayleigh

Happy 4th!

After spending almost 2 weeks away from home, it was good to be home for the 4th. I think I needed the last 3 days to recoup from being gone for so long. And so did the girls! They have been sleeping so much. They are going to hate getting up early to go to daycare tomorrow.


Friday night we spend the evening at Crystal and David's house for a 4th of July/birthday party for Cassi (and Dave). It was a great night to spend with Josh's family. Sierra and Dave and the boys were here too so it was definitely a party! Thanks Crystal and David! We ended the evening with a tiki man pinata, a game of kickball and of course, fireworks. My intense fear of fire keeps me way back away from the fireworks, however one still managed to find me! One of the fireworks didn't work the way it was supposed to and tried to take off my foot! Luckly it just grazed over the top and nobody was hurt. But I spend the rest of the night in the house watching the display.

Tenlee

Baylee

Baylee running bases with Aunt Sierra

Nice swing Baylee!

Josh and Tenlee on the trampoline
Saturday night I had to work at Meridian Speedway. My work sponsors a racecar driver and the Speedway so it was our big sponsorship night. Josh's family joined us for the fun. Overall, it was a great ending to a fun vacation. But I think I'm ready to get back to a normal routine, even if that means getting up and going to work. But I love my job, so I don't mind too much.

Vacation Part 3 - Going Home

For the last part of our vacation, we stayed at my mom and dad's house for one more night. The girls love it there. And now that grass has been planted and starting to grow, the girls love to play outside too. We spent all of Thursday in there and drove home late that night. It was a long trip. Lots of driving, but it was good. I needed the break from work (although I couldn't keep from checking my email along the way and making sure everything was ok at the office!). Spending this time with Josh and the girls and other members of my family was a great memory. We may not have done a lot of super fun things, but we were together and that is all that matters!

Vacation Part 2 - Driving through Montana

Josh talked me in to taking the week off to go to Montana with him. This was right after spending the previous weekend in Utah. So instead of driving home to Boise we went straight to my parents house in Mackay and left the next morning for Montana. When everything was all said and done, we were away from home for 10 days! That's a lot of packing!

We traveled to Billings the first night and stayed. The girls and I hung out at the hotel while Josh worked Tuesday morning. So we swam and watched movied and walked the around the hotel. The hotel lobby had waterfalls, ponds with fish and big rocks to climb on so it kept us busy for the most part. Tuesday afternoon we drove to Great Falls. On the way we drove into 2 huge rain storms! There was lightening everywhere and we could barely see the road! The girls didn't like that too much. Once we got past the rain we came across windmills. Hundreds of windmills. They went on for miles. From far away they didn't look that big. But as we got closer we were amazed by their size. As we drove into the closest town they had one of the blades of the windmill laying on the ground. I'm standing by it so you can get an idea of how huge the things really were.

Wednesday we waited for Josh to get done with work. Took much longer that any of us thought, but the girls kept themselves occupied by watching Barbie and the 12 Dancing Princesses for the 100th time. Then we were on our way back to Mackay for the last leg of our trip.

What do you do to kill time in a hotel? Make a tent out of the porta crib, whatelse!

Vacation Part 1 - Wolf Creek, UT

My sister planned a family trip to Wolf Creek Resort in Eden, UT. However only part of my family was able to make the trip. But we still had a great time. We stayed in condos which made it nice to put kids down for naps and to cook our own food. There was lots to do at the resort. Baylee and Jaten spent hours in the pool! They are the best of friends. Overall, it was a good time spent with family. Hopefully next year all my family will be together!

James (Jaris hubby, Ryan, & Josh)

Vacation - I think!

• 10 days


• Over 2,000 miles driven


• 30+ hours in a car


• 3 states (Idaho, Utah, Montana)


• 1 grandma's house, 1 condo and 2 hotels


• Countless viewings of Barbie Princess movies

Thankfully there were no injuries, accidents or other catastrophes to add to this list. For the most part, it was a good trip but I don't think the girls (or me) will be too eager to get in a car anytime soon!