The Temple and the Mall

While Reagan was away in Colorado we did a few fun outings here at home with the other three.

We drove past the Meridian temple to see the new landscaping and the kids really wanted to get out and walk around. Here is what it looks like at this point:

Image result for aerial view meridian idaho temple
Image result for meridian idaho temple

 It is still closed off so we drove to the Boise temple to walk around its grounds. 
Aren’t they reverent?

Liberty loved all the flowers and walked around with my phone taking pictures.  Some are actually pretty good!

Levi got real quiet and contemplative after a while and went off by himself.  I asked him later where he’d been and he said he’d just wanted to be by himself cause he really liked the peaceful feeling he felt.  Me too, buddy, me too.  

Later that week we went to the mall to see a Lego exhibit of all the national monuments.  It was very cool.  And interestingly enough, Cade did not want to stay with the group this time either.  
 To give you an idea of Scale
 Liberty at the Liberty Bell
 Liberty at the Statue of Liberty
I have been remiss in my duties as mother of a girl, apparently.  I am not a fan of the mall so I avoid it when I can and do my shopping elsewhere, but this girl LOVED the MALL!  When we walked into the mall my girl was in heaven.  She stopped to stare in all the windows to ooh and ahh over the beautiful clothes and accessories.  
She designs clothes for fun if you’ll remember…

She LOVED Claire’s.  As she walked around looking at all the jewelry and other cool accessories she said, “Mom, can I just put this whole store on my wish list?” (Penny will appreciate that one)

She was in HEAVEN.
She’s now saving her money so she can do a shopping trip to Claire’s.

Reagan’s Busy Summer

Reagan has had quite the busy summer.  He spent a week at his grandparents in Colorado, went to Boise Youth Spectacular (EFY Boise style), Youth Conference, last week was the 50 miler, then the family reunion and then High Adventure.  He also got some very good news too-read on.

Grand Junction trip:

Reagan flew on an airplane alone for the first time to Salt Lake where his grandparents picked him up and drove him back to GJ.  They stopped at the Provo City Center Temple on their way.  I don’t think he knew that he had actually been in the tabernacle long before it was a temple.  Our stake conferences were there back when Reagan was a newborn.

His grandparents kept him busy all week and tried hard to stuff him with food.
Go Carts and Mini Golf

 A visit to Annette, Grandma’s “rock hound” friend.  He loved talking to her about all her collection.  This boy loves rocks and archaeology.

The Fruita Dinosaur Museum
Here is an excerpt from the journal Grandma kept of a few of the days of his trip.  
Thursday we went to Dinosaur Hill and looked at the mine where some guys found 2/3rds of the skeleton/fossil of an Apatasourus. Reagan dug around in the same hill and brought home a bunch of interesting rocks. Next we drove out to Rabbit Valley where there was supposed to be an active dino dig. but it was all covered up and looked abandoned. Too hot to do the associated hike so we went home,had dinner and later drove over the Monument, did a hike near the visitor’s center, where I am very glad Kami was not with us. Too many sheer 1000 foot drop offs. At the end of that hike Reagan ran into a huge strong spider web that excited and freaked him out.  Then we went to Freddy’s for frozen custard.

Friday was fossil hunting on Douglas Pass. Totally fun. Tons of success. He will of course show you the fossils. Make sure he tells you about Dick King.  I also have to say that it was so fun to see Reagan interacting with both Annette (rock hound friend) and Dick, both old geezers so well, very comfortably, no awkwardness or shyness, lots of enthusiasm.  Dick told me that he had tried to get his grandaughters interested in fossil hunting with out success. So I think he enjoyed Reagan immensely. After that long day we went out to Chick-Fil-A. for dinner.


Saturday we shopped for his Colorado t-shirt, went to see Cars 3, came home for dinner and a mango (Grandpa taught him how to peel it) and some more ice cream for dessert.

Sunday we visited Grandma after we had lunch at about 3:30. He wasn’t sure about visiting Grandma for a whole hour. But he did fine, and answered her repeated questions patiently, we took pics, etc. She made him laugh with her statement about how all the great grand kids were smart and good looking. 🙂 Also, on the way home from church he started helping me fix my phone notification sounds.  And I was grateful he knew so much.


(Grandma continues…) 
He always thanked us for the things we did. He helped with meal cleanup, and he ate what we fixed. Just not very much, except the last night, when he had 4 ribs and some salad, and a mango and ice cream! 
We loved our week with him!
And we love you, for agreeing to let us spoil him for a week! 


