4th of July and Trip to ID

I won't be posting a lot of pictures on the blog since we took a LOT of pictures of the trip, so if you want to see a more complete photo history please visit my facebook photo album by going to this link:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=128490&id=524838447&saved#/album.php?aid=128490&id=524838447
Hopefully that works. If not, post of this blog and I'll try and make something happen.

So for the 4th of July we (meaning me, Doug, and the girls plus my mom, dad, and brother Jesse) went up to Blackfoot ID to visit my uncle Mark and aunt Holly. Doug and I hadn't been to visit them in five years, which happened to be the 4th of July right after we were married. Since then they moved houses, and so now they live in an old Victorian/farm house that they are renovating on a big piece of land. They also have like 5 cats which got it into their heads to follow my kids around the whole time we were there. Ever seen the movie Second Hand Lions were a pack of dogs runs out to greet newcomers? Same idea, but with cats. :) What made it funnier was watching my girls scream in terror and try desperately to run away while the cats remained in hot pursuit. So terribly funny! Of course, I have no pictures of that.

The 4th of July dawned VERY early for our family. I had signed us all up for a 5K race in Idaho Falls that morning before the city parade. That meant that the race started at 7:00 am, and Mark lives 30 minutes from Idaho Falls, and we had to get there early to get Mark registered.... hazard a guess as to when I got up? If you guess 5:40 am, you are right! I got up, dressed, packed for the girls, ate, then woke up the girls, fed them, and get them into the car and off by 6:10. Doug helped of course, but I felt bad waking him. I slept horribly the night before. I don't sleep well in a new place the first night, no matter how tired I am, but then Evelynn was up at 3:00 coughing so I had to fix that and I don't think I slept from then on. Anyway, we got to the race and Everyone did very well. My dad started running last summer and has been keeping it up ever since, and he beat his younger brother (Mark) and my mom! I'm not positive but I think he got around 31:30. Mark and mom both had very respectable times themselves, as did Jesse. Not to brag or anything (well, maybe a little) but I came in first, beating my brother! I was almost more excited about that than about my time. I got 24:42! I couldn't believe it when I crossed the finish line. I had been doing practice runs with girls in my ward and my fastest with them had been 26:30, so taking two whole minutes off was just crazy!

Before the race.

After the race! I was so happy, something I usually am not after a race.Way to go Dad!

After the race we headed to a parade in Ashland which was about an hour away. At first I was confused as to why we were traveling so far for a parade when there was one in Idaho Falls, but I soon learned why the Ashland parade was far superior. First off, the parade was only like 15 minutes long one way, meaning they went down one side of main street, turned around and came back, so maybe 30 minutes total of parade. That was nice. They also had a fly over of old war planed, which was really cool. But the coolest part was that every float threw candy! And some floats threw ice cream sandwiches and chocolate milk! I had my diaper bag and by the end of the parade it was full of candy! That was thanks in part to grandpa and uncle Mark who funneled as much candy towards my girls as they could, sometimes knocking over other children in order to get to the good stuff. Just kidding. :) Those brothers though were so cute with my girls. I mean grandpa's are awesome anyway, but I remember my Grandpa Kartchner (he died when I was nine) and I see a lot of him in his boys, aka my dad and uncle. One thing is their love of candy, and how they think that the more candy they give to their grand kids, the better the world is. :) I guess that's just what grandpa's do.

The cartons of chocolate milk that we all drank made for good toys for Eloise, and she drank a few herself.

Watching the fire trucks go by.

After the parade we went and saw the trout spawning ground where if you threw fish food into the water, the fish would jump out of the river in swarms to catch the food. That was pretty neat. I've never seen trout that big! Of course you weren't allowed to fish there, which is too bad because trout sounded really good! Next we visited some waterfalls (I think they were called Mesa Falls, but I'm not sure). They were spectacular, as you can see by the picture. After that my girls, and myself, were more than done so we went home to nap and shower. Keep in mind that all of us were still in race clothes and starting to smell fragrant, plus I was very sticky from my girls loving attempts to share candy and other goodies with me.


That night we went to a concert in Blackfoot, which was surprisingly good. I would have enjoyed it much more if I didn't have a grumpy wombat sitting on my lap (meaning Eloise. It was way past bedtime). There were a few old ladies sitting in front of me that kept shooting me dirty looks, and I was this close from dropping Eloise on their laps and saying, "Fine, you deal with her and I'll watch the concert." Doug had taken Evelynn out to the bathroom and then let her dance in the isle in the back of the auditorium to the music and he complained of dirty looks too. His solution was to dance with Evelynn. :)

Lastly was the fireworks. The Blackfoot show was short (only like 20 minutes) which was just right for our overly tired children, and myself. Usually I'm a firework fanatic, but I was so done with the day that I was grateful to get home. Evelynn hid under her blanket for the entire show, claiming that the fireworks were too scary. Eloise was enraptured! She thought they were the best thing she has ever seen. I have two such different girls! We did get Evelynn to look once by exclaiming "That firework looks like Ariel!" she whipped her head out so fast but was disappointed to find we were lying to her just to get her out. We're such mean parents.

Sunday we went to church and then drove home to start the week of Asay Family Reunion 2009 (please see next post). My kids all in all probably slept as much in their car seats as they did in a bed, ate more sugar in 48 hours than they have in their whole lives, and got scared silly by a gang of cats, but still were troopers and did awesome. Oh, did I mention that there were 18 people in the house that weekend?! Yeah, they did a good job. But it was nice to get home. Hopefully we'll get back soon to visit Mark and Holly without all the running around and extra people!