Twin Falls

Twin Falls has always just been a drive by and glad I don't live in this barren wasteland stop on the freeway.

This weekend proved me wrong.  

Someone loves her daddy.

I wish I had brought my nice camera. Cellphone did pretty good.

Crazy cool canyons in Twin falls.  

Checking out the canyons.

The reason for the trip to Twin Falls is the Boise temple is under construction and this is the next closest.

We were missing the peace that is only found in the temple.  So we decided to make a mini vacation out of it.  

Devin and I switched off attending early morning sessions at the temple. 

Meanwhile the other played with the kids at the hotel, ate, swam and watched Olympics.

Worked out just perfectly.

Later we took the kids back to the temple grounds.

Naomi can I take a picture of you by the flowers?

The temple grounds are among my favorite places ever.

Sweet children by the temple.  

I like this one. I'm pretty sure I'll frame it for their bathroom.

 Picnic at Shoshone falls

We paid for the trip for 3 days and nights afterwards.

Mosquito bites galore.  They love her.  This was only half of them.

Worth it.

This seemed like a really good idea, till right when I took this pic they bolted off in opposite directions.

Every tried to chase down a greased pig?  How bout 2?

Well I haven't.  I imagine  though that this was very similar to what the next 10 minutes was like with these two crazies.  Glass vases all over this store and they have these carts?  I laughed out loud in the car just remembering Gage's face and how crazy this trip to the store was.

Cache the future Photographer

Found these on the computer.  

Cache must have uploaded them from his camera.

:)

Back to school. Kids are coool.

Cache started school August 7th. August 7th! 

He wrote his own sign. :)

Rushed morning = bad pictures but meh.  Whatcha gonna do?

I love my freckled face, spikey haired, toothless first grader.

All day school means packed lunch every day.  He is SO excited for this.

Tried to get me to pack him a lunch for 1/2 day kindergarten last year.

He picked out a new star wars lunch box.  

He quickly faded his love for my lunches and begs for hot lunch.

Already an un-cool mom.

Back to school Dinner!

We kept it more simple this year and thought ahead for once, so it went lots better than last.

I made a cake the night before, thawed some frozen shrimp (Cache's choice), apple sauce, left over salad and sweet potatoes with butter and maple syrup.  Done.

I chose the theme, I'm sure I saw somewhere online, (I'm never original) anway the theme for the school year: "Be a Builder." 

Here is my cowpie  cake.

I took a lot of pics of the cake.  I have to laugh because this cake split completely in two pieces and I mean it really looked exactly like a giant cow pie.  AAh funny.  And trust me, I know what I cowpie looks like.  Somehow these pictures make it look waaay better.

And as I was making it my little sister sent me a text of the Cake she just finished:

Now back to mine.

Oh man it cracked me up that we could even be related.  I really tried hard on this one too! 

Ha.  

UH OH.

I noticed the cake look like this in the middle of dinner. 

Then I noticed Gage.

 

Guilty!

How did I miss this happening?

Later I looked at the camera. Caught him in the act going for the cake and didn't even notice when I took  it. Haha. 

Sneeky li'l devil!

During dinner we talked about what it means to be a builder.  How we can build people up, build friendships, build a stronger family, build trust etc.

After dinner we ate cake and played Jenga.  First we built the tower and with every layer built, they had to say something to someone at the table that was "building."  They said things like, I love you Cache or I think you are good at... or thank you for ...
 I played too.  It was good for our little family.
Strange to even hear Cache and Nay say nice things to eachother.
Yes very needed.

Then we taped up our little builder signs on mirrors and computers and will hopefully be better at this this year.  I needed this more than anybody.

Back to schoool!