Mesa Falls & Open Houses

One Saturday in the end of April I was really bored and wanted to go exploring. I'd heard that Mesa Falls was really pretty. It was about 1.25 hours away from our house though, and nobody else wanted to go. I finally pulled up a photo on my phone and showed it to Skyler because I knew he'd get on board. I also knew that once he was on board Ally would jump on, which means Kylee would as well because she hates to be left out. What I neglected to consider was that at the end of April there is apparently still a TON of snow up in the mountains. When we got to the turn off for Mesa Falls the road was closed because there was still way too much snow. But there were a few cars parked along the side of the highway and we saw an older couple just arriving back at their car who told us it was only a 1 mile walk down to the Falls on the snowy road, so we figured WHY NOT!? We were already there. Gotta do it.

The snow was a little slippery in some spots but it was mostly packed solid so our feet didn't sink. The sky was blue and the weather was perfect.

There were some parts of the road where the snow was almost completely melted.

When we got to the Falls it was even better than we imagined! The water was running really high because of Spring melting, and there was a really pretty rainbow at the base of the Falls.

The boardwalk going down to the Falls and back still had some snow on it, and the kids thought it was so fun.

The snow in the parking lot was still really deep. Skyler and Ally found this arrow that was pointing the way to the trail, but it was still buried!

When we got back to the car we had a picnic on the road before driving back home. Despite their initial complaining, they all admitted that they were glad we went because it was really fun.

I found Ally a dress online that matches with mine and Kylee's, so we all wore them on Sunday and took a photo. Skyler wore his matching shirt as well. Colby doesn't have anything that matches, but he's just too cute anyway!

In the beginning of May we put our house up for sale, and one morning they wanted to have an Open House. I took the kids to Walmart for donuts for breakfast, which they thought was super exciting. Another day we went to the park during another Open House. The Idaho Falls parks were all still closed, but the Ammon ones had finally opened. Yay for open parks!

Easter/Birthdays

On Easter Sunday we'd been out of church for almost a month already, which is crazy! I can't believe we haven't actually been to church in so long. Anyway, we are enjoying home church, but can't wait to go back to regular church! I wanted to get a photo of our family outside in the sunshine, but it was so bright everyone was looking weird, so I finally just moved them in and took one in the basement.

The Easter Bunny came and left some fun things!

For our Primary lesson we cut pictures of Jesus and temples and words from our old Friend and Ensign magazines and made these posters to hang up in our rooms. I love how each person's turned out.

Andy made cinnamon rolls that were delicious!

I had forgotten that people usually have something special to eat for Easter dinner (and I still hadn't left my house in a month), so at the last minute we dug through our pantry to see what we could come up with. We ended up with honey pineapple chicken, jello, funeral potatoes, and corn. I thought it was a great Easter dinner!

In mid-April Andy and I got older. Kylee made us a cake and put 3 blue candles and 8 pink ones. Somehow whomever took this photo (maybe Skyler?) didn't manage to get anything but my elbow in it, but I guess that just means I get to stay 37 another year. If there's no photo evidence it didn't happen, right?

Andy started going crazy in quarantine and decided he was a fancy chef. He made dinner one night and even put little decorative garnishes on it. Then he turned music on his blue tooth speaker, and we all ate dinner by candlelight.

Colby and his friend made this masterpiece on the driveway one day. The spent more than an hour coloring with each piece of chalk until it was gone, and then moving on to the next piece of chalk. Crazy boys!

When I finally mostly recovered from pneumonia I decided to venture out to the store. Our RS Pres made everyone these masks to wear. Mine is reversible, so I can pick which side to wear facing out.

One Sunday after home church we drove down to the lava fields by Blackfoot. The two walks are short (less than a mile each), but it's fun to see the different things growing on the lava. The kids thought it was awesome that this entire area was created by lava flows eons ago.

Colby was running down a hill and suddenly yelled "whoa!" and jumped. He had almost stepped on this snake! Yikes!

One day for art class we made these milk jug elephants. They turned out pretty cute!

Random March/April

I just realized I've been a HUGE slacker and haven't updated for more than 3 months! Whoops! So here comes an overload.

This crazy kid decided a few months ago that he doesn't need naps anymore, but then in March(ish) he started falling asleep in random places almost every afternoon.

One day Ally played dress up with Colby. He had so much fun!!

We never would have guessed that Ally's birthday would be the last day of school for the year. They announced that day that school was going to be shut down for the rest of that week and then with Spring Break being the following week, the hope was that we'd go back to school after that. Nope. I also finally visited the doctor around that time because I'd been sick for a month. He concluded I had pneumonia and started me on a treatment plan. We never did go back to school and I ended up being stuck at home for the whole next month trying to kick the pneumonia (which I'm still not fully recovered from 3 months later. Gag.). Anyway, since everything was shut down and I decided it was as good a time as any to potty train Colby. He was past 3 and I'd been thinking about it for a few months, and we were running out of diapers, so it was great timing. He actually caught on super fast and has done great!

I felt like most of the at home schoolwork was a total waste of time because it was WAY too easy and not at all teaching them anything new...but...we did it!

Since I wasn't supposed to be going out anywhere I started going totally stir crazy. Andy decided to take us out on some family drives just to get me out of the house. The kids didn't think it was the most exciting thing in the world.

But one day when we were up in the mountains trying to follow a dirt road that suddenly got too icy/snowy for us to continue on, we saw Big Foot! Yep. He's real. He walked right across the road in front of our car. We had actually been trying to get to a place called 40 Horse Cave that I found on a dirt road on Google Maps. We were about 4 miles away when we hit this snowy/icy part, so we had to turn back.

The following weekend we tried to get to 40 Horse Cave via a different route. It looked more promising (less mountains), but sadly we got about 1.5 miles away and the road was still closed for the winter. We ended up going on a little hike that was just off the side of the road, and the kids had fun exploring.

One night we found these crazy kids sleeping together. It was so cute!

Every day when the bigger kids were working on their homework, Colby wanted to do "homework" too, so I made up assignments for him. One day I put numbers in the bottom of a muffin tin and he had to count the right number of beads. Another day I drew shapes in a pattern and he had to glue little papers on. Sometimes he traced his name, sometimes he glued stuff...just whatever random thing I could think of that day.

On April Fools Day Kylee used a marker to draw on plastic wrap and then put it on Andy's laptop screen. It looked super fake in real life, but since he was at work we took this picture and texted it to him. I said "Those dang kids stomped your laptop!" He was soooooooooo mad. Then Kylee told him April Fools! We got him good.

The kids built a huge fort in the basement and slept in it for about a week.

One day it got up to almost 50 degrees and the kids thought it was summer, so they broke out the popsicles.

After almost of month of social distancing the kids were missing their friends so much! Andy drew circles on the driveway so they could stand 6 feet apart and talk to each other. Shortly after this we gave up on social distancing with the neighbors. The kids NEEDED to play, and these kids' dad is our bishop/doctor and he wasn't at all concerned about them all playing together, so they got to enjoy their last couple of months in Idaho playing with the friends all day every day.