Based on my camera roll you'd think that all we did from January 28-Feburary 4th was hike. There are tons of pictures from our hike on Sunday the 28th and then our hike on Sunday the 4th.
I mean we did do stuff, it just wasn't very interesting. So here's the recap of the two hikes. And the boring stuff that happened between. Oh and we also saw a play. That wasn't boring.
So last Sunday we were all kind of sitting around the living room trying to figure out what to do. And then we all remembered that we like hiking as a family on Sundays. You should have seen how quickly the kids got ready to go hiking. They even found their "Seek Adventure" shirts. Well, three of them did. We couldn't find Veronica's so Lydia let her borrow a Yellowstone shirt in close to the same color.
We decided to just go down to the Snake River at Centennial Park. It's been a really long time since we were down here. I told Brandon, "I remember standing here when we were visiting Twin Falls in March of 2019. Charlotte said something like "I want to live here." She was talking about living by the river, but I was already thinking I wanted to live in Twin Falls. We moved here less than 6 months later."
We followed the trail East and passed the fishing docks. Normally the trail just ends at the water. But right now the water levels are low enough that some rocks were exposed. We decided to see how far we could get on the rocks.
This was really cool.
Here's proof I was there too.
I love how Veronica was wearing bright yellow pants. She was easy to keep track of.
Charlotte and Lydia are both drawing the Perrine Bridge for an art project. They wanted me to take a picture.
The rock ledge eventually met up with land again. There was a trail over there. Derrick went down to the water and threw rocks - of course.
We all walked on and eventually came to a big tree. The kids were all over that tree. Here's Lydia.
And Veronica.
And Charlotte.
We kept going. I assumed this trail would eventually meet up with the Morgensen Trail that goes under the bridge. And I think that it does. But we were blocked by a really marshy area from the run off from the waterfalls that were higher up. So we turned around and went back the way we came.
Here's the rock ledge again.
I thought these rocks looked like a city.
Here's some more of the rock ledge. You can see where the water level has been in the past by looking at the color change in the rock.
We went back to the park area. Derrick brought a frisby and threw that around a little bit. Brandon and I sat on a bench and talked.
After a while the kids were ready to move onto the next thing. We got back into the car and drove to the parking lot near the big rock. Here's what the big rock looks like from Centennial Park. Our little impromptu hike had taken us around the base of the rock. Now we were going to hike on top of it.
Here's the view from the top.
We could see some deer walking across the golf course on the other side of the river.
All the kids looking out.
Brandon was scrambling over the rocks.
This little adventure had been so great. I kept thinking about how it was only two weeks earlier that we were stuck under so much snow that church had been cancelled. And now we were hiking around near the river. I like how the snow doesn't stick around too long in Twin Falls.
After the kids were in bed I sat down to try to write out the lesson plan for Mosiah chapter 3. I was very quickly overwhelmed. I ended up making this meme.
I posted it in the little Facebook Group I have for the Study Group along with this caption.
On Monday I had high hopes that this would FINALLY be the week that all the kids went to all five days of school for the first time in months.
Charlotte rarely calls home, so if she was asking to come home it must be a big deal so I was okay going to get her. But I couldn't help thinking, "we already blew it for the week."
That afternoon I started putting away laundry in my room. My room can be a little dark so I'll usually open the curtains by the closet to let in some light. I did that and noticed a bunch of mold growing along the window. It had to be fairly new because I'm pretty certain I'd opened those curtains the week before and hadn't noticed anything.
So that kicked off the clean the windows and wall of my bedroom project. I'd had this on my cleaning to do list for a few weeks so it wasn't too unexpected. I scooted the bed away from the wall and cleaned the window and window sill. I also did that the other window too. I took down the curtains and washed those. I also dusted my headboard, washed the walls, and swept under my bed. Everything looked so much better when that was all done.
But this time I couldn't pause it and find something else because my hands were covered in sudsy water. So I let the episode play with the thought, "Oh well, at least this will finally be off my queue."
