Western Idaho FAIR

Last week, our family went to the Western Idaho State Fair. Growing up in the area, this was the fair I went to in my childhood. It was always exciting and fun and I always looked forward to it, even though it meant that school was just around the corner. Unlike my childhood, the first thing our agenda was riding some carnival rides. I think it would be hard for Jason to go to a fair, with rides, and NOT ride them. He's a big kid. :o)

First ride of the day.

The Wacky Worm was Abree's first ride of the day. It was kind of like a very mild little roller coaster. The first 2 times around I couldn't tell if she was having fun. The last few times around she was finally smiling.
I think Abree had fun "driving", but Treyson was kind of bored being the passenger.
Taylee is our adreniline (sp?) junky. She loves big rides that "scare" her. She chose to go on the "Crazy Train" by herself.
Rylee loved this ride, but Treyson wasn't too sure. When the ride started going backwards, he finally looked like he was having fun.
As we were checking out the animals, this little girl walked by with her sheep. She let us pet it. My kids loved feeling how soft and wooly it was.

Abree bravely going on the ride all by herself.
The last scary ride of the day. It went around and around and upside-down. Taylee considered bailing, but went and was totally thrilled she did. She LOVED it and is already making plans on going on it next year.
These are the African Acrobats. The kids and Jason watched several shows while I had to duck out for 2 hours to go to my old book group to discuss "Breaking Dawn". They also watched the monster truck 4x4's . When I returned we had treats and went to the hypnotist.

We stayed ALL day. It was a long, but very fun day.

FREE Lunch!

This summer we were consistant participants in the FREE lunch in the park. We went almost every day. It was so nice not to have to think about lunch, make lunch and then clean-up lunch every day. Also it forced me to get the kids out of the house and sometimes even play in the park for a while. After lunch was done being served they did a craft time. My kids LOVED this. They made macaroni necklaces/bracelets, little guitars, colored pictures, face painted, etc. Taylee especially lived for this. She loved creating something new each day. Yummy...chicken sandwiches.
It was Jason's "early day", so he got off work and was able to come with us.

The food was provided by the Idaho Food Bank. It wasn't top notch, but was edible. :o)

Take me out to the ball game...

The kids earned Boise Hawks baseball tickets for summer reading (another family outing sponsered by the library, yea!). Although the Hawks lost, we still had lots of fun. Highlight: funny costumes worn by a Hawks stadium employee to rally the crowd; including darth vader, dredlocks dude, and police officer. He would also hold up different signs for the crowd to yell, when the team made a nice play. He was funny. (I forgot to get a picture of him though.)

Are we having fun yet?

Humphery the Hawk came to our section and gave us all high-5's, knuckle bumps and handshakes. Abree was so excited to see him... until he got too close. She did eventually wave and say hi to him, but didn't really want to hug him like Treyson and Taylee.

Tea for Two

Last week, Jason decided he wanted to do different things with each of our kids... kind of like a daddy date. Rylee and Taylee chose to watch a movie past their bedtime (one that Treyson and Abree are too young for). Treyson chose to play Lego StarWars with dad, past his bed time. And Abree decided she wanted to dress up and have a tea party with dad. She got to help pick out both outfits and make the lemonade and chocolate chip cookies for the special event. Her turn came later in the week and she could barely stand waiting. She asked me every morning if it was her turn for the tea party. Finally the day came and she had SO much fun. Jason even brought home flowers for her. It was so cute! Thanks for being a great daddy Jason!

ZOOM, ZOOM!

As one of Treyson's birthday gifts, we told him we would take him on a mommy-daddy date to the Meridian Speedway. He was WAY excited to go and was full of questions, as usual. Many of the questions had to do with the cars crashing into the stands. As with the rodeo bull riding, he was concerned about the safety of this adventure.

We're ready for some fast racing action!

Here's Brandon the flag guy.

We learned what each flag color represented; yellow=get ready to start, green= GO!, white=one more lap until the finish, and checkered=finish. The longest race of the evening was 75 laps. Pretty cool to watch.

Jason caught an insulated can holder they were tossing into the crowd. Treyson was a little bummed it wasn't a bear or t-shirt, but was mostly just happy he got some sort of souvenir.

I think these cars were called wind-sprints. They had to get a push to get started, but once going they were LOUD! Each time they raced we would put in our ear plugs so we could stand watching them.

The night we were there, there were a lot of crashes and pile-ups, (I guess more than usual). You probably can't tell by the picture, but there was a big crash right in front of us, that had atleast 6 cars piled up on top of each other. Each time there was a crash, a team of officials would come inspect the situation and then methodically disassemble the pile of cars with a tow truck and man power. One crash that evening resulted in a racer going to the hospital in the ambulance on site. I believe he was released the next day.

After the race, we went "behind the scenes". We met a few race car drivers, got some autographs and saw the cars up close. One racer knew Jason well from the carwash. His grandson raced that evening. He let Treyson sit in his car.

Happy 7th Birthday Treyson!

Treyson's birthday is on Pioneer Day. This year he decided that he wanted to dress up like a pioneer and have a pioneer birthday cake. Here's our clan dressed up like pioneers or as close as we could get with our dress-up.

We invited family over for present opening and cake and ice cream.

Sweet Katelyn

Cool Kyrick

Jackson and Micaela

Little Lizzy

Look what I got!

For Treyson's pioneer cake I went to The Friend magazine on-line and printed off these 2 cut outs; a handcart with family and oxen with a covered wagon. They may look simple, but they took patience and quite a bit of time cutting, folding and gluing.

Some of his favorite gifts were: Webkinz and a gift certificate for a date with mom and dad to Meridian Speedway.

Happy Birthday Treyson! We love you!

Hee-haw!

This summer, our kids have been taking part in the Ada County Library summer reading program. As the kids read each day they mark their charts and then turn the completed charts in for prizes. One of the prizes they earned was a night at the Idaho Stampede Rodeo. We had never been to a rodeo as a family before, so we were all looking forward to it. Treyson had concerns about the bull riding; "Do the bulls come up into the stands?" We explained and re-explained over and over that no, the bulls stay in the arena, inside of the gates. The bull riding was the very last event of the rodeo, so we had a long night of explaining to do.

I think I had only been to one other rodeo before, when I was very young. I was surprised at how entertaining it was...never a dull moment. They had different acts in between the rodeo events. Some of our favorites were "The One-armed Bandit", the silly doctor clown and the "Stampede Riders".

The One-armed Bandit was a man who literally only had one arm. He cracked a bull whip in his one hand and guided his horse using his legs. He rode his horse to the top of his trailer and tamed 2 "wild buffalo" with his whip.

The Stampede Riders were a group of women on horses, who had lights all over themselves and their horses. They turned down the arena lights as we watched them ride all over the arena in different patterns. They were cool to watch.