Volcanoes and Chocolate

May 17 was National Idaho Day. We had a baked potato bar.

May 18 was Mount St. Helens Day. I took the leftover baked potatoes and made them into mashed potatoes for mashed potato volcanoes. 

Jet had a lot of fun helping put together our volcanoes with dino nuggets and green foliage (broccoli trees and green pepper bushes) and "those poor people" raisins. I put mine on the mountain. He put his in the crater. We had fun with the gravy lava, too. 

I also told Jet to say, "This means something," referencing Close Encounters of the Third Kind. 

 

May 19 was the Anniversary of the Rubik's Cube. Lucky got points to spend in his classroom store. He saved them up to get a bunch of things at the end of the school year, including rubber duckies and a Rubik's Cube. 

May 20 was Eliza Doolittle Day. I ate too much chocolate. The kids didn't eat a much. The song says, "Lots of chocolate for me to eat." Me, not us. 

Nichole drew chocolate for the holiday.

Jeremy was very impressed with how she was able to do the foil.

 

Everybody did have some chocolate later on in the day. Jr. was asleep but Jet didn't want him to be left out so he kept putting round pieces of wrapped chocolate on his ear but they rolled off so finally a wrapped chocolate coin was put on his head and stayed there for a while. I don't know if Jet did it or someone else, but the next day, Jet made sure Jr. got that piece of candy to eat. 

Nature's Cool, Man

 

While we were in Idaho visiting relatives, Jeremy spotted a lone cloud standing (floating?) out in front of the gray clouds in the background. I got a quick picture with my phone then started singing, "I'm Just a Little Black Raincloud," from Winnie-the-Pooh. It wasn't a little black rain cloud, but it seemed to fit because it was all alone, hovering under the other clouds. 

More Balloon Building

We sent Jeremy off to another fair over Labor Day Weekend, this one was in Twin Falls, Idaho. I love my husband and miss him when he is gone but love to see where his creative talents take him.

This time he built bugs... again. Bugs have been a popular theme lately. I love it. 

Our Vacation, Thy Creations, and Our Relations- Part 13

Road Trip!

Goodbye, Grandma and Grandpa. Goodbye, evergreen filled mountains. Goodbye, Washington.

Welcome to Oregon.

Welcome to Idaho.

Hello, Snake River.

Welcome to Utah.

We made it to our final destination- home. Hooray! Sigh.

Traveling all day kept us from celebrating Embrace Your Geekness Day on July 13 (though we did listen to video game music on the drive) so we celebrated it the next day "observed." We like to call it Embrace Your Geek Day. I even wore my Mario shirt.

I have no more of our wonderful vacation to share. It really was wonderful, though. We got to enjoy the vacation, God's creations, and spent some good quality time with our relations. I'm so glad Jeremy got a real vacation instead of just a few days off. It was awesome!

Our Vacation, Thy Creations, and Our Relations- Part 1

Let me tell you about the best vacation I've had in a long time. I love Jeremy's suggestion for the title of the post.

First off, let me mention that the last couple times the kids and I went to Oregon (last year then 5 years before that), Jeremy was not able to go with us so it had been 8 years since he had been in Oregon. Both times without him we kept things kind of chill and didn't do a lot except of course to go to Shore Acres last year and on a near to where my parents live nature trail both times. Tradition.

When we went to Washington both times Jeremy flew in then drove back with us, last year only getting a few days there.

This year, Jeremy took enough work off that he had a real vacation. And it was wonderful. 

The day before we left as we were packing our car top carrier, it started sprinkling. We had to get our tarp out of the trunk to cover it up "just in case." It's a good thing we did because it started pouring down. Heh heh. Jet and I got soaked then I had to wash our clothes because we were wearing some of what we were going to wear on the trip. Heh Heh. Jet was very happy to play in the rain and I figured he deserved to. The rain felt really good, cooling things down after it had been hot for a while.

The next morning we packed our wet tarp back in the trunk along with the rest of our trip stuff and headed out in the rain.

Road Trip!

Waving at my sister as we passed by on the freeway.

Welcome to Idaho.

Waving at my mom's hometown.

Waving at our friends' home as we passed by on the freeway.

We weren't quick enough to get a picture of the "Welcome to Oregon" sign as we crossed the Snake River so I got creative.

Apparently the doll head made the trip with us and kept popping up in different places.

We made sure to celebrate on the drive. National Sunglasses Day and National Handshake Day were both on June 27.

We finally reached our final destination at my parents' house in Oregon.

I'll share more of our wonderful vacation later.

Pacific Northwest Trip- part 4

Traveling to the Pacific Northwest was a well needed trip. I used to do a lot more traveling but haven't done as much since Jet was born. 2020 also changed a lot of things. The only overnight trips I've done since 2019 have been this year.

July 30 was National Father-in-Law Day. We said goodbye to my father-in-law then drove two vehicles back to Idaho with a "quick" stop to visit our friends again then back to Utah. (It wasn't that quick. Sigh) We were going to have kids switch vehicles from time to time during the trip (people want to try out the new car), but we ended up just sticking to the vehicles we started in. We had an audiobook we were listening to in the van so had reason to stay where we were. Well, I would have stayed there anyway since I was driving. 

Since we couldn't switch off drivers we did have to stop from time to time. We got home somewhat late that night. 

 

Now here's where testimony that Heavenly Father is aware and does care comes in. Jeremy had already taken off extra days of work to spend time in Washington. He had to get up early and go to work the next morning. He needed to save vacation days, etc. for later in the year when he had fair conventions and for big balloon builds. But he was exhausted. It was a long drive from Washington to Utah, including getting up early and getting home late.

The next morning as he was about to get up he got a notification on his phone that there was a voluntary time off availability. Voluntary time off doesn't eat up into vacation, etc. days. There hadn't been VTO offered in months. And he was able to get it on the day that he really needed it. He needed a day to sleep and recuperate. Now I know that was a blessing from Heavenly Father right there. He is aware and he does care.

Pacific Northwest Trip- part 1

July 16 was Ginger Rogers' Birthday. I wore my bow earrings to celebrate at church where I gave a talk and cried a lot because I was running on little sleep trying to get ready for a trip and getting up early every day to support Jeremy and get him to work early. Jet kept me up late the night before which fact I was able to use in my talk. It's life, real life. And it's okay to come to church with how things are in real life. It's right to be there.

After church, we finished packing and the kids and I drove to Idaho to visit our friends. They were so sweet to feed us and let us stay overnight, even though we got there much later than we wanted to. Part of that was we had an issue with our van on the way so it set us back a while. Traveling on the hottest day of the year. Sigh.

I love our friends. The next day, July 17, was Global Hug Your Kids Day so I tried to get pictures of me hugging my kids before we headed out and at most stops. Some of the pictures didn't turn out so well but I got enough pictures it's fine if I don't put every single one on here.

It was also Yellow Pigs Day so I specifically requested Nichole wear her Cook's Racing Pigs hat she won way back on Yellow Pigs Day in 2014.

Since it was also Ocean Day in Japan, we joked that we were headed toward the Pacific Ocean, as we were headed to Oregon.

My parents met us partway there and my dad took most of the boys while my mom rode with Nichole, Jet, and me. That last leg of the trip went so fast because my mom and I were chatting so much. I also made sure to get pictures of my parents hugging their kid- me. My mom tried to get pictures of her hugging her grandkids as well. Lucky escaped too many times, though, so we had to be sneaky and several days later, we got a picture of her hugging him.

It's been 5 years. It was high time I went back home for a visit. It was also Jet's first time in Oregon.