Well it turned out to be just what I needed. I was halfway through the episode and they were talking about how the concept of Hell ties in with Universalism. In a nut shell, Universalism teaches that Jesus's atonement covers everyone and so there is no need for a Hell. It's very similar to LDS theology. The people on the podcast were then talking about how Universalists reconciled scriptures that seemed to be talking about hell.
This was exactly what I was grappling with as I tried to write a lesson plan for Mosiah Chapter 3. King Benjamin spends quite a bit of time describing what seems to be a Hell. (Without actually saying the word Hell.) What do you do with that in light of the LDS theology that their isn't a literal Hell?
Anyway, I didn't actually use anything from the podcast in my lesson plan, but the podcast really helped me feel confident about the direction I was planning to go. I'm glad I finally listened to that podcast episode.
That evening I was planning to go to Bible Study with my small group with TFCC, but Derrick really wanted to play a game we had called Throw Throw Burrito. We got this game months ago, but never played it. Derrick found it and wanted to play it. I looked up the rules and we played a few test rounds. It was fun. Then we got out Life and played that and all of a sudden I realized that Bible Study had started 30 minutes ago. OOPS.
So then I spent the rest of the evening reading to Charlotte and Lydia. We are on the last Wings of Fire book (or I guess the last out of the original 5) and I have NO idea where the story is going. These book have been surprisingly unpredictable. I keep saying they are way better than they deserve to be. (I wasn't expecting a series about 5 dragons destined to save the world to be amazing, but here we are anyway.)
Tuesday started out with all 4 kids going to school. I did my usual routine of 45 minutes at Castle therapy followed by several hours at Aspen Grove. Both jobs are starting to calm down from all the self inflicted craziness of the past few months. I dare say I've found a routine at both jobs.
I was in admin meeting at Aspen Grove when someone from the middle school started to call me. At first I just silenced the call, but when they called me back I excused myself and took the call.
It was Derrick. He's recently learned how to use the office phone to call me - which is great! But he likes to do it to try to get out of things. This day none of the regular office staff were there. So Derrick was calling me an hour and a half early and telling me, "Mom, it's my early out." I told him, "No it's your late day. You stay until the end of fourth period and then you go to Occupational Therapy with Mr Sarah. I'll be there at 1:45 to get you." He didn't like that and hung up on me.
So I called the school and talked to who ever was filling in for the secretaries. I told her, "Derrick is confused. I'll be there to get him at 1:45."
So I successfully dodged having a kid home early on Tuesday.
That afternoon - when everyone was home - I had all the kids go out in the backyard and pick up MONTHS of dog poop. I was surprised at how willing everyone was to go out there and do it. There really wasn't a lot of complaining even though there was so much poop. I don't think it's been picked up since November. I ended up paying everyone a dollar to reward them for working so willingly.
Here's Veronica next to the once mighty snow hill.
Brandon was teaching again at CSI. The first week had been a little rough. But this time he went in with cookies, interesting Youtube videos, and lots of hands on stuff to help him get everyone engaged. It went really well and he was so happy when he got home.
I had my online Scripture Study class. I'd finally buckled down and written the lesson plan that afternoon. I still wasn't 100% sure how it would go, but it actually went really well.
The in person lesson on Wednesday also went well. Here's the recap I posted in the Facebook group.
Things start out wonderful and uplifting with King Benjamin teaching the people about Jesus Christ. But by the end of the chapter things aren't feeling as uplifting. King Benjamin talks about Judgement, Damnation, and Endless Torment for people whose works are evil. It seems like he's referring to a literal Hell. We examined this closer and determined that he's talking about these things as a metaphor for what things would be like without a Savior.
We looked at the meaning of the Atonement and discussed how the Day of Atonement under the Law of Moses was a shadow and sign of the Atonement of Jesus Christ.
Then we examined King Benjamin's description of Jesus Christ's atonement specifically in verses 9, 11, 12, 17.
