Hibernation is over

This winter has been pretty good. But even on my best days in the winter I felt tired. I think I took a nap nearly every day this winter (and didn't feel guilty about it at all because there were plenty of times in the last 10 years that I couldn't nap because of the little people in my life.)  The last two weeks the weather has warmed up and I've felt live come alive again.  I declared on Instagram that I felt like I came out of hibernation.  

And with that reemergence has come a whole bunch of activities.  And those activities mean lots of pictures. So now we have a post recapping the last two weeks that is chock full of news and pictures.  

I'm kind of curious how long it will take me to write this. So I'm going to add little time stamps throughout this post. Hopefully the last one is before 11:00 pm. 

"So here we are starting at 7:45 pm talking about Monday February 17th. 

The kids were out of school for President's Day so I stayed home from work as well. Brandon, who hasn't had to work a President's day since 2012 was kind of miffed that he had to go to work. (The Army and school spoiled him with no work on Federal Holidays.)

We started out the day with home work.  Charlotte and Lydia have to do little book reports each month. This month it was a biography. They have to do presentations on a famous person. Charlotte picked Helen Keller. And Lydia picked Bev Doolittle (who was recommended by her Bestemor as a good artist to do a report on.) Both girls had to fill out cue cards to help them through their presentation. So we sad down and did those first thing on the day off. Charlotte and Lydia got right to work. I was impressed at their ability to write long sentences. They are learning a lot at school.

In the afternoon on Monday we checked out the roller skating rink here in Twin. The kids have been begging to go to "someplace like Deleta" (Deleta was the roller rink in Pocatello.) I decided this day off was the perfect day to go skating.

We paid for skating, but the kids all brought their own skates. The kids skated while I stayed on the sidelines and cheered them on.

There was a black light and the kids loved how it made their skates glow. 

They all had a great time. They were so happy to be there.

Lydia wanted a picture of how much her shirt was glowing.

Veronica has been practicing a lot at home and so she did really well out on the skate floor. She's definitely improved a lot since last year when we went skating as a family.

The rink was open from 1:00 to 4:00 and we stayed from 1:00 to 3:00. The kids were so tired when we got home. They went downstairs and watched a movie. Veronica fell asleep.

I thought Charlotte and Lydia might be bored during the day off, but they kept themselves entertained by trying to build card houses. They spent hours on this. Lydia was the first one to be successful.

The kids were also out of school on Tuesday. The leaders for the boys activity at church planned a hike in the afternoon. They said siblings were allowed as well. So we all went. Some of my kids whined about not wanting to go. But they were so happy once we were on the trail.

This was the first activity where they all used the bags Brandon and I made them for Christmas. So I had to take a picture.

Its' 8:04 right now.

Here's Charlotte and Lydia hiking together.

And me. I ordered prescription sunglasses and they are one of my new favorite things.  I've always just kind of squinted with sunglasses on. And I haven't been able to wear sunglasses while I drive.  So now being able to see while shading my eyes is a brand new world.

The leaders told us to pack a lunch. I wasn't planning to go grocery shopping until the kids were back in school on Wednesday so we had to get a little creative. We had cereal in baggies.

The really big news of Tuesday was that we got a dog. Yeah we got a dog.

If you remember back to my last post we'd gone to look at dogs at the Animal Shelter on Saturday. We'd really liked a dog that didn't bark, the shelter said no one else had applied for her so we filled out the paperwork. But then the shelter realized that she had applications in her file. (Brandon later said, "Well no wonder they were overcrowded, they can't keep their paperwork straight.) So we couldn't get the dog that day. We left with the hope that those earlier applications wouldn't work out, but we wouldn't know until the shelter reopened after the holiday.

Brandon and I were hopeful that we'd get the dog. Brandon had actually scoped out the shelter the week earlier and had liked this particular dog. And I'd noticed her as I'd casually scrolled the animal shelter's website.  So we were hopeful.

On Tuesday afternoon Brandon texted me and said that the shelter had called him and said that we could have the dog.  He picked her up after work and brought her home. The kids were so surprised.

Look at how happy they all are together.

