Memorial Day was soon approaching and Barry had made plans to meet up with his dad and brother in Bear Lake for a guys weekend of golfing and hard labor to work on the house in Bear Lake. Barry's Grandma Michaelson passed away in November (we miss having such a sweet spirit in our family), and his parents inherited her home on a beautiful piece of land in St. Charles, just 2 minutes from North Beach. Now since we live the closest to the house we have several trips planned already this year to Bear Lake to go work on the house and get it back up to par since no one had lived there for a few years.
I'm really excited because if you know me, you know I LOVE projects, especially home remodeling (it's more of an addiction just short of an intervention session). When I was 19 I bought my first home. I remodeled my bathroom, including pulling up yucky bathroom carpet (really whoever thought it was a good idea to put carpet in bathrooms and kitchens should get a serious slap upside the head to help jog some sense back into that noggin). I also managed to repaint nearly everything and redo the cupboards and linoleum in the kitchen.....oh happy days of fumes :)
So back to where I was before my "days of old" tangent.... I am excited to be part of this massive home improvement project. So, seeing how the men were going to be "working" and their particular "projects" weren't kid-friendly, I decided to have a weekend of my own and take Kael and Koen to stay at a friend's house for the weekend in St. Anthony, Idaho (just outside of Yellowstone).
Tammi was so kind to let us stay at her home. Her and I go back.... in fact, judging from my age I think if it's over a decade it's considered "way back." We used to work at the Utah State Hospital (yes, worked there, not admitted there ) for about 5 years together. We've been on several camping trips, rented a beach house on a private beach in San Juan Capistrano, California for a week and brought a bunch of friends. We also made trips to Zions National Park...just to name a few. Now Tammi, who I love and adore, lives a mile from some massive sand dunes.....23 miles of dunes to be exact. So when she mentioned the words, "4-wheeling" and "dirty" we were SO on board!
Little guys all geared up. (Koen is in the green helmet)
Idaho law requires helmets so Kael technically had a helmet on, even though he looked more like a bobble head. As big as it was quite snug and did its job.
Later that day we went to Mesa Falls which is another thing I'm crazy about....waterfalls. If it's water especially if it's falling from some sort of outdoor element, I'm happy snappy. So you can imaging 4-wheeling combined with a waterfall excursion....you can just jot this day down in my book of life under the category of "Best Day Ever!"
Kael got caught by the Momma-razzi!
Koen being a tourist..
Sadly, this is the only picture I managed to take with Tammi (sort of) in it. We didn't take many pics of our weekend visit since we were busy playing and gabbing from sun up-to nearly sun-up again.
Kael looking down on the upper Mesa Falls. It doesn't look big but trust me, it's high enough that when you look over the edge you get that tingly feeling because all of the sudden everything is so out of perspective. And then your thoughts linger onto "I wonder if I pulled a Pocahontas maneuver, would I survive?" That's a definite Negative!
I think if I had the superpower of not dying, I would definitely have "jumping off every waterfall in the world" on my bucket list.
Koen, Kael, Gavin, and Branton. These guys had a ball playing outside in Tammi's HUGE yard, jumping on the tramp, playing in the tree house or playing with her vast expanse of toys and of course....playing the X-Box. This trip started the trend of playing Castle Crashers here at home.
Another pic of the upper falls.
On our way to the lower falls.
...and here we are... You can't get nearly close enough. Still gorgeous but these sights must be seen from a "Viewing Area" that seems way to far away.
Boys observing the falls.
We went further down the river to a feeding area. It's a fun little place where you can throw a quarter in the machine and get a handful of fish food. Apparently all the fish in this area have told their buddies about this particular spot because when you throw the food in the water all the fish jump up and grab at it....making the water look like it's bubbling. Really cool.
After we ran out of quarters Tammi had found an old box of something similar to corn flakes in her car and we decided to feed the fish with it. So the kids would eat some and throw some and the fish loved it. So when Tammi found another quarter in her pocket she put it in the dispenser, getting her handful of promised food and rationed it out to the boys. Kael, not noticing what was put in his hand, threw almost the whole handful in his mouthspit it all out and then continued to finish the rest of my water. On the way home he was convinced there might be a chance he would turn into a fish since he ate fish food. I assured him he would remain the beautiful handsome little boy that he is. So this pic is him with a handful of corn flakes, just minutes of ingesting the aquatic lovers-snack.
On our drive back it was stormy and we were quite entertained with beautiful scenery.
We had great weekend, thank you Tammi for sharing your home and family with us!
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