Splish Splash

Let's continue down memory lane. Day two of our Idaho adventure was spent lake side. Logan still didn't want to be with others so we spent part of the morning walking down to the dock. The great news was that Kyle had recovered from his food poisoning!

Trying to skip stones like daddy.

We spent the afternoon at Aunt Deneen and Roger's beach. They bought a lake house a few years back and are slowly fixing it up. It is just down the road from Grandma Betty and Grandpa Dewey's cabin. It has a wonderful beach! Perfect for learning to play in the lake.

The other boys have no water issues. They would run and jump in the lake over and over again. Sadly we couldn't get Logan even remotely interested in trying that. He really hates having water in his face.

So, castle building it was.

Even though Logan couldn't get over his grumpy behavior towards the boys, they did eventual make sand castles together. Although Logan did have a tendency to want to destroy what others built.

The next day I succumbed to Reece's request for the scavenger hunt. I had mentioned it when we arrived and he was so excited to give it a try. I took egg cartons and painted each section a different color. The goal was to find something outside that matched each color. The dads got involved and the boys seemed to have a great time.

Each boy received a balsa wood plane after the hunt. I was so excited when I saw those planes in the store, but sadly they were duds. They just wouldn't fly. Luckily we had lots of paper and Kyle went to town making paper airplanes. Of course Logan didn't want to do planes with the other boys so there he goes.

He was happier by himself on the tire swing.

Meanwhile, inside some lucky people were playing cards. This family loves to play cards and games. You can almost always find a game of some sort going on.

The rest of the boys were going to bed so Logan was hanging out the adults while we enjoyed a little card game of our own. As usual, we let him play with the iPad as a distraction. Here he is showing Grandpa Dewey how to play a word game.

Logan does love Katie. Unless she is barking. Here they are checking out the noises of the night through the screen door.

My time is getting short. I have one more post to write about Idaho and close out July. However, packers show up in two days and we move up to Los Alamos on Friday. Crossing my fingers that I find some time between cleaning and organizing to get that last post up.

Idaho family vacation

A reminder that my editor is still not available to help me with the grammatical disaster that I am about to unleash on all of you. You have been warned.

The last week of July we went to Idaho for a Wiens family gathering. Kyle's parents, aunt, uncle, sister, brother-in-law, nephews (3), niece-in-law and two of their kids would all be descending on the cabin near Donnelly, ID. We decided it would be great for Logan to be up there with the other boys. Not sure that it went exactly as I thought it would, but I'll get to that later.

This was Logan's second vacation via airplanes. He was much more excited this time though, as he was only 9 months old for our trip to Hawaii.

Here we are on the shuttle from the parking lot to the airport.

Let me tell you that it is a pain in the rear to put a carseat in an airplane seat using those buckles. We chose to sit in the rear of the planes so that each time I would have ample time to get everything hooked up and unhooked.

Logan did seem to enjoy his new tray and games that I made for the trip. In fact, often we would have to point out what was happening outside his window.

He went through his whole sticker stash, in what felt like 5 minutes.

He was interested in the tongs for a short while.

The magna doodle became a favorite toy and he still loves it.

Velcro sticks were not a huge hit on this trip.

The play dough mats are still something he enjoys getting out.

The trip itself was a little stressful. Kyle was getting phone calls from Los Alamos Labs about a job offer throughout the day. Seemed like each phone call had bad timing. Needless to say we didn't need job negotiating stress to start our vacation. Nor did I want to think about Los Alamos, since I was hoping to stay in Albuquerque. After all I have family, friends, sewing groups, volleyball teams, not to mention lots of stores at my fingertips. However, in the end we decided to go with the job. It offers Kyle a great career opportunity and Logan great schools. The salary doesn't hurt either. I am glad that my family and friends who are in Albuquerque will only be a short drive away. I am also very lucky to have friends who still live in Los Alamos. It will certainly be a big adventure for us, but now back to our Idaho adventure.

When we landed in Boise we went out to dinner at Red Robin. The food seemed fine, but it wasn't. Kyle ended up with food poisoning and it pretty much had him bed ridden for that first night and the next day. We did manage to have a few good moments when we arrived at the cabin before Kyle had to retire. To start with, Grandma Betty gave Logan a wagon! Let's just say that Logan loves it.

We are super thankful that Aunt Phyllis and Uncle Ed allowed Kyle, Logan and I to stay at their house. They have spent something like the last 7 years renovating it, and it is near completion. The house is fabulous! They have really outdone themselves. Not only was it a beautiful place to stay, but it was wonderful to have a separate, quiet space where Kyle could recover and Logan could nap or go to bed early when needed.

The next day, while Kyle slept, the rest of the gang went Huckleberry picking. Huckleberries are tiny little berries that look like very small blueberries.  Once you find an area with those berry bushes, it becomes a family secret. After all they go for something like $50 a pound. Lucky for the family, this year was a bumper crop. They were everywhere! So we spent a lot of time picking berries. Of course, I spent more time taking photos and looking after two little boys who wanted to run and play.

Big Logan and Little Logan (our Logan) enjoying some stick time.

After returning from berry picking, mysteriously most of the family disappeared. I was left with Reece and Little Logan. Once again our bag of travel games came in handy.

I also whipped out one of my planned crafts. I had many planned for the week. In fact, a good portion of the items in my suitcase were craft related. This first craft was to make "stained glass" window clings.

That evening Kyle made it out for a little lake time. I was so glad to see him up and about.

While many of my photos show a super happy Logan, he was really far from happy much of the trip. For some reason he didn't want to do things with Reece and Big Logan. He would often point and grunt at them in a mean way. It was super upsetting for me. When Kyle recovered I was really happy that he seemed better, and I was really happy for the break. I can only take so much grunting before I grunt myself.

The day ended beautifully though. Logan had solo time with Dad and me. No more grunting, just some fun water time.

Since I took a ton of pictures I'll stop here for now. Hopefully I can post the rest of the trip before we move next week. After all, blogging is significantly more fun than cleaning.

Family Ties

Mid July brought my Uncle Weldon to town for a special visit. Sadly Aunt Tassie couldn't make the trip, but we were thrilled to see Uncle Weldon. As we normally do when someone special comes to town, we gathered at Aunt Sally's house for some fabulous food and conversation.

Thanking Vergie for the Easter Basket she brought Logan.

Logan loves Aunt Sally.

Frik enjoying a rare moment downstairs. She spends most of her days under the bed.

Logan "hiding" with his new bubble treasure.

 This zoo trip was all about family. Our small family saw many other families throughout the day.

Thanks, but no thanks. Don't you see the two little ones I have with me?

Our next adventure was a trip to Idaho, but thanks to Pinterest I felt I must prepare extra distractions for our flights. Here is what I put together from various Pinterest pins.

Magna-doodle was a huge hit and still is.

Logan still loves this puzzle.

I think he liked breaking the crayons more that the whiteboard.

This became all about eating those fruity o's.

This was't much of a hit during the trip, but he is enjoying putting the sticks into the letter L these days.

Stickers were by far his favorite, but they lasted about 10 minutes.

These playdoh mats are pulled out every time we get out our playdoh. 

This is my attempt to keep Logan away from my camera. Works occasionally. Let's hope his photos are better than mine.