Weekend Getaway #2

Since we had so much fun going to Twin Falls in February we decided to take a Saturday and take the kids to see Shoshone Falls. We left around 11:30am, had sandwiches in the car then stopped at Malad Gorge. The kids were very impressed with the huge hole in the ground.

After stopping at the Gorge we headed on to Twin Falls to go visit the college to see the 2:00pm show at the Planterium. The show ended up being about the weather. Pretty cool but a lot to remember. We let each of the kids pick something out from the gift shop.

Emma got a necklace and some sort of gem stone.

Ethan picked out a big "diamond". Ohhhh, sparkly!

Ella picked out a tiny little sticky bug that cost .10. She lost it the next day.

We then headed towards Shoshone Falls. I think everyone was there trying to see the falls since it took us 1 1/2 hours to go 2 miles. WOW. We ended up parking our van and walking the last part. It was well worth it. The falls were awesome. All the kids thought it was really neat and I was surprised that they all went out to the overlook place without being scared.



After the LONG walk back to the van (by this time everyone was hot, tired and hungry) we took everyone out to Mexican food. The ride home was pretty quiet, we ended up getting home around 8:30pm. Just in time to put the kids to bed.

It is nice to be in a state where we have so much to do within a short distance. I think the next thing we will have to go do is camping in the mountains.

Bad Easter Bunny!

When the Easter bunny comes to our house he always brings WAY TOO much candy! Doesn't he know who usually ends up eating it? (that would be me, mom)

Ella loves candy! She ate almost all the candy in her basket Easter day. The Easter bunny brought her a Mr. Potato head dressed like a bunny to add to her collection. In the picture below Ella kept calling the carrot a corn. I thought that was pretty funny because it doesn't even look like corn???

Ethan finally got the sunglasses he has been asking for. He has barely taken them off since Easter. Hopefully he will have them for more than a couple days.

Emma got a pack of super cute socks with skull and crossbones wearing pink bows. Emma loves that kinda stuff so I am sure the Easter bunny couldn't resist bringing them for her.

Easter afternoon we went to Grandma and Grandpa Richards house for dinner. After wards Grandpa loaded up the little kids on the bike and took them for a ride. Ethan thought he looked so cool with his new sunglasses.

We had a great day, now we just need to work on getting rid of that candy before mom eats it all!

Easter Fun at Grandma's house

Saturday afternoon we went over to Grandma & Grandpa Richards house to color Easter eggs with all the cousins. Ethan thought it was great, he is finally understanding holidays now. Ella likes it just because the other kids are excited. (and she gets candy)






Once everyone was done coloring eggs the kids went out back and looked for Easter eggs.

After a hard days work of Easter fun, nothing feels better than a dip in the hot tub.

Artsy Fartsy Emma

If you know Emma, you know that she is always making something crafty or drawing pictures. The other day we found her filling out a submission for a school wide art contest. The winner would have their art work professionally framed and displayed in the school district office for one year.

Today we found out that Emma had won the contest for her entire school. That's K-5! We were so proud! Her art will be shipped off to be framed tomorrow.

Her art peice she submitted is a blue bird (Idaho's State bird) sitting on a wire, with morning glory creeping up toward it. She used pen, color pencil and water color. We called it mixed media, she thought that sounded professional.

Goodbye Winter , , , Hello Spring!!!

It has been a long winter! We are all ready for spring to be here so we can play outside. I couldn't resist buying some flowers this week since my yard is so drab. I broke out the shovel and planted while Ethan and Ella so kindly watered them. What good helpers I have.



They also got a kick out of finding worms in the dirt.

St. Patrick's Day

We decided for our Family Home Evening this week we would send Aunt Amanda (who is on a mission in South Carolina) a box of cookies and St. Patrick's Day coloring sheets. Emma made the chocolate chip cookies with green M&M's on top & Ethan and Ella colored Aunt Amanda pictures. We had a lot of fun and we hope she was excited to get her box. We miss you Amanda!

Oh, Bubble Gum...

Ethan has been wanting to go to the store to get the "green gum". That's green apple bubble gum. Well, today we went out and got him some. He got to go out with just Dad and pick out his gum and buy it, all by himself.

When we got back to the car after buying it, he said "Oh bubble gum, this is going to be so great." It was so hilarious. Good times.

My sick little Ella

So right after getting home from our weekend get away Ella got sick. Her asthma was terrible, she had a fever and she was coughing and wheezing like crazy. After a visit to her doctor she was put on antibiotics, a liquid steroid for her lungs and she has to do her nebulizer every 4 hours. She is starting to get better but now Ethan is sick . . . I just can't win. Good thing I have sick leave from work. Here is a picture of took of Ella, I walked in on her doing her nebulizer and she was watching some show like "What not to wear", I thought it was pretty funny.

Weekend Getaway

Nathan's dad came into town for a week and so we thought it would be fun to get away for the weekend. So Nathan planned a romantic get away. We ended up leaving Friday afternoon right after work. I had no idea where we were going or what we were going to do. We ended up going to Twin Falls because we drive past it all the time on our way down to Utah but have never stopped to see what all was there. So we stayed at the Holiday Inn Express (which was under construction so the pool and hot tub was not in service. Strike 1) We went over to a local pizza place and had dinner then we wandered around Target for a while. The next morning we got up somewhat early so we could hit the Continental breakfast, (ended up being not so great, Strike 2) so we headed for Shari's and had breakfast.

Next on our agenda was going to visit the beautiful Shoshone Falls! It was super cold so we took some pictures and left. We will go visit again with the kids when it is warm. Since the falls didn't take as long as we planned we wandered around the mall, which took us a whole 20 minutes & Fred Meyer about 45 minutes. Next we went to the college to visit the Planetarium. That ended up being really neat. We visited the gift shop and walked around the museum for almost an hour.

Dinner was next, we went to Mexican and then went to go see Confessions of a Shopaholic at the movie theater. Right after the movie we drove home. It was a fun filled 1 1/2 days, Nathan did a great job. I am super lucky to have such an awesome husband!

Cake up for bid!

Last week one of my good friend's aunt purchased a cake from me that she was putting into a cake auction. I found out today that the final price of the cake ended up going for $160.00! Wow, that made me feel pretty good about myself. Here is the picture.