And finally we ended the study by reading Mosiah 3:1-8 where King Benjamin tells his people of Jesus's life and ministry.
This chapter was A LOT, but somehow working through it backward was helpful as I tried to figure out how to convey what King Benjamin was teaching.
Things did not go well on the "All 4 kids going to school" goal. Lydia woke up with a sore throat and was also feeling woozy and tired. Apparently, I'm a sucker for letting kids stay home on my day off because I let her stay home.
Then, while I was doing my 45 minutes at Castle Therapy, I got a call from Derrick. I told me he had a stomach bug again. That's not really something I can verify so I told him I'd come get him. So I had two kids home from school on Wednesday. UGH.
But honestly I wasn't too bothered. The weather was amazing. It was something like 60 degrees. We had the windows open and I felt ALIVE.
I picked Veronica up from school and asked her if she wanted to go grocery shopping with me. She said yes so we went home and got in the car and drove to the store. We were basically out of snack food so there was no reason to waste time with a snack at home. We were doing the the big shopping and I knew it would be more food than one cart could handle. So we first bought all the big stuff liked laundry soap, toilet paper, and bottled water. We also bought a box of oatmeal cream pies and ate that out at the car as Veronica's after school snack.
Then we went back into the store for all the little things. There were so many little things. At about the 3/4 mark we were so sick of shopping. But we had to finish and then we had to buy everything. And since it was Winco we had to bag everything too. And then get it into the car.
We were so happy to be done with all that. We celebrated by eating more oatmeal cream pies.
At home everyone helped bring everything in. Well the kids did. Brandon was taking one of his random long naps. He still runs on little sleep. About once or twice a month it all catches up to him and he falls asleep for hours. He'd been in bed since he got home from work at 1:30. It was nearly 5:00 and I wasn't going to be the one to wake him up. We've learned that with his weird sleep patterns is best to let "Sleeping Brandon's Lie." If his body was asking for sleep then it was time to sleep.
I'd made a menu earlier that afternoon and had written Pizza down for that night. Homemade pizza. I came home and looked at that and said, "I wrote that when I was younger and more naive." I'd bought chicken nuggets for later in the week. I found those while we unloaded the groceries and put them in the oven.
Brandon woke up around the time all the food was put away. I tapped out and he took over. I took a break and read Jurassic Park. Did I mention I was reading that book? My sister recommended it in our siblings marco polo group. I started reading it and was hooked. It's so good.
Anyway, after a little break I was back in the game. Lydia still wasn't feeling well so she didn't want to go to Young Womens that night. But Charlotte did and Derrick wanted to go to Young Mens. So I took them to the church and then read Jurassic Park in the foyer while they were doing their activities.
Charlotte was learning about babysitting stuff and first aid. Derrick was having a planning meeting. They were supposed to come with an idea for an indoor and an outdoor activity. I helped Derrick write his ideas down so that everyone could see that he wasn't just spouting off random stuff. He wanted to go do frisby golf, swimming, and fishing for outdoor activities. He wanted to do a chess tournament and fly drones in the gym as indoor activities.
Wednesday nights are normally when I'm at the Warming Center. But it was closed this night because the night wouldn't be cold enough. It was so nice to not have to stay up late. I went to bed at 9:30 to celebrate.
Thursday morning when Veronica and I walked out the door to walk to school the clouds looked so pretty. It was like the sky was saying, "Congratulations, you made it to February!"
This was the third day Veronica and I were walking to school. On Monday we'd come out to the car to drive to the school and I was like, "Hey, it's light and kind of warm. Our driving days are over." But since it was like 3 minutes until school started I still drove her. Traffic was nuts so I was like, "Yep, we are done with this nonsense. We are walking again."
We don't live far away from the school at all, but Veronica was not happy about walking. She complained and I told her, "If walking to school is the worst thing that ever happened to you, then I think you had an okay childhood."
