Idaho

The last couple weeks we spent visiting Bryan's brother Blayne and his wife Rachel and their two adorable kiddos Darek and Mia.  I had never been to Idaho before, and for whatever reason, it was nothing like I thought it would be.  The weather was AMAZING.  We were able to let the kids play outside and could sit out there and watch them and not even sweat.  This kids had a great time.  Darek is exactly 1 year younger than Bradley, so they did a whole lot of fighting and tatteling.  By the end of the two weeks I felt like the saying "we don't touch our friends" was the only thing I said.  Mia is 6 months older than Alex and she loved Alex.  Alex followed her around and just wanted to do anything she did.  Mia seemed to enjoy this and after the first couple days we were there Mia decided she was no longer a baby and she was Alex's 2nd mom.  Mia was so patient with her and would share and if she was crying she would see what was wrong.  Rachel had her birthday and Blayne had set up for them to go away for one night without kids.  The person he had set up to watch the kiddos had something come up  .We were scheduled to stay a week as a family but I decided to extend the trip for me and the kids to another week so I would be able to watch the kiddos.  Having 4 kids 4 and under was an interesting experience.  Rachel and I have very different mothering styles.  She is very loving and I am more business.  I think I traumatized her children in the bath.  I didn't know they didn't like their hair washed and I was bathing 4 kids at once, so it was very efficient assembly line.  They were very fun and I would do it again anytime.  I felt bad for staying for so long but the kids were having a good and Rachel and I were having a blast, we did all kinds of fun things.  I may or may not be a bad influence on her, but in a good way.  Since I don't sit still well, I took it upon myself to organize some of their house.  Organization is one of my strong suits.  I knew Rachel wouldn't mind and since there was two of us, she would keep an eye on the kids and I could get a lot done.  While they were gone I surprised them and organized the storage part of their basement.  I wish I had pictures.  It was probably one of the biggest jobs I have ever tackled by myself and I got everything organized, labeled, sorted and put in a specific spot.  A few things I realized about my brother n law.  He loves books especially business and sales related books and he has multiple copies of a lot of the books.  A few things I learned about my sister n law.  She is great at food storage and cooks every night.  She has more patience than anyone I know.  Since it was her birthday and I know how Bryan is about birthdays I thought I might jump in and help her husband out.  He got her the most amazing gift all on his own, but he just started his own business and I know he has a lot on his plate.  So I made her birthday lunch/dinner and dessert.  It is easy to do things when you know it is appreciated.  I was also able to organize her pantry and a couple of her cupboards.  She may never find some of her stuff!!  Their house is absolutely amazing, it has a full basement which we were able to stay in and Rachel helped me get Alex to sleep through the night.  She deserves an award for that.  I am great with bedtime, but I am sucker when they want to eat in the middle of the night.  Rachel was able to convince me that she wouldn't starve to death in the middle of the night and that she would still love me in the morning.  I wasn't totally convinced she would be ok, but we switched the rooms we were sleeping in downstairs so I couldn't even hear her.  Alex is now sleeping a solid 12 - 14 hours each night. Rachel I owe you more than I will ever be able to repair you.  I really liked Idaho and would love to move closer to Rachel, but Bryan can't work out of Idaho.  Our trip home was entertaining.  I set the metal detector off at the airport and since I had no metal on me (except my under wire) they decided to pat me down, pat Alex down and pat Bradley down.  Of course my bra set it off consistently, but she even had me unroll the waist band of pants.  I was laughing at the fact that they patted down my 11 month old.

This is a ride at a place called Bear World.  You drive through and see bears, we also took the kids on a tour where you feed the bears and Bryan told Bradley that if he had any questions he could ask the tour guide and that is exactly what Bradley did.  He asked questions the whole time.

Here are some videos we made for Elder Andersen.

When Auntie Katy gets up in the morning, you end up with pigtails.  Alex's look funny because the boys were playing in the hose and sprayed her.

Wrestling with Uncle Blayne

Mia and Alex