The kids have wanted a dog for a long, long, long, long time. Rental houses and a transient lifestyle have made it so we couldn't get one until now.  And now we finally can have one.  Brandon had promised (and has followed through on that promise) to take care of as many dog related tasks as possible.

The shelter said the dog's name is Marcia Brady. Why anyone would name a dog Marcia Brady is completely beyond me. I wanted to change the name, but the kids don't really know why Marcia Brady is such an odd name so they were fine keeping the name Marcia. One day they'll come across episodes of the Brady Bunch and laugh.

According to the shelter she is 10 months old.  My friend took a look at her pictures and says she's a Belgian Malinois Mix. That's the kind of dog police use. It's also a breed that is good for service animals. When I found that out my opinion of the dog improved quite a bit. We'd already got her for a good deal because the animal shelter was running a half price special to appease their (self inflicted) over crowded. Now to find out she wasn't just some random mutt made me pretty happy. I told Marcia, "I like good deals, and you're a good deal, so I guess I like you."

She's taken some getting used to.  She didn't make it easier either. We are using the downstairs bathroom as an indoor kennel. Brandon put her in there before he went to work on Wednesday.  A minute later I heard her bark for the first time. I guessed she was bored so I went down there to give her a toy before the kids and I left for the day.  When I opened the door I found the largest pile of poo I've EVER seen. Oh it was awful.  I was dry heaving the whole time I cleaned it up.

I guess it was good to start our relationship on a low note because it's only gone up from there. We've gotten used to each other over the last two weeks. Now, I can say I'm happy she's part of our family.

On Friday Brandon had his monthly overnight trip on his own. This month he decided to go up to Hailey to visit his from Arie from school. I wasn't excited about having Marcia around without Brandon. (He'd already received several texts from me where I used phrases like, "your dog" and "that dog.") So he agreed to take Marcia with him. He would have had a lot of extra driving on his hands if he came home to get her so we drove over to Jerome to drop off the dog.

This was our first time visiting Brandon's work at this airport. The kids had fun looking at some of the airplanes in the hangars.

It's 8:28.

Looking at an engine.

This airplane is called a Yak. It's Russian and has been driving Brandon crazy. But slowly he's been fixing it. 

We left Marcia with Brandon and drove back to Twin Falls. We had home made pizza for dinner and then went downstairs for movie night. When Brandon is gone we fold out the couch bed and watch Star Wars movies. This time we were on Empire Strikes Back. The kids got really into it.

The kids made beds on all the chairs and cushions and slept in the basement. After they were in bed I stayed up watching the Dateline Special about the disappearance of the kids of Chad and Lori Daybell. I watched it on my phone with the NBC app. It was good, but I haven't watched normal TV in a long time so it was weird to have commercial breaks.

We had a relaxing morning on Wednesday. Thanks to Marcia's need to chew everything we had keep all of our rooms very clean so we didn't have to clean much on Saturday. The kids did have to put their laundry away.

In the afternoon Brandon came home. (He and Marcia had had a wonderful time staying in the house that Arie is housesitting for his Grandparents.)

It's 8:36

We had a quick lunch and then went on a waterfall hunt. I'm working on a blog post about things to do in the Twin Falls area and I realized that I needed to see some more of the things around here.

First up was Twin Falls Park where the Twin Falls Waterfall is. I knew about this park because I saw a tiny sign for it once. When I'd looked it up online I found a vague mention of it. So I really didn't know what to expect.

The first thing we saw was a big man made waterfall of water spilling over a curved dam structure. This park is operated by Idaho Power so this is a hydro electric dam.

We walked down a roadway to a little area above the big waterfall.

There were really pretty springs and icy waterfalls coming out of the canyon wall.

The kids liked walking out on this walkway over the water.

More springs.

Me still trying to get a cute picture of my new sunglasses.

Everyone looking at the springs.

After checking out the area close to the water we went up to a view point and looked out at the water. 

There was this random light post.

Then we walked out on another viewpoint and were surprised to see a waterfall. This is actually one half of the Twin Falls that give's Twin Falls it's name. Originally the waterfall flowed on both sides of the rock outcropping. But one side was blocked off when the dam was put in. (Brandon and I say that people in the 20's are the reason we don't have nice things these days.)