Back at home Lydia was still not feeling well. I was running the scenarios through my head. She had all her usual symptoms of strep. Normally I would have taken her to the doctor. But I was feeling cautious about that. Last time I took her into the doctor for strep her test had come out negative. The doctor had told me, "It's probably just a virus. Just give her lots of fluids and let her rest."
I didn't really have time to take her to the doctor that day anyway so I just told her, "I'm sure the doctor will just say its viral and that you should be resting. So let's just skip the doctor and you can stay home and rest."
So she stayed home and rested while I took the middle school kids to school and then I went to Castle and then Aspen. I was able to get so much done at both places.
I was about 15 minutes away from being done with everything when I got a call from the elementary school. Veronica wasn't feeling well.
So I went to pick her up.
And I started questioning all my life choices.
Why weren't my kids staying at school? Or even going to school?
What the heck was going on?
I've always been happy that I have the kind of work schedule that allows me to be there to pick up my kids when they aren't feeling well. I'm happy to support them when they need it.
But this was starting to get ridiculous.
Something needed to change.
I dropped Veronica off at home with Lydia and then went to pick up Derrick and then Brandon.
I told Brandon, "we need some sort of system. Where the kids earn $1 for every day they go to school, but lose $5 for every day they stay home or come home early."
I was kind of joking. But I could feel the kernel of an idea in there.
Anyway, the rest of the afternoon ended up being really easy because we cancelled Vision Therapy. I'd been putting off getting our Twin Falls RV income/expense statement together, but I realized that this afternoon was looking like the perfect time to do it.
I started working on it at the kitchen table, but I was getting kind of grumpy while doing it. So I ended up going into my room to finish it without a bunch of people around. I got it mostly ready for me to take to my meeting with our accountant the next week.
I think I spent the rest of the afternoon and evening reading to Charlotte and Lydia.
Brandon went to buy another tool or something to work on the car and I told him to get some nyquil for Lydia while he was out. At bedtime I made sure Lydia took the medicine. Our plan was for her to sleep really well and be ready for school on Friday.
We were going to finish the week off strong.
On Friday I woke up around 2:00 AM and couldn't get back to sleep. Lydia was sleeping propped up in the living room or else I would have just gone out there to read. Instead I read things on my phone.
I was awake until Brandon needed a ride to work at 5:15. I finally fell back to sleep around 6:00. When my alarm went off to get up at 7:00 I felt so tired.
It was all I could do to get out of bed and go wake up Veronica. While I was trying to get her out of bed her bed looked so comfy I just climbed into it with her and talked to her about whether or not she was going to school. Somehow she talked me into saying she could stay home.
Then I went to check on Lydia. The nyquil had NOT worked. She still wasn't feeling well and her neck was even more swollen. Shoot.
I pulled out my phone and called the doctors office and groggily made an appointment for 2:00 that afternoon.
Charlotte had got out of bed. I told her I'd take her to school if she wanted me to, but I wasn't really feeling like taking her if she didn't want to go. She was like, "Then I'm going back to bed."
I was like, "Yeah, that's what we all should do. We'll talk about going to school later." So I went back to bed. I never even bothered to wake Derrick up.
After an hour more of sleep I was feeling more awake and more aware of how awful it would be to let most of those kids stay home all day.
I found the kids and told them "I'm not mad, but I'm serious. It's not fair that Dad and I will still have to go to work while you guys just hang out at home today. Get dressed, you are going to school." Within a few minutes of saying that Veronica was ready. I drove her over to the elementary school and dropped her off. Then I came home and picked up Derrick and Charlotte and dropped them off.
Lydia was allowed to stay home because she was genuinely sick.
Even though it had been a rough start to the day, the day actually was pretty good. And I was looking forward to that night because we were going out to Rupert to see the Play that Goes Wrong.
I went to Aspen Grove and got a lot done. Then I went to Castle Therapy and met with Ivan. After that I picked up Derrick and then Brandon. I dropped them off at home, grabbed a snack, and then took Lydia to the doctor.
