Pig Tails

I have been patiently (or not so patiently) waiting for Abbie's hair to get long enough for me to put into REAL pigtails.  Well finally that day is HERE!!  Yesterday she sat still and let me do her hair into these adorable pig tails.  It was so much fun to do her hair.  Then while we were at the store I let her pick out some clips and barrettes to do her hair with.  I'm glad that I can finally do more than just let her hair be a big mass of curls all the time.

The only down side of the cute hair........... she seemed so old with her hair pulled back like this.

It's Growing Something!!!!

We had this mysterious plant growing in our front flower garden all spring and summer. We didn't plant it so we have had no idea what it was and it hasn't had anything actually growing on it til now so we haven't know what to do with it.  I have been really tempted to dig it up especially recently because it is taking over the whole flower garden (not that there is anything planted in it anyway) but still.  Today Jake showed me what he saw while mowing the law, at least 4 little somethings.  I'm still not sure what they are, but they might pumpkins, guess we will have to wait and see.

Craters of the Moon

On our last day in Idaho we went to see the museum about EBR-1, the first nuclear power plant, that is out where Jake works.  It was interesting to see how much we have learned about nuclear power in 60 years since this first attempt.  Ashton and Abbie weren't very impressed with the museum itself (can you blame them) but Ashton did have a blast playing with these robotic arms that they used to work on things behind these thick walls so they weren't exposed to the radiation.  He was really good at using the robotic hand to pick up marbles and put them in a container then dumping out that container to do it all over again.  He would have stayed and played all day he said.  I didn't take any pictures even though I had my camera, I don't know what I was thinking.  Jake had a good time explaining things to Lexie and I think she really enjoyed learning more about some of the stuff that Jake does at his job, well sort of anyway.  He is now working on the dismantling of EBR-2, the next nuclear power plant they build and used out there.  We did get to see, from a distance, where Jake actually works now.

Craters of the Moon

 After the museum we went to Craters of the Moon.  I can't say we really had a good time there, but I think we might go back and give it another try on a day when the weather cooperates better and the park isn't under construction.  We couldn't see about half the park because the roads were all under construction and it was really windy and raining so nobody really wanted to get out of the car.  But we did see a little.

This is inside a splatter cone, it was kinda cool.  Then we went to this (I can't remember what it was called)

and the kids were amazed that inside this hole......

was snow still left over from last winter....

see it down there in the corner.  

There were cool lava formations there and somewhere there are caves that you can go in, but we never found them because we were to cold to get out of the car.  

Yellowstone

Since it is only about 2 hours from Idaho Falls to Yellowstone we decided to go for a mini vacation up there while we were Idaho Falls last weekend.  When we went to Yellowstone last fall one of the roads was closed for construction and then there was the fire that had the other road closed for  most of the time we were there, so we had the whole northern part of Yellowstone to explore.  We had never been to Norris or Mammoth so we started there and tried to see as much of the park as we could from there.  It is impossible to see the whole park in only one day but we did get about halfway around.  It was lots of fun, the kids enjoyed seeing the park when it wasn't so cold like last time, and it was busier but not to bad.

Here is some of the scenery pictures that I took along the way.  We are probably going back to Yellowstone in September because as we were leaving the park Ashton was upset that "we didn't even get to see Old Faithful" this time because we didn't go that way first and we never made it even close to getting back there.

Feeding the ducks

We arrived in Idaho Falls Friday afternoon, and after dinner we went and got ice cream at Reed's Dairy.  It was delicious.  Go there if you ever are in Idaho Falls.  Then we went down to the green belt to walk around and see the river.  There were tons of ducks and people were feeding them bread, the kids wanted to feed them too, but we hadn't brought any bread.  A little family must have overheard our kids because the next thing I knew one of the ladies was bringing our kids bread slices so that they could feed the ducks.  Then she brought us more as they were leaving, they were so nice.  Abbie was really cute, she kept calling to the ducks, "here ducky, ducky, ducky... I have food for you"  then we would convince her that she needed to throw it to them in the water.

I wish I could have gotten their faces, but I wasn't about to step into the Snake River for the shot.  Then Abbie starting playing around on the rocks and was being such a ham that I had to take a few shot of her.

We had fun that night.  The next morning we went to Yellowstone, more on that in the next post.

Sneak Peak.... Yellowstone

We spent the weekend visiting Jake in Idaho Falls.  Saturday we went Yellowstone and had a great time. (thanks to the random man who took this picture for us, it is one of the best ones from the trip.)  More info later when the mountain of vacation laundry has been put away.

What a storm

It started raining about 10 minutes ago and man it is raining. It hasn't rained like this here for a LONG time.  There is a detention park next to our house (that when we first moved into our house and there were still lots of people with unfinished yards and empty lots it would fill up with some water every time it rained)  but it hasn't had water like this in it for a while.  Well this is what it looked like today within minutes of it starting to rain.  (This is a really deep hole when it is dry, I will have to take a picture later to show just how much water there is here.)

Oh and it hailed some too....

The point of the park is to catch the water that would be flooding the streets until the drains can handle the water again and then it goes away.  There is never water just sitting there thank goodness.  But it still makes me nervous when it does this.

A Little Duet

Today I had the Children's Songbook playing on Itunes.  (Ashton was having a hard day and I have found that having church music playing softly in the background helps him be able to stay calm.)  I was busy cleaning the kitchen when I realized that I kept hearing the same little voices singing the same thing over and over again.  I had to grab my camera it was so cute, and I thought I would share.

Preschool

Today was Ashton's first day of preschool.  I can't believe that he is big enough to go to a real half day preschool.  He has been going to a weekly neighborhood preschool co-op for the last two years but this is the real thing.

He was a little nervous when we first got there to drop him off.  

But when I came back to pick him up after he was all smiles.  He loves his teacher Miss Amber, and had a great first day.  They painted with feathers and made a duck.  He has talked about preschool all day since he came home.  My little guy is growing up.  

Even Abbie had fun, she wished that she could have stayed too.