Even with just one side the waterfall is still really pretty.

Here's a view down the canyon. Farther down stream the water flows over Shoshone Falls.

The twins posing with Marcia.  She was loving the walk.

We saw a road that lead down into the canyon so we followed that.

It lead to a tunnel.

The tunnel was blocked off.

But we still had a great view of the waterfall. 

You'd think that would be enough of waterfalls for the day, but noooooooo.  This was such a beautiful day and we were not going to miss any of it.  Our next waterfall was to try to figure out if there was an easily accessable viewpoint for Pillar Falls. (there isn't) So that got put on hold for another day. Then we drove down into another section of the canyon and went to the trailhead for Auger Falls. We parked the car and then walked on a gravel road.

This was such a unique perspective on the canyon. I had no idea it was so wide down in this area.

After hiking a while (and after two kids had melt downs because this was more hiking than they'd done in about 6 months.) we heard Auger Falls off to our right. We took a trail and found the falls.

They were more like cascades, but still pretty.

Here's Lydia on the bank.

More posing with Marcia.

Looking down the canyon.

Another view of the falls.

I love this picture. There are springs dripping on the far side of the bank. On the near side, in the shade are frozen puddles of water.

Another glasses selfie.

We headed back on a skinny trail. The kids kept stopping to make "volcanos" out of dust. Then they'd kick the volcano and make it explode.

The kids were tired on the way back to the car. 

But not too tired to say no to climbing in this cool little rock area with a fun wood ramp. (Auger Falls is a popular area for mountain bikers so this ramp is for them.)

The kid practiced some climbing. Marcia doesn't like it when they climb. She gets really worried.

Veronica climbing.

All the kids on a little ridge.

When we made it back to the car the kids and Marcia were all super worn out. The girls pretended to sleep.

On our way out of the canyon we could see another waterfall. (I can't remember this ones name.)

This is on the south side of the canyon. It's always shady there so the springs form ice.

We drove really close to some. I took this picture out of the window of the car.

We were all in really great moods from our day of adventure.  While we drove home Derrick recited the whole script of Jack Jack Attack.  Complete with voice inflections. Veronica chimed in with the operatic singing at the appropriate time. It was hilarious and I really hope to get a video of them doing that one day.

I'd decided that nothing sounded better than ice cream so we picked up some from the store on the way home and had ice cream cones after dinner. It was so good.

I'd been planning to go to a special fireside at our stake center.  Elder Cook and a few other general authorities were visiting and were doing a special meeting for parents of children ages 0-18.  The fireside would have been great, but I realized it seemed a little ironic to stop having a great time with my kids to go to a meeting about how to be a good parent. So I didn't go.

Sunday was another gorgeous weather day. After church we went on a walk to the park. I didn't even wear a jacket on that walk.

The kids played on the playground. Charlotte and Lydia showed off their double swinging skills.

I had to leave the park early to go to my business class. I'm really liking the class. It's two hours long - but it doesn't drag. It's really helping me examine things I'm doing for my travel blog and other writing projects. 

It's 9:04. We've finished talking about the first week. On to the second one.

Monday was a cold day. I took no pictures and have no memory of what we did. I guess I went to work. (I don't mention a lot of about my job, but I do work there about 10 hours a week, and I like it.)

Oh Wait, I just remembered one of the things we did. (It's 9:16 by the way, I came back up here to add this.) I've been waiting for the 5th Harry Potter book to come in at the library. We were able to get book 4 with no wait, but for some reason all 4 copies of book 5 are checked out.  It's been about two weeks and I got sick of waiting.  So I texted a friend who I knew liked Harry Potter to see if she had a copy of the book and if we could borrow it.  She said yes to both things. We were able to start reading that night. YAY!

Tuesday the weather was back to being beautiful. Veronica and I took Marcia on a walk on a trail that parallels the canyon.

It's kind of by the temple.

