Birthday Retreat

As many of you know, Nels likes to celebrate the whole month of October for his birthday.  :)  I try to accommodate him.  This year we went to Idaho and my mom, of course, spoiled him.  We left the kids with their wonderful grandparents and Nels and I went on a little retreat.  It was positively wonderful.  

My mom made him triple chocolate torte for his cake.  Mmmmm.  We just put 3 candles on so it wouldn't melt with the correct amount of 39.  heehee.

The kids were very interested in the candles and blowing them out.  They each got a few turns.

It was so cute to watch Isak and Kira blowing out candles.

The next day, Nels and I hit the road.  We drove to West Yellowstone first.

It was hard for Nels to contain his excitement.  haha.

Geysers...

Nels has never seen Old Faithful.  So I thought it was about time he did!

We got there just in time to see Old Faithful explode.

There it goes.  So...I remembered it being a lot bigger than it was.  So I kept telling Nels to "wait, it gets bigger."  But then it didn't.  :(  I suppose when you are little everything is big.  I was a bit disappointed.  But Nels thought it was still cool.

But just in case the geyser did get bigger I made us stay and wait.  We took goofy pictures while we waited.

After the crowd left and we waited another five minutes, just in case, then we left.

I was about 9 or 10 weeks pregnant at the time and nausea was in full swing.  Gratefully, my mom let me borrow her sea bands...accupressure wrist bands...that totally relieved my nausea and helped with car sicknesses too.  I kept them on almost the whole time!  The roads were pretty windy.  I would not have been very much fun without those sea bands.

The scenery was gorgeous and I made Nels stop several times as we traveled from West Yellowstone to Jackson.

I guess I should warn you, lots of selfies!

Nels pointing west to the Teton Mountains.

After our scenic drive we arrived in Jackson just in time for dinner.  And boy, was I starving!  We went to a steakhouse called The Gun and Barrel.  I ordered the filet mignon.  Mmmmmm.

I think Nels ordered the Ribeye.

Then we went to the grocery store and bought some Ben and Jerry's ice cream.   It was a fun, beautiful day.

Pumpkin Patch

In October we ventured out to a Pumpkin Patch in Springville.  It was such a fun day.  The weather was perfect and the kids were really good...for the most part.  :)

I tried to get some good pictures, but it is so funny with toddlers.  At least with mine, they have a hard time looking at the camera and smiling at the same time.  So here's the best ones.

Neither are looking at me, but I love how Kira has her hands on her knees.

Isak really wanted to hold a pumpkin.

At least they are both smiling in this one.  :)

And finally I got these two great ones of Isak!

There was this huge pit of corn kernels for us to sit and play in.  I asked someone to take our pictures.

Kira took forever to get used to the kernels and just sat on my lap for a long time.  Eventually she did play with the kernels.

Isak enjoyed it right away.  :)

Isn't he a handsome fellow!

And Kira likes to hide from the camera.

There she is!

They had a tunnel slide.  But it was difficult helping two kids by myself when they are sort of scared. So we moved on...There was a huge hay tower to climb.  Isak wanted to do it and Kira didn't...So I quickly helped Isak climb to the top.

While poor Kira cried at the bottom.

Me and Isak at the top of the tower.

We also rode on a trailer behind a tractor.  Isak was pretty excited!

The tractor pulled us around the corn field.

Kira's favorite part was seeing real horses!  Look at her running to the horses!

She loved watching them eat grass.

I am glad they had something that each of my kids totally loved.

They also had other animals to see, including a baby kangaroo!

We ended our fun adventure with lunch at Wendy's.

We will definitely have to go again next year!

Lunch and a Museum

A fun part about living in Utah is the opportunity to meet up with family more than once a year!  One day my sister Melissa came and spent some time with us.  We tried a new restaurant on Center Street called Enlighten Cafe.  It was a cool, artsy place and the food was yummy too.  

We shared some sweet potato fries and I got a salad.

This is the ceiling. It's all decorated for halloween.

Me and Melissa.

Isak even tried the sweet potato fries, although I think he liked the sauce more.

And Kira was my little diva.  She loves her sunglasses.

After lunch we went to the museum of Paleontology at BYU.  Isak willingly stood by Melissa, but....

Kira was too busy singing "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" on the water hole.

The kids enjoyed looking at all of the dinosaur bones.

This one is blurry, but I still like it.  They thought this one was fascinating.

Ah!  Melissa even got her head munched on too.  haha.

After the museum, we went to the BYU bookstore and bought chocolate covered cinnamon bears.  Then we walked all over campus until we found a little bench across from a stream.  Melissa and I ate our chocolate cinnamon bears and talked while the kids threw rocks into the stream.  The colored leaves were falling down in the gentle breeze.  It was the perfect fall day.