Thank you for having him, G and G! He had a great time. I vividly remember visiting my grandparents in NY when I was his age.  Instead of ice cream every night it was sugary cereal every morning.  And gumdrops in the gumdrop jar.  Good memories!  Aren’t Grandparents great?!
Peanut Free No More!

As most of you know, Reagan has been allergic to peanuts his whole life.  We recently signed Reagan up to do a Peanut allergy desensitizing study.  They basically pay you to eat small amounts of peanut dust that will gradually desensitize you to peanuts so you won’t have a dangerous reaction when you eat them.  In order to qualify for the study you have to have a level 14 allergy to the peanut.  That takes a blood test.  This boy almost passed out, he hates needles so much, but he survived and we waited a week to hear the results.  They called us back to tell us that his level was 0.05!!!!!!  Which means, he’s NOT allergic to peanuts, maybe never was.  The next step was to do a food challenge.  So on July 5th I took him in and we spent 5 hours in the doctors office while they fed him gradually increasing amounts of peanut butter.  He didn’t like the taste that much, and I told him it’s just because it wasn’t JIF. 

But he had absolutely no reaction.  So, we are now totally peanut allergy free at our house and I am so thrilled!!!!  Peanut butter cookies here we come!  So, on second thought, maybe it’s my good news.  🙂  Or maybe it’s Liberty’s.  When she saw this picture just now she said, “It’s gonna be so great!  We can have Oaties whenever we want!  It’s like the best life!”  lol!!

The 50 Miler+14

Last Saturday we waited for him to get home from the 50 Miler so we could turn around and head to a family reunion in Utah.  He had such a great time on the hike it took him from Boise all the way to Glen’s Ferry to tell me about it-about 1.5 hours!  He loved it.  Admittedly, part of the joy came from being able to actually eat real trail mix with nuts in it for the first time in his life!  Kudos to all the young men leaders who went along and made it great. Then right after the reunion we dropped him off in Rexburg so he could attend High Adventure where his poor blistered feet had to hike 14 more miles in the Tetons!  He just got back from that one yesterday! Whew!

Now it’s time to focus on getting ready for his next big adventure…. HIGH SCHOOL!!!!
Watch out world!  

The Great Flood and the 4th of July

The Flood

We had quite the adventure last month when our basement flooded because of a broken sprinkler pipe. About 2:00 in the afternoon Libby came upstairs and said, “Mom, there’s something you should see in the basement.”  She was not overly concerned and so I was not overly concerned.  I was busy working on something and I am what my husband calls “Stair Lazy” so I just said “Can you just tell me what it is, please?” She couldn’t describe it and so Levi went down to check it out.  He came running back upstairs yelling, “There’s water coming into the basement!!!”  Well that got my stair lazy self down to the basement real quick.  Sure enough, our window well was filling up with water and gushing through the window.  The same window sill where our TV, DVD player and Wii sit.  The same window that sits above all my thousands of picture books. I ran out to Rock’s office (this was one of those times when I am very very grateful he works from home) to get his help and then ran back downstairs yelling orders to the kids.  “Bring towels!” When they brought me one towel: “ALL the towels, not just ONE!” I ripped the tv and all the other electrical equipment off the windowsill and stuffed towels in to stop the water.

After finding Lake Hymas in our back yard, Rock turned off the water, jumped in the window well and started bailing water with the “help” of the boys. Honestly the most work during this whole process was getting the kids to move quickly.  They were too awestruck by the water gushing everywhere. Luckily the water in the window well receded pretty quickly and we only had water about a foot into the basement carpeting.  Our neighbor has had this happen four times! and each time it has gotten the entire room wet. We were very lucky.   We pulled the carpet back and blew fans on it for a week.  Even though our DVD player and wii were practically swimming on the window sill, they were miraculously not damaged.  The only real damage was to my beloved books.

This is what your patio looks like after a flood when you were once a school teacher who owns half a library’s worth of books.

Two days later I went downstairs to check on the carpet and found a puddle in front of my basement fridge.  The old beast had finally bit the dust.  This time instead of running towels down the stairs we were running food up the stairs.  I was not too sad about this one because it meant I could finally replace the main fridge in the kitchen with one I actually want!

Two days after that, I found a puddle of water next to our master bedroom toilet.  Call the Plumber!

So all in about a week’s time we had to have the sprinkler guys, the appliance repairman AND the plumber out to our house.  I’m sure the neighbors thought we were remodeling.  Sigh.  Nope.
Bad things come in three’s, right?



The 4th of July

We had a great 4th of July visiting family and celebrating our freedom.

Twins!  Bought these shirts at Ford’s Theatre in D.C.

Two cute little Wesels

One cute little Hymas
And one festive front porch
God Bless America!