The walk was good because it wore Veronica and Marcia out. At first I was kind of resentful that I even though I'm the least enthusiastic about Marcia, I have to spend the most time with her. She'd driven me crazy on Monday because I'd had to stop what I was doing every 10 minutes to get something out of her mouth. But on Tuesday I realized that I like taking her on walks in the afternoon. It helps me get some much needed sunshine and exercise.

We also saw this pretty view of the temple.

We went home and Marcia fell asleep on the floor. I was able to get a lot done while she was asleep.

Charlotte and Lydia had their girls activity at the church. They cleaned the nursery toys.

That evening my friend Kaymie and I went to the library for a glass etching class. I brought some pie plates and put a cute snowflake design on them.

Wednesday was an AMAZING day.

At work I had an interview with the Times News regarding the Autism Support Group that I'm facilitating. That went really well. I didn't have much to do after that so I went grocery shopping and got that all done before it was time to pick up Veronica.

Veronica and I went for a walk with Marcia at another park. When we got back I got a message from a friend asking me to write something for her. She was willing to pay me for it, but it had to be done by the next evening. I had the time so I sad down and sketched out a draft of what I wanted to write. I planned to type it later.

It's 9:18 I just went back and wrote that note on Monday about the Harry Potter book.

Okay where was I?  Oh yeah super productive Wednesday. Charlotte was giving her presentation on Helen Keller on Thursday. We were using one of my dresses as an old fashioned looking dress. Charlotte remembered we've had some yellow lace looking ribbon. She wanted me to sew it to the dress. So I went looking for that lace. I couldn't find it, but I did find white fabric. So I decided to make her a pinafore.

I googled and image of a pinafore and went to work. I cut it out and had all the ties and edges finished by the time it was time to pick up Derrick.

Veronica Marcia and I walked over to the school and got Derrick. Miss Emily met us at home and Derrick went with her. When Charlotte and Lydia came home I took all three girls shopping at Goodwill for new pants.

Everyone needed at least three new pairs and everyone wore size 8-10. We found pants for everyone, some dresses, and a play horse.

Then we came home. I'd forgot to get dinner even halfway ready ahead of time so I wasn't sure what we should have. Charlotte suggested cereal and since Brandon doesn't come home on Wednesdays I agreed. After dinner I told the kids they could watch a show while I finished sewing the pinafore together.

When that was done I told all the kids to take baths and then we'd read Harry Potter until bedtime. This is when the day started to catch up to me. Marcia was full of energy because we'd just put her in the bathroom while we went shopping instead of playing with her like we usually do in the afternoon.  She really needed to go on a walk, but I was in the middle of bedtime and couldn't stop what I was doing. I texted Brandon and told him, "Your dog is going crazy."  He came home from whatever he was doing and took her out to the garage. I was able to finish supervising bathtime and read to the kids for a bit.

Once they were in bed I sat down with my notes for that writing project and banged out some pretty good writing. I'd planned on waiting until the next day to give it back to my friend, but I was satisfied enough with it that I shared it with her before going to bed.

What a day!

When Charlotte woke up on Thursday we got her costume ready.  I wanted to make sure she could put it on herself so she practiced that and I took a picture of her. Then she said, "Mom, I think I might be doing this next Thursday."  Wait what?  I told her to bring her costume to school and we'd ask her teacher.

Well it turned out that her day was in fact, next Thursday. but her teacher let her do it a week early. Charlotte did great.

I worked for a bit at my office, but I was feeling a desire to write that I hadn't felt for a while. (Getting paid is funny like that) so when things were going slow I left early and came home and worked on something for my travel blog.

I had a lot of little things to take care of all Thursday. Then that evening I hosted the very first Online Chapter Meeting of the Idaho Chapter of Mormon Women for Ethical Government. We had 6 people total. There were some technical difficulties at the beginning, but overall it went well. I've sat in on several zoom meetings, but this was my first time every hosting one. I think that's my favorite things about being a chapter lead - getting to do new things.

It's 9:34.