I was fully prepared for the strep test to come back negative so I just kind of sat there in shock when it was positive. I was like, "YAY, I didn't keep her home from school for three days for no reason." But I was also thinking, "Of course it's strep. She ALWAYS has strep this time of year. You should have brought her in on Wednesday."
Anyway, I dropped Lydia off at home and grabbed the Jurassic Park book (I'd wished I had it while we were in the boring waiting room.) I went to the pharmacy and read the book while I was in line.
This paragraph about chaos theory was oddly comforting after my crazy day. "Chaos theory teaches us that straight linearity, which we have come to take for granted in everything from physics to fiction, simply does not exist. . . Real life isn't a series of interconnected events occurring one after another like beads on a necklace. Life is actually a series of encounters in which one event may change those that follow in a wholly unpredictable, even devastating way."
I was like, "Oh that's why my life seems like chaos so often. It's not a flaw. It's a feature."
I had to pick up two medicines for Veronica and those were already ready. So I got those. The pharmacy was still working on Lydia's prescription and said it would be about a 15 minute wait. So I wandered around the Valentine's Day aisle for a while and then went back to wait by the pharmacy. I kept reading. I was in no hurry to get home. I'd texted Brandon that it would be a while so he was taking care of making pizza for dinner.
Finally they called my name and I got Lydia's medicine. As I was driving home I realized it was almost time for Charlotte to get out of school so I went over to the middle school and met up with her so she could get a ride home. She told me she was glad she'd gone to school. She said, "I would have been so bored at home."
Brandon finished dinner and I just kind of sat at the table and caught my breath. All the kids were sitting together watching something on one of the chrome books. They are all really interested in Pixar easter eggs. Derrick calls it a Pixar Easter Egg Hunt. So they were watching Youtube videos that pointed out where easter eggs were in different movies. They've been watching these movies and Derrick will happily yell, "Mom I know where the Pizza Planet truck is in Light year!"
We had pizza and then realized that we still had about 40 minutes before we needed to leave for Rupert. So Brandon and I went to take a nap. At 6:00 the timer went off and it was time to get our shoes on.
We were all really excited for this night. Brandon and I had seen the Play that Goes wrong in Twin Falls back in like 2022. That was before he was involved in plays with the Orpheum. It was kind of our test to see what the local theatre was like. The play had been so funny and so well done.
We came home and told the kids all about it. Veronica was especially intrigued. She kept saying things like, "Why didn't you take me?" I was said it was because we didn't know what it was like. She told me that if the play was ever done nearby she had to take me next time.
I promised, but kind of thought we'd have to go to Ogden or Boise to see it again. So we actually ended up watching a student version on Youtube to assuage her curiosity. That helped, but she still wanted to see it in person. So I was super happy when I found out that the Wilson Theatre in Rupert was going to be doing the play.
I would have bought tickets as soon as they went on sale, but February weather can be unpredictable. I didn't want to buy tickets and then there be a big snow storm that prevented us from driving the 40 minutes to Rupert.
So I waited to buy them until about the week before when I could check the weather and see that there weren't any big storms predicted.
So thanks to that forethought the drive out to Rupert was pretty uneventful. We were all in good moods. Veronica's seat was kind of in a reclining position. She said she fell asleep for most of the drive.
We parked in the town square and then walked over to the theatre. It was so pretty all lit up.
This is the same place where the Harry Potter event was and where we'd come ice skating. We've definitely been to Rupert a lot lately.
We went in and found our seats. I always like to get seats in the very back up against the sound booth. That way we don't annoy anyone behind us. Here are Charlotte and Lydia. Lydia still wasn't feeling well so she'd all cuddled up against me.
And here's Veronica, Derrick and Brandon.
The play actually starts a little bit before it officially starts. You see the stage hands going around and finishing up the set. They pretend to paint, and sweep, and things like that. There's actually a whole bit with one of the stage hands pulling someone up from the audience to get them to help. It's really funny.
And then the play gets going. The whole idea is that it's a local community theatre group putting on "The Murder of Haversham Manor." But they have all sorts of mishaps. It is absolutely hilarious so watch everything go wrong.
