Twin Falls and the Temple

With the Boise Temple being closed since last July, it has been a long time since Andrew and I have been to the temple.  My brother, Cory his wife and 4 kids live 3-4 hours away from the twin falls temple. 

Last Saturday, we decided to meet up in Twins Falls and take turns watching each others kids so that we could all have a chance to attend the temple. 

Since Andrew delivers and drives home from Eastern Idaho early Saturday morning, the boys and I picked up Andrew where he parked his Semi in Twin Falls.  We then met up with Cory and Melissa at the temple.  The kids played at a park from about 9:30 in the morning until around 2:30 in the afternoon while Andrew and I and Cory and Melissa took turns attending the temple.  After we were all done, we went to Shoshone Falls.  We then went to dinner and headed home.  My boys had so much fun and were so tired that within 15 minutes of being on the road, they were all asleep and slept the whole way home.  Since Andrew still had to drive his Semi home, I had quite the quiet drive home. 

Here are some pictures of the falls.

The Zoo

Keagan has been on track break for the last couple of weeks.  We have had a lot of fun with Neal in town, going to Oregon and then this week, we have Andrew's parents in town.  During the whole three weeks, there one 1 day that we were all home together, just us, for the whole day, that was last Thursday.  It was forecasted to be a beautiful day and it did not disappoint, so we took the kids to the Zoo.  Here are some pictures of our fun. 

Keagan and Deker on the giraffe slide.

Bauer

My turn

Lst, but not least, Andrew.

Keagan in the turtle shell.

My boys in the birds nest.

Playing in the "tree house".

And of course, the Jeep.  No matter how many times we go, this is their favorite stop.

Oregon

Just over a week ago, we went up to visit our good friends, Dan & Angela, in Oregon so that Andrew could help Dan paint the inside of the house they are remodeling.  Angela's parents own and live on a ranch and they have a couple of tractors.  Of course, my boys were very excited and had fun playing for the day and a half that we were there. 

Bauer's turn.

Angel's Dad gook Keagan on a tractor ride on Sunday afternoon.  Deker, for some reason, got a little scared and wouldn't go.

On Monday, Angela's brother, Drew was there working on some fences, taking out poles, drilling holes and putting in more posts.  Keagan spent pretty much the whole day up with him riding in the truck, tractor and watching him.  Deker spent quite a bit of time with Drew as well. 

Deker riding on the tractor with Drew.

Neal's Visit

About a month after my little brother got home from serving his LDS mission, he came up for a visit and also to tour a college he was looking at.  Keagan and Deker were so excited to have him come visit.  We had such a great time with him here for a week. 

A scene like this was seen often.

One day while he was here, we took him up to Table Rock which is a mountain that you can drive up and see the whole valley.  This was the first time that we have taken our boys up there and they had a lot of fun.

We had some rainy days, so one morning, we decided to make slime/gak.  We made a blue one and a yellow one.  I would have made one more for Bauer, but I ran out of glue. 

We also went to the Aquarium.  There were two guys working on an exhibit and Deker was more interested in watching them than looking at the fish.

Bauer was quite taken with Neal right away.  The second day Neal was there, I was trying to put Bauer's shoes and jacket on him and he would not let me help him, he insisted that Uncle Neal help him.

We had so much fun with Neal visiting us.  We are so excited that he is going to move in with us a for a few months while he goes to school.

Fire Station

At the beginning of March, Deker's preschool group went to the Fire Station for a field trip. Deker was so very excited about the Fire Station.  Here are a few of the kids in front of a mural on the wall of the meeting room.

During the tour, When you walk out to where the fire truck are kept, there is the first thing you see is this huge map on the wall so that they can find where they are going easily.  Deker is pointing our our address. 

Deker was so excited for days about going to the Fire Station and kept talking about wanting to drive a fire truck "for pretend" he would always say.  Once we actually got out to the fire trucks, though, he got really scared and wouldn't get in it or anything.  After a little bit, one the Fireman got in the truck and I made Deker sit on his lap and after a moment, he realized that it wasn't so bad. 

Me and two of my boys.

The very cool Boise State Fire truck. 

At the end, they gave each kid a sticker and these awesome fire hats.  They even let us have an extra one for Keagan because we knew he would be sad if we didn't have one for him.

Randomness

With the weather warming up a little, the boys have been LOVING being able to go outside and play more.  Here they are swinging.  The past few days, they have been working on building a "fire". 

Here are the boys pretending to be dogs and getting petted by Andrew.

The boys all really LOVE the pillow pets they got from Grandma & Grandpa Smith for Christmas.  Here they are having fun with them.

One day while Keagan was at school and Deker was at preschool, Bauer and I were home.  I left him on the couch and I thought he was watching a cartoon, when I went to get him to go pick up Deker from preschool just 5 minutes later, I found him asleep on the couch.  This is something my other boys have never done. 

Trip Home

In looking through my pictures of the past couple of months, I realized that I really need to get better at taking pictures. 

In February, my little brother got home from serving a 2 year LDS mission in Campinas Brazil.  The following weekend all of us brothers and sisters and our families decended on the small town of Caliente, Nevada.  Andrew and I took our kids to J&J's for lunch (a must do when visiting Caliente since it is one of the few restaurants there) of piccadilly chips.  Outside the gas station/restuarant is this green Sinclair dinosaur which the boys insist on sitting on each time. 

On Saturday, those crazy bike riders of the family went on a 35 mile bike.  The kids were outside playing and we ran to greet them when they got back. 

On the way home, Andrew was kind enough to hit a bird and it decided to stay on the antenna which is on my side of the van.  We didn't want to stop right away because Bauer was asleep and we didn't want to wake him up so it stayed there for a while. 

While we were all together, we got some nice family pictures taken.  Here is a picture of my parents their kids and grandkids.  We are quite the group, 30 of us in total.

We has such a fun time visiting family and were sad to have to leave at the end of the trip.