I'd planned to go to work on Friday, but I was still feeling the writing bug (I'd woken up at 5:30 and started writing rather than fall asleep.) Plus I had a ton of laundry to do, and a camping trip to prepare for. Plus there wasn't much I needed to do in the office anyway. So (with my bosses permission of course) I just stayed home, checked my work email and took care of things for about 15 minutes, and then went back to my other projects. Flexibility is AMAZING!

I wrote all morning and then took Marcia on a walk to get Veronica.  We came home and had lunch and then took Marcia to the vet for her rabbies shot.  (The shelter had given her all her other shots and spayed her, but they hadn't had rabbies shots available.) True to his work to handle all Marcia related things Brandon had made this appointment. But I was willing to take her there so he didn't have to do it after work.

Marcia was great at getting her shot. Veronica was impressed that Marcia didn't cry.

We came home and Veronica and Marcia played in the backyard while I gathered and packed the camping gear.

It was stuffed in there. Our days of fitting in the Honda are limited, but we are planning to hang onto it for another year at least so we just have to deal with being squished.

When the kids came home I had them pack their clothes and then they could watch a movie while I took a little nap (my first in over a week.)  Brandon came home about 45 minutes early so we were able to get on the road a head of time.

We were heading out to Balanced Rock Park which is about half an hour away from our house. We discovered this place almost by accident on our Idaho Road Trip in 2018. When I researched the place for my travel blog I realized that you can camp there for free. So I've kept the place in the back of my mind as a place to visit again.

About a month ago Brandon and I decided to go camping there on the last week of February. We planned this trip knowing that it might snow. We had the attitude of "If it snows, it snows."  But fortunately we ended up picking a perfect weekend. The forecast called for at least 50 degree weather and clear skies.

I brought the Harry Potter book to read in the tent. The kids asked me to read it on our way to the park. That was really fun. But I put the book down when the road started dropping down into the canyon.

Balanced Rock Park is in the Salmon Creek Canyon. It's carved from Lava rock and has really cool spires.

We set up camp (you can only camp on the grass Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights.)  There was one other person camping in an RV and a few people down at the very end. The people at the end left around sun down. So aside from RV guy we had the place to ourselves.

The canyon was very echoy and the kids enjoyed being very loud. The settled down a bit when it was time to roast hot dogs.

Here's a view of the park from the bathrooms. (Vault toilets if you were curious.)

We roasted marshmallows and made smores. Then the kids were sleepy to I helped them lay out their beds and get into pajamas. We tried reading Harry Potter, but the kids couldn't settle down. So Brandon came in and pumped up the air mattress while making the kids be quiet.

Meanwhile some very loud teenage boys showed up with their very loud truck. The driver of the truck must have had some sort of ADHD that made it impossible for him to stay in one place.  He drove in and out of the campground at least 5 times during the night. Maybe he was picking up more friends or wood.

Anyway, I was able to get to sleep, but Brandon had a hard time since the teenagers never really settled down. I couldn't find my fleece blanket (it was under the air mattress) so I was cold, but everyone else said they were warm. And even though I was cold it was more of the "hum, I feel a little cold" kind instead of the "I'm shivering so bad I'm not sure I'll ever be warm again" kind. In all honestly I've been colder in the Uinta's in June than I was on this trip.

We all woke up around 5:00. Our air mattress had deflated and so Brandon gave up on sleeping and went to sit by the fire. Charlotte and Lydia went with him. (and talked loudly to give some payback to the teenagers who had finally quieted down. I went back to sleep and was having lovely dreams when Derrick woke up and yelled "MOM, I WANT TO GET DRESSED!" In his defense he thought he was the only one left in the tent. I helped him get changed and then went back to sleep until 8:00 when Brandon told me breakfast was ready.  I consider any night that I get to sleep in until 8:00 a success so all in all it was a good nights sleep.

The kids spent the morning gathering rocks and throwing them in the water.

We were in no hurry for the day so we decided to leave the tent up after breakfast and go exploring. We planned to take it down after we got back. Charlotte pretended this week was a parasol.

We went down to the campsite at the end of the park.

The kids had fun on the rocks.

Then we followed a trail upstream some more.

It was really pretty. We could hear a red tailed hawk screeching.

Lydia tripped and I gave her a piggy back. We took a selfie. I was channeling quite the homeless look.

