In Rexburg

We spent a couple of days in Rexburg a couple of weeks ago.  It was a fun trip.

My sister Kylee and her husband Chas had their first child on Valentine's Day.  So we went to see the baby blessing.  Little Raine was so adorable.

And here is everyone after the blessing before people started going their separate ways.  I think everyone is looking at the camera too so that is pretty amazing.

We met in a park in Idaho Falls and had a picnic together on Saturday.

Adam loved going down the slide with Whitney.

If this looks like a baby in a toy store, you would be correct.  We went to an awesome toy store in Idaho Falls.  There were so many toys out that the kids could play with and enjoy while parents shopped.

The girls got into playing some music.  They made a cute band.

Then some of us went to a kids art museum.  There was a power outage right when we arrived but we stuck around and the lights came back on like twenty minutes later.

Here the kids all put on costumes and made videos using a green screen.  They played with this for a really long time.

I don't know how a big slide is really art, but the kids loved it.

And a lot of time was spent hanging out at Kylee and Chas' clubhouse.

You can see that Megan and her cousin Tessa had so much fun together.  They chased each other all over.  If Zach and Conner look too comfortable back there, never worry they were about to be jumped on and "trapped" by Whitney and Rachel.

So it was a really fun couple of days.  I think my kids did pretty good in the long car drives.  Thanks mom and dad for driving us and paying for the motel.  Now we are back at home and relaxing.

A Police Party

What a fun party we had yesterday.  Whitney turned seven years old and she decided that she wanted to have a police themed birthday party.  So I got on Pinterest to get some ideas.

We had a couple of small activities while we waited for all the guests.  Here the kids are decorating their goody bags.

They also got to color a police picture.

A cool thing about the party was that I had Will record 'police dispatch' messages on my cell phone.  So before any police case the kids would listen to the message to see what had happened.  Here the police dogs had been stolen.  The only clue was the letter 'K'.

The clue led them outside where they found a '9'.  Get it, K-9.  I don't know if the kids got it but I thought it was funny.  This clue led them all the way down the yard to the getaway truck that was carry little cute plastic dogs - one for each kid.

Another phone dispatch told the policemen to find the missing robbers who had stolen gold from the bank.  Will and I had hidden them around right before the party began.

Here the kids had to find the suspect fingerprint out of a paper of look alike fingerprints.

Another call came in and the kids had to do target practice.  We did a relay with nerf guns and some little targets painted onto boxes.

It was time for the pin the badge on the police man game.

And then the donuts were stolen and we had to find the suspect.  I used Apples to Apples pictures of people and gave out clues until the kids had narrowed it down to just one suspect.

After solving all the mysteries and stopping the bad guys, the kids got to make honorary police badges.

Then it was time for Whitney to open presents.  She got a lot of really great things.  So far she has opened quite a few things and has loved them all.

My mom was nice and made French bread pizza during the present opening.  The kids got to eat pizza and 'cop'corn  and soda'cop' and donuts.

And my dad was nice and watched this little guy during the party since Will and I were quite busy and Adam wanted to get into everything.

It was a fun party.  I am glad Whitney liked it but now I am happy that it is done.  I have until August before I have to plan another big party.

The Sage Center

We have been in the area for almost four years and we had never gone to the Sage Center in Boardman.  So on Presidents Day we decided to fix that.  I didn't know much about the center besides that it was about agriculture and was kid friendly.

There were lots of fun things for the kids to do.  Here Rachel spins the wheel to see the impact of water on the community.

Practicing being a farmer and driving a tractor along a path.  I didn't know that tractors were automatically driven by machines.

This is getting the feel of aged cheese.

Whitney practices milking a cow.

Here the kids got to push a button for different crops that are grown in the area and then see how those are exported around the world.

This was our "hot air balloon ride".  You get on and go on a eight minute ride where the balloon goes up and down about a foot and you watch a video that is suppose to look like you are flying over Boardman.  

The girls loved this and kept going back.  Here you play a little game where you try to flick off the bad French fries and just let the good fries fall into the basket.  It was really tricky since the fries traveled quickly.

Upstairs was a huge traveling display of how potatoes get made into French fries.  I thought this was really cool.

And we decided to treat ourselves to some Tillamook ice cream.  The ice cream was delicious.

Then we went outside and got to touch the huge farm machines.

The day was warm enough to spend a little time at the park outside of the center.

Adam loved his little rocking cow ride.  He was very good at the Sage Center and was looking awfully cute.

It was a fun center and now we know somewhere else we can bring people when they come visit us.