A little summer date night 2014

Sometimes Stewart has to work odd hours.  Sometimes he doesn't get home till late.  Sometimes it's several nights in a row that happens.  Sometimes when that happens the kids and I get a little stir crazy.  It's hard to get out of the house with three kids because.... wait- do I really even have to justify that statement?  ;)  On this particular night everyone was happy so we decided to take a walk and eat dinner at the Mexican restaurant in town. The kids all loved the food and behaved so well!  It was a nice little evening with the three of us, a happy time that I don't want to forget!  Even though most days are hard and there's a lot of stress and chaos, we do have those close to perfect days where everyone gets along and goes with the flow.  Love these kids so much!  Thankful for them and for Stewart who works so hard for us! 

Malan's Weddi

My good friend Malan got married this last summer.  It was a beautiful wedding, and always so fun to see all my friends from high school together! 

Adventures in Disc Golf 2014

This last summer Stewart and I enjoyed playing a little disc golf.  (In reality HE liked playing disc golf, I liked watching him swim for discs in the deadly little stream on the course!) 

We lost a few discs to this deceiving little stream

 Stewart even tried to wade in it to find a disc.

 It was WAY deeper than he thought it was going to be

 We doubled with Steve and Jaime on a disc golf date one night.

 It was tons of fun

 Look at how cute Jaime is- just after having Kinley in the spring!

 We still lost a few discs to the great and spacious river

Spartan Beast

This last weekend we did our Spartan race!  It was a lot of fun, and a great workout.  We hiked (straight up and down several mountains) for 12+ miles, completing obstacles along the way.  I felt pretty good at all the obstacles (the girls were much less difficult than the guys'), but was glad Helaman and Candace Bingham waited up for us after the first huge mountain.  They really helped Stewart and I through some tough obstacles, and it was nice to be able to split up burpee penalties on some of the obstacles.  The only obstacles I didn't complete were the spear throw (Stew got his!) the cargo net "monkey bars" and the two rope climbs.  I did a total of 120 burpees (give or take).  It was a fun day, and fun to do something like this with Stewart.


rolling under barb wire (for what seemed like forever!)

Stew rolled

Almost finished!

Stewart ended up just running up this wall and grabbing the top.  I "climbed" up two different ropes using the knots.

Jumping over fire together

Finally finished!  Took us about 7 hours.  We walked the whole thing, but that's okay- we did it!

Date Night Rainstorm

Stewart and I went to Twin to grab some last minute items for our Spartan Race.  While we were there we got trapped in the car in this bad boy of a storm.  It was beautiful to watch.  I love Idaho!

Riding With Stew

When Stewart and I were dating, I would often ride along with him as he was working.  Those were some of the funnest days.  We didn't really "do" anything, I just went along.  We talked a lot.  We held hands the whole time.  We listened to music and were silly (ok- I was silly and Stewart laughed at me).  Since we've had kids I haven't really had the opportunity to just ride along with him like we used to.  (I've attempted it a few times with kids, and it's just too much work!)

A few weeks ago my Mom agreed to watch all the kids for a day so I could ride along with Stewart to check his Boise dairies.  I took my camera and snapped a few shots of what a workday looks like for Stewart.  I love it!  Love you Stewart!

Yes, there is actually a sign that says this! (Actually there's two). 

 Cows.

 Cautious Bikers

 Farmers

 Sometimes it's even exciting.  At this dairy we pulled into, as we were pulling out, cows suddenly started coming out of this gate (into the road).  There was no on around so Stewart pulled over and  stopped any more cows from escaping.  I went and found someone who looked like they worked there and informed them the cows were getting out.  (Apparently these cows had already escaped once earlier that day).  Stewart was so cute helping herd them back to their home :)

This is what I imagined Stewart saying...

 "Don't make me take my hand out of my pocket!" (HA)

 "Get in there you Heifers"

 "Hmmm... What is gong on here....?"

 This is when the frost was amazingly beautiful.  I wish I would have made Stewart stop earlier so I could take some pictures.  (This is one I took while we were flying down the freeway) ;)

Disney Day Three!

Our final day spent at Disneyland/California Adventure was pretty chill.  We decided to split the park and go on our favorites again.  We also decided that we should snap some pictures of characters to give the kids something to look forward to.

Minni Mouse

 Day 3-Tired, but still loving it!

 Goofy

 Pluto

 We ate at Flo's Cafe in California Adventure.  I wasn't too impressed with the food (not my favorite style of homecooked food) but it filled us up!

 We did all the smaller rides that we missed on the first two days... like Luigi's Flying tires in Cars land.  These bumper cars inflated with air and all the holes in the ground released air. To move you had to lean just right.

After our day at Disney (we left around 4) we headed to our next destination: our hotel at Huntington Beach.  We picked up a pack of fresh berries from a street stand, stocked up on treats and microwavable food at Walmart, and dashed our plans of spending the evening on the beach.  Instead we holed up in our hotel room and fell in love with Duck Dynasty while eating clam chowder, chips, cookies and other great junk food. It was a super relaxing (and even fun) evening!

Get-Away Day 2

Day two was a magic morning... so we hustled to be at the park AT 7:30 to bust straight into California Adventure.  It was a great idea... until we learned that only Disneyland opens early.  Fine- we'll do some Indiana Jones first thing, then head over to California Adventure.  Wrong.  Only Fantasy-land opens early in Disneyland... so we cut our losses and headed across the street to wait in line for the opening of California Adventure.  

We waited in line at the gate, then we waited in line inside the park, then we followed a "rope" line to get to cars land.  We were the first people in line at California Adventure, and this is where we ended up in line to cars land. 

Good thing though... look how many people were behind us! 

The Cars ride was AMAZING.  The whole land was replicated perfectly, and the ride was kind of a small scale "being in" the movie.  It did have a part where you race a car next to you and go SUPER fast (like 50 mph fast).  It was really fun.  Total line time for us was about 20 minutes.  When we got off the ride total wait time was 2 hours!  CRAZY!

Here's lightning McQueen, just driving around.

Luigi's tire shop was an inflated bumper car ride, where you used your body weight to "steer" your tire.  Pretty mild and cute. 

 One of our FAVORITE things was "Bug's Life" special in 4D.  It was too fun!

 They took you into an "ant cave" for the movie.  (I'm always amazed at how well Disney themes their attractions.  Not one thing was out of character!)

 "Bug's Land" was amazing as well.  It was as if we were the ants living in the grass.  Mostly kiddie rides, but made us super excited to take the kids!

Complete with a little splash pad to keep the wee one's cool.

Stewart is standing in front of the city scape (actually just a wall).  We had to get really close before Stewart realized that we couldn't actually walk "down" the street :)

 We rode all the attractions (except the Bear River Run), then headed to the hotel for a siesta.  (So nice!)  We came back and enjoyed the carnival rides on the pier, ate dinner on the wharf (more clam chowder in bread bowls) and enjoyed the phenomenal "World of Color".  I highly recommend seeing that! We had a nice slow romantic evening, and this is where I slacked on taking pictures :)