Veronica and Derrick were howling with laughter from the very beginning. I was laughing pretty hard too.
I wondered if we'd recognize any of the actors from the Harry Potter event. When the play started I was pretty certain that the man playing the inspector was the same man who played Voldemort. He had the same body type and his voice seemed the same.
He's the not he only person I recognized. Before the play started a family sat down in front of us. There was a middle aged husband and wife and their son who looked like he was in his early 20s. I took one look at the son and realized I knew him. I was pretty certain that I recognized him from the Twin Falls edition of the Play that Goes Wrong. He'd played Cecil.
But then I talked myself out of it. I was just thinking that because I was seeing the Play that Goes Wrong.
But throughout the first act I watched his reactions to the play. Everyone around us was reacting to things with genuine shock and amusement. He and his parents just looked entertained. I guessed that was because they knew the play well. They knew exactly what bit was coming next because he'd been in it.
I was determined to somehow him if he'd been in the play when it was intermission. But I didn't know how to do that without blurting out - "Hey were you in this play in Twin Falls?"
Well at intermission the family in front of us turned around and the wife said, "We love hearing your kids laugh at this play. It's so fun!"
And I was like, "Yeah, my husband and I saw this in twin falls and the kids have wanted to see it ever since." And then the husband said, "Oh you saw the play in Twin Falls. We were all in it."
And I pointed at their son and was like, "I knew I recognized you!!!" then I was like, "What characters did you two play."
The dad had been the butler. And the mom had been backstage (like for real backstage not an actor pretending to be backstage.)
They said they'd seen this play in London when it first came out and they'd helped convince people to do it at the Orpheum. It was cool to talk to them about that. It was fun to talk to them.
And then intermission was over and it was time to start laughing again. The whole play ends in chaos with some actors fighting and the whole set falling apart. It was hilarious.
At the end Derrick said, "I want to tell everyone they did a good job." The actors all stood in front of the stage so Derrick made his way up there and went around to every actor and shook their hand and told them they did a good job. He'd say things like, "It was so funny when you fell." Or things like that. He made sure he went to every person. I love how he does that.
We drove home talking about all of our favorite moments.
My niece Hazel was getting baptized on Saturday and a part of me had toyed with the idea of driving to Utah after the play and staying overnight at Emily's so we could go the baptism on Saturday. But I'd never felt completely onboard with that idea.
And when Lydia got sick, and when Emily had also been not feeling well I was pretty happy that we didn't plan to go to Utah.
It was nice to just drive to our own houses and sleep in our own beds.
We ended up sleeping until 10:00 AM. Just because we could.
When we did get up we all worked together to do light cleaning. We've been cleaning together as a family on Saturday morning for YEARS so it's all pretty routine at this point. Derrick usually will help me make a list of everything we need to clean. I'll write it on a white board so we can erase things as we go. We have a chart with bathroom jobs that lists who cleans what on each Saturday. Derrick loves to go read off the chart for me. He'll say things like, "Okay, it's the first Saturday that means . . . " and then he'll read the assignments.
This week he was also SUPER excited to clean the stove. He's seen a lot of commercials for Dawn Powerwash and he has been begging me to buy it. So I finally bought it and he was excited. He was like, "Mom! I want to clean the stove."
Brandon had just made me an omelet so we had to wait for the stove to cool. When it was finally cool Derrick went to town on it. He was so excited. And I was impressed. The stuff did clean off all the grease and stuck on stains really well.
When Derrick was done with the stove he moved onto cleaning the inside of the microwave, the bathtub, and the outside of the garbage can.
Thanks Dawn Power Wash!
I'd given each of the kids a kitchen job. Lydia was in charge of the walls. I only really expected her to clean the wall behind the stove since that's what we were focusing on. But she did that wall and the backsplash all around the counter.
We pulled the stove away from the wall and Charlotte helped mop the floor under there. (After I swept up the layer of dust that was under there. We hadn't moved the stove in the 4 years we've lived here so it was GROSS.) I forgot to take a picture of her helping.
