We watched our friends' dog recently.  Rowdy.  That's his name, and that's what he is when we put him outside.  He has a bit of an inferiority complex when it comes to larger dogs.  He's very cute and I love having him around, but when it was time for him to go home I was ready for some peace and quiet!  Jones is always pretty jealous of Rowdy.  Sometimes, when we felt like teasing him, we would talk extra sweetly to Rowdy and hold him close.  Jones was right there the moment we started, shoving Rowdy aside.  Poor Jones.

 When Aspen was starting kindergarten Eric took her on a "kindergarten campout", just the two of them.  He did the same thing with Oakley, but it was after his kindergarten year.  Since we couldn't make it happen last summer, Birch got to have his a year later as well, and Eric took him up to McCall for some daddy/wilderness time.

 Birch had been asking about it for weeks.  They had a great time together, though it was just a one night trip.  There was a bit of extra excitement though...

 Birch couldn't wait to go fishing!  And on Saturday when they got onto the river,

 Birch decided to climb out of the canoe to stand on a nearby log.

 When he tried to climb back in (just after this photo was taken), he tipped over the canoe.  Eric and B's fishing pole fell into the water.  Miraculously when they tipped the canoe back over, Eric's phone was somehow still in the canoe, dry, instead of on the bottom of the river like the fishing pole!

 Roo took a basketball class over the summer.  She'd never played basketball before, and she was excited to try it.  When I picked her up after the first day, she informed me she was the only girl on the team.   I thought she might want to switch to another class, but she was fine to stick it out.  She really enjoyed the sport, and had a great female coach.  On the last day of class, the students scrimmaged their parents.  That was a lot of fun; I'm not very talented at basketball, but I love playing it, and I happened to make a basket!

 I hope she continues to play; maybe we can find her a team with some girls on it!

Eric got to go on what's called "high adventure" with the 14-18 year old boys from church this year, along with some other leaders.  They hiked Mt. Borah, getting at the base Friday night and getting up to hike the next morning at 4:30.  The ascent to Mt Borah is about 4 miles long, but within those 4 miles there's an elevation gain of over 5,000 feet!  At the top there is a place called chicken out ridge.

Chicken out ridge is a place where many hikers turn around, but Eric informed me that all but two boys made it through this point.

The photos look amazing, and Eric had a great time, but when I asked him how it was he said, "I'm never doing that again."

Little did our kids know that while Eric was getting ready for his hike Friday night, I was packing things up for a surprise trip to Disneyland.  The kids were sleeping at Mom and Dad's, and the plan was to pick them up in the morning and start the drive to Beaver, Utah, where we would spend the night.  Eric would take a plane Sunday morning and meet us in Anaheim then.  When I picked up the kids on Saturday, we drove to Maverick to fill up the car.  I asked the kids what they wanted to do that day and they threw out some ideas.  I had "A Pirate's Life for Me" playing, and then said, "I know, why don't we go to Disneyland today??"  The kids just looked at me, and then started explaining to me how we couldn't just up and go to Disneyland (how responsible)!  After a few minutes I told them I was serious, and when they still didn't believe me I told them to look in the back of the car at the luggage.  We were pulling out of the gas station and they still didn't believe me; it took another 5-10 mins.  But once they did they were so excited; it was a great reaction from them!
We stopped that first day and spent an hour or two with the Egglis.  Sash was so sweet and fed us dinner; french toast and it was delicious!  Then we made our way to Beaver to stop for the night.
The next day we drove through a small part of Arizona; it was amazing.  We drove through a canyon of red rock; the kids and I were dumbfounded with how majestic it was.  The kids thought it looked like the real Radiator Springs.

At a gas station in Nevada

We finally made it to Disneyland and met Eric there.  We had decided last minute (two weeks beforehand) to make the trip for two reasons.  First and most of all, because of some crowd control Disney had done for the opening of their Star Wars side of the park, the lines were ridiculously short.  We would have all the bonuses of being there in the summertime (which we'd never do because of all the crowds), and the short lines.  The other reason is because, come on, it had been almost a whole year since we'd been there!  I think we have a Disney problem.

