Jump Time Twin Falls

We came to Twin to celebrate Cooper's birthday, and have a little family get-together for Logan's farewell. We took over Jump Time with all of our kids. Lots of tag, jumping, racing, a couple kids learning back flips, and an all-around good time with cousins.

Lucas has a special bond with Hannah, and loves to be around her. He'd play for a while, and then come find me so I could help him find his Hannah. She's a sweetie. 

Jake had a lot of fun trying different special moves into the foam pit. Lucas like the idea, but wouldn't actually jump in. He'd run/jump to the edge, and then climb in...

 A couple selfies from Lucas.

 The kids love spending the night at Amber's on the over-sized bean bags.

And the kids discovered Moana at April's house -- and it entertained the whole crowd. We bought the movie soon after. 

Aug 26-27, 2017

Solar Eclipse

I had no idea the solar eclipse was going to be such a big deal, and procrastinated buying glasses until I went looking for them a day or two before, and discovered they were sold out. Everywhere. I then, googled the pinhole projector idea, and had started making one, when our hero of the day, Mr. Brad Wight, strolled in the door with a pair of glasses for each of us just in time to watch. Scentsy had them, and was giving them to the employees. Sweet!

It was such a cool experience feeling the temperature go down, hearing crickets chirp mid-day, and seeing it darken all around us. We didn't have the complete eclipse at our house, but about 97%. I attempted to take a picture through the glasses.

August 21, 2017

Official End of Summer

 And the kids are off for another year in school! Emma to fourth grade with Mrs. Bowen, and Jake to first grade with Ms. Palmer. Good luck young ones; I'm sure you'll be spectacular and do amazing things!

 Aug 14, 2017

Swimming Lessons

 After swimming for days in California, we came back to swimming lessons the following Monday. Emma was completely comfortable in the deep end, Jake jumped off the diving bored for the first time, floated on his back, and swam a few feet on his own. Lucas, who ordinarily loves the water, experienced his first ever swimming lessons, and didn't want any instructors to touch him. At all. They would come to get him from the stairs when it was his turn, and if he'd see them, he'd jump out of the water out of their reaching distance. Occasionally, they catch him and take him for a swim.

 He thoroughly enjoyed the free time day though, when they just sat near him while he played. Stinker.

July 2017

Headed Home

We only had about half a day before we had to get to the airport, so we headed out of the hotel just to explore a little bit. We found this lizard on the hotel grounds. I convinced Emma to touch it.

 We headed over to the USS Midway area so the kids could see the big ships. We couldn't pass up a pose like this.

 We sat by the ocean and found little crabs scurrying about, watched the big ships, and just enjoyed chatting for a bit.

We found some cool tree roots to try and balance on.

And then back to the airport, killing some extra time with electronics.

Lucas had had enough of being away from home, and had a hard flight, but was kept happy most of the time with movies and me holding him, continuing to tell him, we had to stay on the plane to get home.

When talking about going on our first airplane, Emma was concerned that their would be lightning, and such. I told her I'd never seen lightning from a plane, the chances were slim, and that if there was a storm bad enough, they wouldn't let us fly. Just so happened, on our way into Utah, there was a huge storm, and we flew above it and saw the lightning from above. Very cool.. a little concerning flying in a metal trap though. But all's well. We landed and ran as fast as we could to our car in pouring rain and high winds. Not the welcoming we were hoping, but quite a memorable experience. 

July 26, 2017

San Diego Zoo

The San Diego Zoo was beautiful and huge. 

  We loved this little prairie dog. He made sure to keep an eye on us in case he needed to warn all his worker friends. Very cute.

 The kids loved all the animal statues.

 And this bear was our favorite. He kept grabbing his bone, pushing it against the rock wall, and then dropping it. Over and over again. Lucas just kept laughing and laughing. 

Unfortunately, the power to the ENTIRE place was knocked out. All the food stations had to close down, all the lights off -- which wouldn't have been too bad, except the kids needed to use bathrooms. So we went by the light of our phones. We were all starving by then anyway, and had seen all the animals, so we headed out.

After two days of walking at SeaWorld and the Zoo, all three kids crashed within minutes. 

July 25, 2017