Veronica was in charge of helping fix the little door that cracked. She helped Brandon take it off the hinges and then helped him glue it and put it in a big clamp to dry. Here she is getting ready to put the door back on.
I spent the rest of the day wiping down the outside of the cabinets and then rubbing them down with liquid gold. I'd hoped to also do the insides of the cupboards. But I ran out of steam.
That evening we watched the old Star Trek movie with the Whales. I've wanted to watch that ever since Derrick got really interested in Whales. Most of the kids liked it. Charlotte liked all the humor from taking future people back in time. Derrick wasn't quite into the movie as much as I'd hoped. But by the end he was invested. He was so worried about the whales getting hunted by a whaling vessel at the end. He cheered when they were saved.
And that gets us to Sunday. We had a nice time at church. And that afternoon we went on another hiked.
I've wanted to hike from the Evil Knievel jumpsite to Shoshone Falls FOREVER. But we've never done it. I was determined that today was the day.
The first big hurdle was finding the parking lot by the jump site. Normally we hike there from a parking lot on Poleline and Eastland. But I knew there was a parking lot by the jumpsite. So we googled it and found the road to the parking lot.
But its a dirt road and so it was closed due to mud. So we still had to walk in a bit, but not as far as from the usual parking lot.
There were cows on the side of the road.
We made it to the jumpsite and all the kids climbed it.
They love doing this.
They tried sliding down, but quickly realized it was too muddy.
Here we are looking over the canyon.
We followed the trail that would take us down to Shoshone falls. But we took a little detour to the overlook first. The waterfall is really just a trickle right now. But it's still cool looking.
The trail down to the falls was paved. That's one reason I wanted to do this hike today. All the other trails would be too muddy.
Here's me with Veronica. She was NOT happy about this hike.
I assumed the trail went down to the Falls pretty quickly, after the first view point. But we were on the canyon rim for quite a while. Here's a look down from another view point.
And another.
Here's where the trail started to slant down for a bit.
The kids found this fun cave.
The falls again.
The trail really started to slant down. There were lots of bushes on either side and there was a little bit of water on one side.
There was this stretch of sidewalk for a tiny bit.
The falls again.
This part of the trail had water coming out of the rocks next to the trail.
It was so cool to see.
This is the final stretch of the trail. We'd actually been on this part back in 2018 when we first visited Twin Falls. At the time I saw that we could keep going on the trail and I always wanted to come back and do that. Now we finally had.
Here I am.
And here are the falls. We could have gone farther to the view point right by the falls. But this was good enough for me.
We were at this view point that was still high above them. It's probably the best view point.
Here are me and Brandon.
He's so good looking.
Derrick wanted to go all the way to the close up spot by the falls. I wasn't interested in that because it requires kind of a steep climb in Shoshone Falls Park. So I started back with the girls and Brandon took Derrick down to the close up spot.
I'd worried about how to get Veronica back up the inclines. She'd HATED the hike down so I wasn't looked forward to the hike back with her. But it turned out to be fine. She discovered burrs and happily collected those on her way back up the trail. Here she is with her collection.
I'm a slow hiker so everyone was ahead of me when Brandon and Derrick caught up to me. We kept hiking and found the girls hiding in a little cave. We might have walked right past them if it hadn't been for Veronica's bright red hoodie.
Derrick ran over and I got a picture of all four kids.
Here we are back on the top of the trail. You can see the jump site in the distance.
And here's that dirt road that led to back to that car. We were all pretty exhausted by this point. But we made it.
The whole hike took over two hours. But it had been really nice. I'd worn my brace, and my feet had done okay, but they were still pretty shot by the time we got home. Anytime the kids needed something from the basement I told them that someone with working ankles had to go down. I ended up wearing my brace for like the next two days to make sure that my feet were okay.
But it had been totally worth it to finally do that hike.
Anyway, that's the end of this post.