We like Disney movies, etc and all, but we're not fanatics or anything. There's just something about being in the park.  It really is just so much fun.  Here's photos from the trip.

Our friends, the Waites, were going to be in the park during the time we were there, so we surprised the kids and met up with them one night and rode on It's a Small World together.  Get it? ;) It was so fun to see them there.

Roo with Katelyn and Sidney

The boys with Luke

I can never do anything but scream on Splash Mountain

The park was really slow in the mornings; we could walk onto almost any ride until about 11/12:00.  Then we'd go swim at the hotel for a bit or just lay low for a while until the evenings.  Disneyland opens at 7:00 in the mornings and closes at midnight during the summer, so we had a lot of time to play, and could spend some of it resting.  It was wonderful; I'm so glad we made the trip!

silly photos the kids took

These were taken at the Carnation Cafe, a place we hadn't eaten at before.  It was just okay.

Star Wars land was really impressive!  Only one ride, but a lot to see, and it all looked very real.

With an app you could do some neat things with your phone, like make aircraft light up and make sounds.  There were also other interactive things there.

The Millenium Falcon ride was a lot of fun; it was the one ride we had to stand in line for for a long time; but not too bad.  40 minutes the first time and an hour the second.

We took B to toon town; hadn't been there in a while.  He liked seeing Mickey's house.

First time seeing Tinkerbell

Love playing at Tom Sawyer's Island

Dinner at the Blue Bayou; one of our favorite things to do there.

B really wanted to meet Spiderman; this Spiderman was great!  He chatted with Birch for a while and stayed in character really well.

I don't know if you can see Birch's face in this photo; he is absolutely terrified.  He's been on Splash Mountain many times, but for some reason this time he didn't want to ride it.  He told us he was scared of getting wet, so we had him sit in the middle of the boat.  However, the entire first part of the ride he was sobbing, yelling.  "I don't want to get wet!"  Then, between the characters' singing I would hear "waaaah! waaaah! waaaah!"  I felt bad for him, but he was definitely overreacting, to the point the rest of us were laughing.  After we went down the big splash, I kid you not, the millisecond it was over he turned around and said to me, "that wasn't bad!" with a big smile, and zero tears on his face!  Curious.

Getting green milk from Star Wars Land (it looks yellow but was green).  It was interesting; a sort of tropical flavor but nothing to compare it to.

Our last night in the park.  There's a new restaurant by the Jungle Cruise and we checked it out.  They have a sort of asian dumpling with meat and veggie filling that was delicious!  Poor Roo wasn't feeling well.  We were trying to make it to midnight, but around 11:00 she really started struggling and we spent the next half hour in the bathroom.  She was having pains in her stomach and was afraid she'd throw up, though she never did.  We finally made it to the hotel, and after resting for a bit started feeling better.  The next day we headed home.

On our way home we grabbed milkshakes.  After a few hours Aspen was in pain again.  The day before we had gotten ice cream.  My suspicions were confirmed that Aspen is lactose intolerant (and that we were eating too much ice cream!).  She'd been complaining of similar pains over the summer, but I hadn't seen a clear pattern until now.  Poor thing!  But I'm so glad we know now.

Poor Jones being dressed up as a pirate

Some dioramas the kids made with Nana. O's on top, then B's, then Roo's.  Aren't they cute?

O went camping one night with his Papa, so B and Roo had a slumber party :)

We bought a pack n' play for our cabin guests to use, and Birch just had to sleep in it!

at the zoo; O is giving the wild dog bunny ears :/

floating the Boise river with friends

spending a little family time at the temple...we did our family scripture study on the grounds.  love being there so much!

One more trip to the cabin before summer's over!  This girl can squat....!

fishing; never caught anything but had fun trying

sand castle competition

we painted the cabin door blue

early morning fishing; Oakley

Birch...fishing is exhausting!

School orientation!

at Scentsy

Revostate's billboard!  So exciting to see this.  Eric and his buddies launched their business recently and though it's hard to see in the photo, their billboard ad looks awesome!  Visit Revostate.com!!

First day of school; Roo starting 6th grade! :(

O in 3rd

B in first.  Time goes by too fast.