Photos from the Boise Trip

Mom and Dad reminded me that I hadn't uploaded the still photos from the trip to Boise. I took too many to fit in this blog so I'll try to select some highlights and I'll email lower versions of the photos. Then if you'd like a high resolution copy of one of the photos, let me know and I'll send it to you.

You'll notice that arranging children in a photo takes a lot of effort and planning and we didn't have either. Plus, I needed to get in my shots before any decided to run away. So while they aren't great, we did try to get a picture of the kids together.


Notice that it was hard to get Max in a photo because it was nap time on Sunday so I'll show you the first one I took, then what Max was doing when he wasn't in the photo and then you'll understand why he didn't want to look up once we got him in the photo.

Fourth of July in Boise

We had so much fun in Boise for the Fourth of July! Gina, Dee, the kids and I left Thursday morning and arrived around 6:00 p.m. Jessica and Bryan left later that day and were caught in a lot of traffic, so they didn't arrive until late Thursday night. Here's a video showing some of the beginning interactions with all the kids.

Getting everyone ready for bed that first night was pretty easy because we were all tired. I also caught some video of Jessica bathing Blake in the morning.

On the morning of Fourth of July, we went out to breakfast (thanks to Mom and Dad). They weren't banana pancakes, but they were good.

Then we were off to the Boise Zoo! It was a hot day, but we went early enough to still see some animals moving around. I put some music to this video but I know Mom and Dad will appreciate hearing the voices of the kids better, so I'll try to put another one together where you can hear them a little better.

That night, we enjoyed some fun activities like country line dancing.

And the kids enjoyed games like Duck, Duck, Goose!

On our way out of town, we stopped at Deseret Book to get a late birthday gift for Grandma Larson. Here's a video of Henry and Amy's boys looking at books.

Lavender Days in Mona, UT

June brings many fun activities in the valley. Gina really wanted to go to Wines Park and attend a fair that was held in conjuction with Lehi's Rodeo Days but Josephine told us about Lavender Days where their children were going to play in their bagpipe band. It is held in Mona, which is about 15 minutes south of Payson. So we called Jessica and headed down there with the kids. There was so much for the kids to do and we had a lot of fun. We even ate lavender ice cream, which was delicious! We'll have to go again next year when Mom and Dad are home from their mission.

Here is some of the fun that the kids had:

It was definitely in the 90's that day and it took its toll on the littlest ones. They mostly stayed in the shade of their strollers as you'll see in this video:

Face painting was a definite must for the kids. We strolled around and luckily ran into the booth when we were looking at the paddle boats. Jaxson got a picture of fireworks, Max got stars and stripes, and Sydney got a butterfly. Jessica and Gina really wanted their faces painted too, but the artist didn't know how to paint Starsky and Hutch. I'm just teasing--they really wanted a cool scene painted on them but she finally convinced them that merely painting a waterfall on their cheeks wouldn't cool them down. OK, I'm still just teasing about them wanting their faces painted but you'll see that the kids enjoyed this experience.

The scenery around us was just beautiful and it added a lot to the fun that we had. Here is one last video that shows a little of the surroundings and a few remaining activities for the day including Jaxson rock climbing.

Dinner Time for Blake

Jessica says that when she feeds Blake, he guides the spoon into his mouth. This video was taken when they came over for my birthday...watch how he guides the spoon! He could become an Air Traffic Controller!

Jessica gets her braces off!

Since I'm making up for lost time, I thought I'd post a few different videos that we've taken recently. As you may remember, Jessica had braces put on before she left on her mission but they made her smile too narrow. So a little more than a year ago, she had them put back on to correct it and she got them off about a month ago so here's a quick video showing her new smile...congratulations Jessica!