We saw the hawk fly over the canyon edge. It's the little back dot in the picture.

More pretty canyon.

The kids threw lots of rocks into the water here. (Lydia leg was better.)

Here's a video of that. 

And playing under a rock. 

Veronica climbed this rock.

Charlotte celebrating.

We were slowly making out way back to the campsite. Veronica and Derrick had handed me their coats. I decided to take Marcia on little walk to put the coats in the car. As I walked a huge wind kicked up. When I got back to our campsite I saw that that tent was nearly blown over. The three back poles were completely sagging in. And one of the front poles as well.

I hurried to start getting the things in the tent put away. Charlotte and Lydia joined me and helped grab the small things that were nearly buried under the back of the tent. We got the sleeping bags rolled up, the clothes stuffed in bags, the blankets folded, and everything else out. Brandon and I realized that there was no way we could fold the tent in the wind. So we bascially wadded it up and threw it in the car with the jumble of everything else.

We were out of breath by the time everything was packed up.  It had been a crazy few minutes, but actually the whole thing helped me make up my mind about two things.

1. We need to buy a new tent. We are planning a trip to Washington this summer and we've decided to tent camp for most of the trip. However, our current tent takes up way too much room in the car and is no longer very water proof.  So I've felt like we should get a new tent for that trip. But I've been very attached to this big blue tent. We've had it for 8 years and have taken it on nearly all our adventures. I didn't want to just cast it aside.  Well the wind took care of that. One of the pole holders ripped completely off in the wind. That, combined with all the other damage the tent has sustained over the years, was the final straw. It was time to get a new tent.

and 2. It will be okay to pack up the tent each day. In planning this Washington Trip I've been trying to decide how often we want to move out tent. I was especially concerned about the two nights we are spending in Olympic National Park. My current plan has us staying in two different campgrounds. I wasn't sure if we'd want to pack everything up just to move to another campground within the same park. Wouldn't it make more sense to stay at one campsite for two nights?  Well after the wind storm hit I was wishing we'd packed up camp before going on an adventure.  So we might as well plan on packing up camp before our adventures in Washington.

So yeah I was actually happy about the storm because it helped me make those two decisions.

The kids and dog were already seeking refuge in the car so we just said goodbye to Balanced Rock Park and drove a mile out of the canyon to see Balanced Rock.

Ta Da

Here we are looking incredibly homeless.

We asked the kids if they wanted to hike up to the rock, but they said no. So this picture was good enough.

It's 10:18

This is the view looking back toward the canyon.

More balanced Rock

We drove home the long way because we'd never driven on that road before. We passed a few other places I needed to see for my blog.  Then we got home and unloaded the car.

It was good to be in our home with solid walls and silent neighbors.

Everyone took baths and I started laundry.

The girls got out their horses.  Now that Veronica has one they can all play together.  The names are Goldie, Brownie, and Blackie.

Our tax refund money came in this week so we went shopping for some things that we'd budgeted to do with the money. 

First was a new tent. Then we went to Home Depot so Brandon could get a table saw. He's wanted one for YEARS, but hasn't ever got one because he didn't have a place to put it.  Now he has a place.  I priced out some wood for my garden boxes this year.  Derrick was happy to model.

We'd also picked up a dog bed for Marcia.  She was pretty happy about that. The kids loved crowding around her.

Oh and I should mention that Saturday was Leap Day and so was the last day of February.  I can't believe we are already to March. 

It's 10:24 and I'm trying to think of closing thought.

Oh we watched How to Train Your Dragon 3 last night. I'd put that movie on hold at the library back in October.  It was finally our turn. We all loved it. 

That's not a good closing thought.

What did I write at the beginning.

Oh I talked about how I took lots of (well deserved) naps this winter. And thanks to all that rest I'm feeling ready to enjoy the wonderful things that are happening. I'm glad I'm done hibernating.

It's 10:27.  I just need to add a Search Description and I'll get this posted.  If you've ever wondered why I have so many typos it's because after spending two and a half hours writing these posts I really just want to be done with them.

Thanks for reading.

10:29